‘Marvel’s What If…?’ Season 3, Episode 3 Feels Like A ‘Thunderbolts’ Trailer

If I have a persistent criticism of What If…? it’s that it rarely feels “what if” enough. The limitless possibilities of a speculative anthology should make this kind of thing really easy, especially with the menagerie of beloved heroes and villains that Marvel has to play with. Episode 1 and Episode 2 of Season 3 have both been fairly decent at this, but Episode 3, “What If… The Red Guardian Stopped the Winter Soldier?”, irks me a little. Perhaps it’s naïve of me to expect something like Superman: Red Son in every episode, an idea that completely inverts the most sacred values of a too-familiar character, but I always find the idea of deviations from minor moments in the established continuity to be a bit less fulfilling.

In case it wasn’t obvious, this is what the third episode is based around. Imagine if, instead of killing Howard and Maria Stark in 1991, the Winter Soldier teamed up with Red Guardian to become fugitives from local law enforcement and S.H.I.E.L.D.? It’s a fair enough idea that just feels a little too close to these characters as they’ve already been established. And the regularity with which certain characters are popping up right on the eve of, say, Thunderbolts, kind of exposes Season 3 of What If…? as a marketing exercise more than a legitimate attempt at truly expanding Marvel storytelling.

I do like Red Guardian, though. The hook here is that he’s dissatisfied with his upcoming assignment from Dreykov and instead goes rogue, teaming up with Winter Soldier after hearing about his mission to assassinate the Starks from a Russian spy codenamed Rook. Red Guardian’s all about Russian superiority but he is, as we know, an idiot, and this episode is largely a reiteration of that.

Red Guardian’s surprised to receive no help from Dreykov and the Red Room. He naively assumes that Rook will help them escape the U.S. and believes that he’s bonding with Bucky right around the time that Bucky is being ordered to kill him because he’s more trouble than he’s worth. He doesn’t though, obviously, since he’s still a good guy in the current continuity and there’s just no way that Marvel would be willing to veer too far off course, which is the root of some of my issues with this show in the first place.

In a surprising deep cut back to Phase 1, Rook turns out to be Iron Man villain Obadiah Stane, which is probably the most fun flourish of What If…? Season 3, Episode 3. The obvious involvement of Goliath and co. it’s a bit too “next time on…” sales pitch for me. Thunderbolts will probably do pretty well regardless and I don’t think this particular show will really move the needle one way or the other.

As ever, though, I continue to enjoy the animation and action. Red Guardian is fun to be around, even if Bucky feels hemmed in by his established portrayal, and this era of his character, where he’s still brainwashed by Hydra, is a little tedious. The least interesting part of Bucky’s arc was when he was a mindless assassin, so returning to that doesn’t exactly feel like a throwback to the halcyon days of MCU past.

The most enjoyable speculative aspect here is Stane’s involvement since if the timelines diverge at the point at which Bucky fails to kill the Starks, that would mean Stane being responsible for their assassination would technically be canon. I highly doubt that Marvel would commit to this and we’re probably expected to take the entire episode as non-canon, but this is precisely the problem you get when you hew too close to the established continuity.

I hate being right. Trouble is, I usually am.