Review: Marvel What If…? “What If… Nebula Joined the Nova Corps?”

OVERVIEW (SPOILERS)

Nebula, former daughter of Thanos, was left to drift after Ronan the Accuser was somehow able to kill the Mad Titan. She is then taken in by Nova Prime of the Nova Corps and defends the planet of Xandar, which is now sealed in a planet sized shield to protect itself from Ronan. Nebula finds the body of Yondu, the ravager, in an alley and starts investigating his death. With the help of Howard the Duck, Korg, Meek, and Groot, she is able to uncover a conspiracy by Nova Prime to reopen the shield and surrender the planet to Ronan, and after surviving an attempt to silence her, she rewrites the code of the shield to open just enough to let Ronan’s ship in, then reclose it as the ship enters. Adorned in Yondu’s head finn, Nebula works with others to continue to defend Xandar.

OUR TAKE

Marvel’s What If returns for a second batch of multiversal adventures (interesting how the two Disney+ MCU shows that got multiple seasons are ones set outside the main universe), this time forgoing the weekly episode and instead releasing one episode a day until the end of the year. Are they giving us a big holiday surprise or are they trying to dump the rest of the completed episodes as soon as possible? I’m gonna assume the former since, even with the big overhauls in production that will be happening to MCU projects in the coming year, I quite enjoyed the first season of What If, so I hope it will get at least one more season. It played around with a lot of interesting swerves and zigzags that could’ve taken place in the main MCU timeline, like what if most of the Avengers were killed before the first Avengers movie, or what if Peggy Carter got the super soldier serum instead of Steve, or my favorite of last season about if Killmonger saved Tony from being kidnapped in the first Iron Man movie, effectively keeping him from becoming Iron Man. Aside from the fun one-offs like Thor at a party or the Zombie episode, it made me want to see more of where those timelines went, which I think was the goal even if they probably never planned to do more with them.

This season starts with another scenario taking place in the Cosmic area of the MCU, much like last season’s episode about T’Challa becoming Star Lord instead of Peter Quill (who is the subject of today’s episode as it turns out). In this case, the focus is Nebula, a villain turned ally of the Guardians of the Galaxy who only really had clearly defined relationships with some characters from that group and Thanos. I bring this up because a lot of this episode shows Nebula interacting with characters who she previously had little to no history with like Yondu, Nova Prime, Yon-Rogg from Captain Marvel, and so on. But that’s what can be fun about What-If/Multiverse stories; throwing characters into stories and scenarios they normally never would be in and seeing how they interact with other characters and problems they wouldn’t get to. Here, Nebula, the loyal and battered minion of Thanos, becomes an officer of the law and even the hero of an entire planet, while also teaming up with funny gag characters who would also happen to be there, but it’s also believable that she could have teamed up with people like Yondu at some point. Overall, while this isn’t exactly a scenario that I would’ve thought to ask for, it still makes for a pretty fun idea to expand on. Let’s see if the other eight episodes do the same!