Review: Marvel’s What If…? “What If… the Hulk Fought the Mech Avengers?”

OVERVIEW (SPOILERS)

In a timeline where Sam Wilson tried to befriend Bruce Banner, Bruce’s attempts to separate himself from the Hulk lead to an army of gamma monsters that can only be stopped by a new team of mech piloting Avengers led by Sam.

OUR TAKE

What If returns for one last go around the multiverse with eight more episodes released daily to close out the year! The Marvel Cinematic Universe has had a bit of a quiet year for 2024 due to the writer and actor strikes delaying so much, with only a handful of TV releases and one movie, Deadpool & Wolverine, before they hit the ground running next year to close out Phase Five and begin Phase Six! Though while these big releases have gotten pretty daunting in recent years, there’s still the fun of these low stakes self contained alternative universe stories to give us a little bit more fun before the year is out. And to kick off their final foray, What If decided to play towards that old axiom of wisdom: we love giant robots. Yeah, it’s an episode all about Marvel characters flying around in humongous mech suits and fighting giant monsters, so naturally those monsters are going to be the result of Bruce Banner trying to do the right thing but failing horribly, as is the case with every Marvel mad scientist who thinks they just have the best idea for saving the world. And what could possibly go wrong with that!

Now, I’ve seen a lot of mixed opinions about What If since it came out a few years ago, which is to be expected since an anthology show is inherently going to be a mixed bag. But when doing a rewatch of the past two seasons to get ready for this one, I was reminded of how much I enjoyed many of those episodes, notably those that paired up characters who would normally never have a chance to interact but shared a similarity most would never consider, like Tony Stark and Valkyrie, young Hope Van Dyne and Peter Quill, or Hela and Xu Wenwu. Putting Sam Wilson and Bruce Banner together and that leading a giant mech war is a…fun choice, even if it’s not the most compelling of a story, but this is also something that could only really be done in What If, so I’m fine with them going nuts when they want to. Plus it’s the first time characters like Moon Knight, Shang Chi, and Nakia from Black Panther have been given ANY screen time or have any planned, so I’ll take that as a win. And it sounds like this season is going to keep going to weird places, as the next episode apparently focuses on Agatha, who just finished dying in her own show, going to Hollywood. But as I’ve learned, the episode title can often be a cover for something even stranger. I guess we’ll just have to wait and see as we enter What If for, at least for now, the final time.