SPOILERS AHEAD! STOP READING IF YOU HAVEN'T WATCHED THE SIXTH EPISODE!
What If...? Episode 6 shatters alternate universe in its early days, where Killmonger rescues Tony Stark from the attack of Ten Rings. As a result, the whole story-line of Tony Stark as Iron-Man gets erased in this universe, changing his fate drastically from being the savior of the universe.
The Story-view
The story of our universe starts off from the first Iron-Man movie, where Tony is captured by the organization Ten Rings. But in this alternate universe, it branches off from the mainline as Killmonger comes to save Tony from this incident. Here, Killmonger still serves as a US Navy SEAL who saves Tony from Ten Rings which alters Tony's fate to become the Iron-Man. In the press conference, Tony appoints Erik Stevens aka Killmonger his new Chief Security Officer. This time, Obadiah gets caught red-handed as Killmonger reveals all his assassination plans of Tony with evidences. For this, Tony promotes him, making him the COO of Stark Industries. Pepper already starts doubting Erik's motives but Tony keeps helping him and also starts working on project Liberator.
Erik Killmonger gives his Vibranium ring to make the project successful. But as they need for of it, Tony with the help of Rhodey, reaches to an agreement with Ulysses Klaue. Rhodey and other officers goes to take the Vibranium but they face T'Challa Black Panther who wants the Vibranium to return to its original place. Meanwhile, Killmonger comes with a Sonic Taser, betrays Rhodey and kills him off alongside T'Challa.
Killmonger tries to put the crime on others, but Tony realizes the truth with the help of J.A.R.V.I.S. So, in order to get revenge Tony shuts off the building and brings out his Liberator drone to kill him, but Killmonger destroys the drone with the Vibranium spear of Dora Milaje and kills Tony too. Due to his death, General Ross seizes control of Stark Industries weapons and creates an army of Liberators. By General's order, Killmonger takes the army of Liberators to Wakanda and hatches a plan to fool Wakandans. He enters Wakanda with dead body of Klaue and introduces himself as a Wakandan. He tells them that the Americans are trying to pose war on them and gives a plan on how to stop it.
Killmonger persuades them to lure the Liberators inside and re-connects the Liberators. As a result, the Wakandans destroy them and make Killmonger their hero. He terms himself as a loyal servant of Wakanda to King T'Chaka and is later given the herb to become the next Black Panther. Meanwhile, Pepper Potts finds Shuri in her office, with the evidence of Tony's murder. She joins hands with Pepper to open the eyes of people, revealing the true motive of Killmonger to all.
Major Details
At the end of Iron-Man movie, Tony Stark revealed himself as Iron-Man in the press conference. A similar press conference was set up this episode but in this case, it was set up for the heroic saving of Tony by Erik Steven "Killmonger". Christine Everhart returns as the journalist who we also see in Iron-Man movie. She also made an appearance in What If...? Episode 5 as a journalist (maybe her being a journalist is an absolute point of time, just maybe). Killmonger was appointed as Chief Security Officer for which Happy Hogan says it was supposed to be his position. This was a subtle nod to Happy Hogan eventually being promoted to Head of Security in Iron-Man 3.
The Liberator drone looks quite similar to the drone suits made by Hammer Industries with the help of Ivan Vanko. When Killmonger mentioned about Vibranium to Tony, Tony said that his father had used the last of it in the war. This obviously refers to Captain America's shield which was a prototype made by his father, Howard Stark. While examining the Vibranium ring, they are surrounded by a virtual spherical mesh of its element structure, similar to Iron-Man 2 where Tony was creating a new element to power his arc reactor.
Before that, Tony proposes to miniature an arc reactor to power the Liberator drones. This is actually what he did in live-action, using an arc reactor as his heart and later on, using it as the power source for his Iron-Man suits. But here, he refers that as a dumb idea. The holograph technology used by Tony to find out that Killmonger killed Rhodey is also the same one used by him in Iron-Man 3.
The number of spots in Killmonger's body is lot lesser than what we have seen in Black Panther movie. This may be because of the timeline, as here the episode occurs far before than the time we see in the movie.
One more thing needs to be stated, the more we get to the finale of the series, the more we see the humanoid facials of Uatu the Watcher. In the very beginning of the series, we saw him as a form of space, similar to Eternity from Marvel Comics. But as we progress, we get perfect visuals of the Watcher's face and skin, hinting to his probable interference in future episode bringing a multiversal team to fight any multiversal battle. We know from trailer footage that there are scenes from character from different episodes being united, meaning there is definitely something Avengers-level team up planned for us in upcoming episodes.
Final Verdict
What If...? Episode 6 creates an interesting conspiracy scenario that takes great advantage of the freedom that comes with the show's premise. Combining two stories to create a new one, the director and writer took a risk which came successful. Though the episode needed a bit more time to breathe, as a whole, it turned out to be a pretty interesting episode with great twists and turns, even if they were predictable for Killmonger. The animation is stellar as always with great characterizing of action.
Rating: 8/10
What If...? Episode 6 is streaming exclusively on Disney+ with new episodes coming every Wednesday.
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