2x04 What If... Iron Man Crashed Into the Grandmaster?

[7.4/10] They could pretty much call this one “What if we did Ragnarok with Tony Stark?” But I’m not complaining. The fun of What If? is its remixing and reimagining spirit, so the mash-up works for me. I’m a sucker for Jeff Goldblum’s shtick so it’s especially fun to see him and Iron Man bantering with one another, mixing their comic energies.

But as with prior episodes, the show finds meaningful parallels and breakthroughs via different characters getting to interact with one another. The exploration is mostly skin deep given the time constraints (and apparent greater creative interest in car crashes). But Tony bonding with Valkyrie over both wrestling with a “demon in a bottle” and getting through to Gamora over both having daddy issues but choosing who to be despite that are nice, if abbreviated beats for the characters. (Mildly odd that Tony’s bond with both of his new cosmic pals stems from the events of Iron Man 2, plus an homage to his Milan race escapades.)

The Mad Max/Twisted Metal/Mario Kart style fun in the climax is good too. As I said in my write-up of the Eighties Avengers episode, this is the kind of thing you could do in live action, but which is easier to do in animation, so I like seeing What If take advantage of that. The idea of a race to decide who rules Sakaar is a little silly, but the show acknowledges that. And Tony gets some good beats himself here, from a throwback to the first Iron Man film with him making a new suit from scratch, to his “leave a place better than you found it” campground principle. And hey, more Korg is a plus in my book too!

Overall, this is, like most of the episodes to date, more of a lark than something profound or substantive, but it’s an enjoyable lark.