The most recent episode of the Marvel animated series What If..? was a blast from the past giving us many returning familiar faces. This week’s episode took us through what life would be like if Killmonger saved Tony Stark. Thus, preventing him from becoming the famous armored superhero Iron Man.
With that said, let’s break down the Easter eggs and details you missed in this weeks episode of What If..?
No more Iron Man
The beginning of the episode starts off in the same way as the film that kickstarted the MCU back in 2008, Iron Man. A fairly noticeable parallel was Tony Stark quoting some of his lines from the MCUs first film.
One of the very first scenes shows Tony Stark in a Jeep with three other soldiers, one of which asked to take a photo with him. One of his lines were “Yeah peace, I love peace, I’d be out of a job with peace.” This ones pretty noticeable, but you have to admire every small detail that Marvel puts into their projects.
We were also reintroduced to Christine Everheart. She was one of the interviewers who showed up to Tony Starks final press conference in Iron Man where he revealed his secret identity to the world.
Obadiah Stane gets found out early on
Although the show’s premise follows events in the MCU going through drastic changes, there is something that remained constant.
Unlike 2008’s Iron Man from the get-go we find out that Obadiah Stane was affiliated with the Ten Rings thanks to Killmonger. Despite what many fans might believe, Obadiah may have always planned on taking the wrong path to get rid of Tony Stark permanently.
When Tony Stark helps Killmonger make his “science fair project” we learn that Killmonger’s combat drones were inspired by Japanese military anime, Gundam. In that same scene, Killmonger tests out his newest creation recorded by Dum-E, which again is a little nod to the MCU Iron Man trilogy.
T’Challa makes an entrance similar to one of his first fight scenes in 2018’s Black Panther to stop Killmonger’s plans to supply himself with Vibranium.
Killmonger has less scars
During Killmonger and Tony Starks final confrontation, we see that he has less scars on his body. At a closer glance, Killmonger has no scars on his forearms. This of course is because he spent less years attempting to achieve world-domination as he met Tony Stark earlier in his life.
Wakanda Forever
When Erik “Killmonger” Stevens arrives to Wakanda, he presents himself to the Dora Milaje with a classic greeting. He shows them his inner bottom lip with the classic War Dog tattoo which is vital to the fictional countries culture.
When he finally arrives to the kingdom, we basically get a frame by frame confrontation between Erik and T’Chaka similar to the fan favorite MCU film. This is of course with his son out of the picture due to his untimely passing.
One of Eriks final interactions with T’Chaka show him admiring the sunset, calling back to one of his final scenes of the 2018 superhero film. The final scene uses the same angles to Chadwick Bosemans solo film.
Only Three Black Panthers instead of Four
The final scene walks him through the ancestral plane where we see three panthers rather than four. While there is no official answer as to why this came to be, Marvel fans can only theorize what could be the meaning behind this.
