“The Avengers were always meant to be more than a team. They were an idea, the affirmation of humanity’s need to believe that in our darkest hour, we will find our heroes.”

The third episode of What If…? extensively covered what might have happened if the Avengers were killed before they could become the Avengers we see in the movies. As Nick Fury is finding candidates for the Avengers program, all of the people he finds (Thor, Iron Man, Hawkeye, The Hulk, and Black Widow) were murdered by a vengeful Hank Pym, whose daughter, Hope Van Dyne, had died while acting as a SHIELD Agent. Fury, now desperate, struck an unlikely alliance. Loki, who was hoping to exact revenge on the man who had killed his brother, aided Fury in eliminating Pym by using intricate illusions to fool Pym into attacking Loki ghosts. After Hank was killed by Loki, the God of Mischief went to take over the Earth in a day. Betrayed, Nick Fury went to find the frozen body of Captain America to revive the Avengers Initiative, and was found by Captain Marvel.

The plot in this story was phenomenal. It incorporated some characters like Hank Pym and Hope Van Dyne that are not shown very often in the movies. Additionally, the episode also incorporates creative ways to kill the heroes, from poison injection to misfiring bow.

Contrasting the plot’s success, the way Hulk died, with an explosion from enlarged cell size, was the exception to the creative ways the other characters died. Although it was not terribly unoriginal, there were better ways to make him die. For example, taking away his ability to become Hulk would have made for a much more intense scene and better death.

Overall, the episode, with its one minor flaw, was a lot better than the first two. It showed just how important the Avengers were to keeping the Marvel Universe safe from crazed men with superpowers to literal gods.