What If…? episode 3: What’s hidden in plain sight in episode 3
By Mike McNulty
Hail Hydra!
Given how this episode deals with divergent paths for three different MCU movies, there are bound to be more than a few callbacks to those films. Like the fact that Agent Coulson is a huge Captain America fanboy who even knows Steve Rogers’ birthday (“#SteveSteveSteveIHeartSteve0704”) 0r the other Stan Lee Easter Egg from The Incredible Hulk in which Bruce Banner (Mark Ruffalo) disguised himself with a “Stanley’s Pizza” cap and T-shirt. But what’s truly surprising are the number of callbacks this episode had to Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014).
Aside from Natasha being on the run from her fellow S.H.I.E.L.D. agents, her escape from the prison van echoes Steve Roger’s elevator fight from Winter Soldier. Also, two of the agents who are taking her into custody–and later escapes from–are Brock Rumlow (Frank Grillo) and Jack Rollins, members of S.H.I.E.L.D.’s Strike Force, who are also Hydra sleeper agents. There are also two mentions of Alexander Pierce, head secretary of the World Security Council, Nick Fury’s boss, and also a Hydra sleeper agent. The second one in particular is
from the Avenger’s Imitative file showing Pierce’s photo along with Fury, Coulson, Maria Hill, and a still believed to be dead Janet Van Dyne.
With all these deliberate The Winter Soldier references, it’s safe to assume the creators of What If…? did this intentionally so as to make Hydra a red herring for the murders. Then again, Hydra is indirectly responsible for what happens thanks to another Winter Soldier call back (which we’ll be talking about later).
Bruce Banner’s forgotten love interest
One of the more curious–if not altogether sudden–developments that happened over the course of the MCU was the blossoming romance between Black Widow and Bruce Banner in Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015). So it became all the more interesting during this episode where Natasha meets up with Bruce’s traditional long-time love interest, Betty Ross (Stephanie Panisello), the daughter of General Ross. This becomes even more remarkable when you realize this is only the second time Betty has ever appeared in the MCU.
This is particularly weird when you consider just how important Betty is to Bruce and the Hulk in the comics. Aside from being one of the few people who could calm the Hulk down, her being Ross’ daughter added some soap opera-worthy conflict, especially once she and Bruce married. She even became a Hulk herself on two different occasions, both times by AIM’s crazy leader, MODOK.
The first time, she was transformed into the Harpy, in which she was half-woman, half bird-of-prey. Later, she was transformed into the Red She-Hulk, just as her father, General Ross had been transformed into the Red Hulk. Recent issues of The Immortal Hulk have Betty being able to transform into a hybrid of both her Harpy and Red Hulk personas.
So, why was The Incredible Hulk Betty’s only live-action appearance in the MCU? Some would cite the fact that, although Disney has the rights to use the Hulk in their movies, Universal Pictures–which made The Incredible Hulk–still has the distribution rights. This means that only Universal can make stand-alone Hulk movies.
However, this hasn’t stopped Marvel Studios from having William Hurt reprise his role as Ross, and we know Tim Roth is set to return as the Abomination in both Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings and the She-Hulk Disney+ series. And if the issue is recasting Liv Tyler, let’s remember that Mark Ruffalo took over the role as Banner from Edward Norton. Guess this is one mystery that will never be solved.