What If…? episode 3: What’s hidden in plain sight in episode 3
By Mike McNulty
Dr. Hank Pym, a.k.a. Yellowjacket
Of all the possible suspects, it sure came as quite the surprise when the murderer of the Avengers candidates ended up being Dr. Hank Pym (Michael Douglas). It should also leave no doubt whatsoever that, in the right hands (or the wrong hands as the case may be), Pym Particles can make even the frailest person the deadliest human on planet Earth.
Notice, too, that while Pym is wearing the Ant-Man helmet, he’s also wearing the Yellowjacket suit as it appeared in Ant-Man (2015). It’s also a nod to the original comics, in which Pym, among his many superhero personas, was the original Yellowjacket. And as Yellowjacket, Hank was just as mentally unstable. Though because it’s comics, Yellowjacket became a separate personality thanks to a chemical mishap. Although Hank would eventually recover, especially after he and Janet Van Dyne married, him being Yellowjacket was usually an indication that he had a relapse.
It was also being Yellowjacket that ultimately caused Hank and Janet’s marriage to fall apart. After Captain America suspended him from the Avengers for attacking a supervillain who surrendered, Hank came up with a crazy plan to reinstate himself by staging an attack on the Avengers which would allow him to come in and save the day. Janet found about this and tried to talk him out of it, which resulted in Hank backhanding her across the face.
Naturally, Janet, the Avengers, and comic book readers were really upset over what Hank did. And while Hank eventually got some much-needed psychological help and patched things up with his now ex-wife, his hitting Janet has forever stained him as a character. Thankfully, the MCU version of Hank never went down that route.
As for Hank being the killer? Well, it does make sense that he would target Tony first. Given how he wasn’t entirely trusting of Howard Stark, there’s been a few indications in the MCU live-action movies that Hank didn’t think the apple fell far from the tree as far as Howard’s “billionaire playboy genius” son was concerned. (And he also dismissed Iron Man technology as “cute.”)
But why would he want to kill Thor? As this very episode reminds us, no one even knew who Thor was when he first arrived on Earth. This means Nick Fury shouldn’t have listed him as a possible candidate for the Avengers, either. Quite the ironically massive plot hole, wouldn’t you say?