What If…? episode 5’s greatest strength is its unexpected friendships
Episode 5 of Marvel’s What If…? featured some surprising friendships and that was the best thing about it.
The fifth episode of Marvel’s What If…? focuses on a reality where the Avengers and most of those in the world around them become Zombies. With that, the Disney Plus show brings together an unusual group of heroes who wouldn’t normally work together. By far, it is my favorite because it shows what it would be like to have a series of characters team up who wouldn’t usually interact.
Going into the episode, it was surprising to see the choice of characters that Marvel Studios used to fight the zombies as Bruce Banner, Peter Parker, Hope Van Dyne, Kurt, Scott Lang, Happy Hogan, Okoye, Sharon Carter, T’Challa, and Bucky Barnes all united against them.
As the adventure progresses, the group is cut down due to many of the heroes ultimately being infected by the zombies and becoming mindless beings themselves. However, when the constantly shrinking group find T’Challa, they learn that Vision kidnapped him from New York and used one of his legs as food for a zombified Wanda.
What If…? episode 5 is elevated by the unexpected friendships
As haunting as the fifth episode of What If…? is, it is the friendships that are formed throughout this episode that really surprised me. Pairing Peter and Hope together as friends was unexpected but it turned into a very hopeful partnership. You could say the same thing for Bucky and Okoye and Kurt and Bruce. Also, whoever thought it wise to pair Scott with Vision together is a total genius! Having Ant-Man be the head in the jar (like Richard Nixon in Futurama) and Vision’s… sidekick was a really nice touch and it was a lot of fun to see.
Hope maintaining hope when there wasn’t any particularly stood out because her faith was influenced by Peter – who understood what it meant to lose people (such as Uncle Ben, Aunt May, Tony Stark and Happy) and still had faith.
Moving over to Happy and Sharon, these two did what they could to take down an army of Zombies, but even though they eventually went down, they made a great duo.
Okoye and Bucky probably ended up being this writer’s favorite pairing. They showed no emotion when it came to killing Zombified Sam when there should’ve been. From a writing standpoint, this wouldn’t have necessarily worked outside of this episode given the stakes that the death of an Avenger like Sam (let alone a real-world zombie apocalypse) would have carried in a live-action movie. Moreover, Okoye and Bucky may not have worked so well considering the latter’s history with T’Challa.
Kurt and Bruce were also a pretty funny pairing. Who would’ve thought putting the man who houses the Hulk and one of Scott’s best friends together would be the laugh we needed for this episode? Talk about a stroke of pure genius.
Marvel’s What If…? is available to watch on Disney Plus and adds new episodes every Wednesday.
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What did you think of this episode? Tell us below what your favourite team-up was in the Zombies What If…?