YMMV / What If…? S1E6 "What If… Killmonger Rescued Tony Stark?"

• Alternative Character Interpretation:
  • Was Killmonger saving Okoye from the drone motivated by a genuine desire to avoid a Wakandan casualty, or was it a manipulative attempt to win the skeptic Wakandans over?
  • The ancestral plane once again begs the question if it is real or merely an intense hallucination caused by ingesting the heart-shaped herb? In Black Panther, we see it reveal T'Challa’s insecurity as a king and Erik’s desire for revenge because of his abandonment and the death of his father. Here, if T'Challa’s spirit isn’t actually real, then does that mean Erik feels guilt for all the things he did in this episode, and he is more or less justifying his actions against that guilt?
• Fan Nickname: A lot of fans just like to call this episode "What If Killmonger Won?"
• Fanfic Fuel: A much more obvious one than other episodes, with the episode ending on a Cliffhanger promising that World War III is about to begin, between a United States with a much-more-literal Avengers Initiative and a Kingdom of Wakanda fully geared for war by Killmonger as Black Panther. If this timeline is allowed to continue down this path, the bloodshed and carnage Erik has triggered so far is only the beginning.
• Harsher in Hindsight:
  • Many plot elements of this story; particularly Wakanda going to war against a foreign nation after the death of T'Challa, ended up sadly reflecting the plot of Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, with only the nation invading Wakanda changing in said movie (Talokan in this case instead of the U.S).
  • Upon meeting Killmonger, Shuri is immediately able to judge that the man is not to be trusted despite her young age, and even works with Pepper to expose his crimes to the U.S and Wakandan governments. Fast-forward to Wakanda Forever, and Shuri ends up encountering Killmonger on the Ancestral Plane, and is nearly spurred into killing Namor at his encouragement.
• Magnificent Bastard: Erik "Prince Killmonger" Stevens here opts to use subtle and pragmatic means to achieve his goals. He saves the life of Tony Stark to denounce Obadiah Stane and gives himself access to Stark Industries robotics. Refining drones for his own purposes, Erik murders both Rhodes and Prince T'Challa of Wakanda, framing it as a murder to enhance tension between the nations. Killing Tony Stark in a "Wakandan Assassination," he then kills Ulysses Klaue to return to Wakanda and become the Black Panther, preparing for war after achieving all he wanted. Later helping the Guardians of the Multiverse against the mad AI Ultron, Erik tries to seize the Infinity Stones at the end to remake the world how he desires it, even offering the Guardians a chance to join him on his crusade.
• Misaimed Fandom: Despite the story showing the ramifications - betraying Tony, killing his own cousin and Rhodey, starting a war between USA and Wakanda - of what a power-grabbing jerkass like Killmonger has to go through in order to achieve his objectives, there's still people that support him and his nihilistic rhetoric.
• Rooting for the Empire: As expected, Killmonger gets this. He's very stylish in his planning and execution, plus he's more mature than his film counterpart, putting his goal over his need for personal revenge, and ends up getting everything he wanted by the end.
• Special Effect Failure:
  • Pepper's voice sounds distinctly more compressed and low resolution than the other voice actors.
  • During the scene at the bar, the other patrons are animated at a noticeably lower framerate than Tony, Erik, and Pepper.
  • Once again, General Ross' mouth animations don't seem to completely match up with his lines.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot:
  • For all the hype that went into Tony Stark being rescued by Killmonger, Tony himself doesn’t do all that much in this episode before being killed by the very man who rescued him. The fact that Iron Man had been killed in two other timelines definitely soured fans of the character who wanted to see more of him here.
  • Much like the Captain Carter episode before it, the episode promotes very limited deviation on characterization from the larger cast (save of course Killmonger himself). While this is understandable, story-wise (since much of the Character Development pressures caused by the events of the MCU is what made them in the first place), it ultimately makes the episode storyline seem less original than it could have been. Not coincidentally, IMDB lists its episode rating at a 6.9, even lower than the Captain Carter episode.