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What If...? S3E6 "What If... 1872?" - TV Tropes

  • ️Fri Dec 27 2024

"What If... 1872?"

Alternate take on: Ant-Man and the Wasp, The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, and Hawkeye

In the old west, Shang-Chi and Kate Bishop are on the hunt for a villain.

"What If... 1872" contains examples of:

  • Adaptation Relationship Overhaul:
    • In the Sacred Timeline, Shang-Chi, Kate Bishop, Sonny Burch and John Walker never interacted. Here, they meet each other as outlaws in the old west.
    • In the Sacred Timeline, Kate and Eleanor Bishop have a strained relationship that ultimately collapsed after the Kate discovered that her mother had actually been working for the Kingpin for years. In this timeline, Kate seems to have had a much better relationship with her mother, and is visibly pained when Sonny Burch reveals that he killed her and the rest of her family.
  • Adaptation Species Change: In the Sacred Timeline, Morris is the hundun companion of Trevor Slattery. Here, he's Shang-Chi's horse.
  • Adaptational Early Appearance: In the Sacred Timeline, Shang-Chi didn't appear on the hero scene until Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings in 2024. Likewise, Kate Bishop didn't make her debut until Hawkeye, also in 2024. Here, they meet in the 1870s due to them and the other contemporary characters being born much earlier.
  • Adaptational Mundanity:
    • Despite having the nickname "Ten Rings", Shang-Chi doesn't have the actual Ten Rings and instead relies on pure martial arts in combat.
    • Although he's a skilled martial artist much like his comic book counterpart, Jun-Fan lacks the Iron Fist powers.
  • Adaptational Nationality: In the comics, Kwai Jun-Fan was a K'un-Lun native. Here, he's a Chinese immigrant.
  • Adaptational Villainy:
    • In the Sacred Timeline, John Walker was a soldier-turned-superhero, only fighting other heroes at his absolute worst. Here, he's a racist outlaw who tries to capture Shang-Chi and Kate for the villainous Hood.
    • Sonny Burch was already a villain in the Sacred Timeline, but here, he's much worse; instead of simply being a greedy slimeball, this Burch is a sadistic murderer who brainwashes Chinese immigrants and gloats about killing Kate Bishop's parents.
    • Played with regarding Xialing. In the Sacred Timeline, she's a self-serving criminal bitter at Shang-Chi for abandoning her for a new life in America and who ultimately takes over the Ten Rings criminal organization, but still loves her brother deeply and patches things up. In this universe, the Hood has corrupted her into being a ruthless sociopath who's determined to realize the American Dream by force, though Shang-Chi knows that it's not what Xialing truly wants.
  • Adaptational Wimp: Rather than being a highly decorated and talented Army Captain-turned-Super-Soldier, John Walker is a run-of-the-mill gang leader who is easily taken out at the start of the episode.
  • Age Lift: In the comics, Kwai Jun-Fan was a previous Iron Fist who operated in the 1870s in the Old West. However, he was a bearded adult in his early 30s' while he's a young boy in this episode.
  • Became Their Own Antithesis: Xu Xialing came to America to try to live out the American Dream, only to end up having to fight against the Hood, who threatened her way of life by organizing scared and angry Americans who saw Xialing and other Chinese people as a threat to them. When Shang-Chi finds out who the Hood really is, Xialing has been corrupted by its influence, to the point of subjugating her own people into slavery and wanting to take the "American Dream" she believes she deserves by force.
  • Big Damn Heroes:
    • Uatu saves Jun-Fan from his would-be killers by knocking them off the train.
    • Jun-Fan later saves both Kate and Shang-Chi by ringing the bell, which both snaps Kate out of her hypnosis and distracts both Shang-Chi and Xialing (the latter who was about to kill her brother), allowing Shang-Chi to get a Heroic Second Wind against his sister.
  • Bittersweet Ending: The Hood is vanquished for good, and Sonny Burch is brought to justice for his crimes. Unfortunately, it comes at the cost of Shang-Chi losing his sister for good, resulting in him leaving town with Kate to try to find other forces of evil to battle. What's more, Uatu's constant interference within the Multiverse has finally angered his superiors enough to take action against him.
  • Bizarro Universe: Not the setting of the episode, but Uatu mentions some of the universes further out in the multiverse get weirder and weirder, like the one where Ultron was programmed to sing showtunes (and by all evidence is quite good at it).
  • Brick Joke: In Loki, Mobius questions Alligator Loki's claims about being a Loki variant. In this episode is revealed that, yes, Alligator Loki truly is a Loki variant.
  • Chekhov's Gun: The "Ten rings" used to call Shang Chi out (as in, ringing a bell ten times). Jun-Fan ringing the bell is what helps turn the tide for Kate and Shang-Chi.
  • Cliffhanger: The episode ends with the Watcher being chastised by the Eminence, who throws Uatu into a cosmic wall that breaks, sending shards into some unknown universe.
  • Connected All Along: Throg and Alligator Loki are revealed to both come from the same universe, as shown in one of the branches Uatu shows us.
  • Continuity Nod: Seeing the tech in Sonny's train, Shang-Chi and Kate note it's got Stark, Hammer, and Cross tech all in a mix.
  • Cool Train: Sonny Burch has a train that can travel through hover technology, eliminating the need for railroad tracks and leaving no trail. Not to mention flying straight over a canyon.
  • The Corrupter: The Hood is heavily implied to have affected Xialing's mind, twisting her desire for a new life in America into an evil plan that exploits the very laborers she wants to help.
  • Cowboy Episode: The MCU's first take on the Western genre, featuring Kate Bishop and Shang-Chi as cowboys.
  • Death by Adaptation:
    • Eleanor Bishop is still alive in the Sacred Timeline, but here, she was murdered by Sonny Burch before the events of the episode.
    • Xialing gets killed by Kate Bishop in the end of this episode while her Sacred Timeline counterpart still lives.
  • Died in Your Arms Tonight: Xialing dies from the gunshot wounds Kate inflicts on her, all as Shang-Chi quietly weeps over his sister dying.
  • Dies Differently in the Adaptation: In the Sacred Timeline, Derek Bishop was killed during the Chitauri attack on New York; here, he was murdered by Sonny Burch.
  • Dirty Coward: After losing his hypnotic watch, Burch throws his own men at Kate to try and dodge her wrath, and once she has him cornered, he's quick to start begging for his life and appealing to her virtue to avoid being gunned down.
  • Dying as Yourself: After being shot by Kate Bishop, Xialing's final moments have her finally recognizing her brother as she dies in his arms.
  • Early-Bird Cameo: Before its debut in Ironheart (along with its more well-known owner, Parker Robbins), the Hood shows up as an antagonistic force in this episode.note 
  • Elseworld: Rather than showing what would happen if a certain event from the Sacred Timeline played out differently, this episode sees several Sacred Timeline characters being put in a completely different time period. Lampshaded by The Watcher when he tells the viewer that the universes on the edge of the multiverse are truly bizarre to the point that instead of asking "What If?" you can better ask "What the Hell?".
  • Epic Hail: Shang-Chi and Kate can be summoned for help by ringing a loud bell ten times to signal the Ten Rings.
  • The Ghost: We never do see the Hood for real, as Xialing killed the original and took his power for herself. This conveniently lines up with how the Sacred Timeline version of the Hood is set to debut in Ironheart, which had yet to premiere at the time of the release of the third season of What If...?, instead coming out the following year.
  • Guys Smash, Girls Shoot: Shang Chi and Kate Bishop have this dynamic, as Shang Chi is a skilled martial artist who fights with his bare fists while Kate is a gunslinger who relies on her guns.
  • Hiding Behind the Language Barrier: Shang Chi takes advantage of the fact that neither Sonny Burch nor his mooks speak Chinese to instruct Jun-Fan to attack the two men standing next to him.
  • Leaning on the Fourth Wall: Uatu's opening narration touches upon how the audience understands the concept of the show by now and what to expect.

    Uatu: Alternate realities, parallel universes. You get it at this point. Small choices, big changes, et cetera.

  • Logo Joke: The opening Marvel Animation logo is stylized like an old western film.
  • Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane: Ultimately how the episode treats the ominous hood that corrupted Xialing. While we the viewers know otherwise, the characters ultimately discard it despite its possible corruption of Xialing, and no clear mystic connection is made regarding it.
  • Mind-Control Music: Sonny Burch's pocketwatch has a hypnotic tune that puts anyone who hears it into a trance.
  • More Despicable Minion: The episode's Arc Villain, The Hood is a rather complicated case, given its possession of Xu Xialing, a tragic figure affected by the racism of the Old West, who was corrupted by the Hood's power. Her right-hand man Sonny Burch, on the other hand, is a ruthless sadist who admits that he enjoys killing and who revels in wielding power over others for its own sake.
  • My God, What Have I Done?: Kate guns down the Hood, avenging her murdered family... before realizing that the Hood was Xialing, Shang-Chi's sister.

    Kate: Oh, no...

  • Mythology Gag:
    • This universe is based on Marvel 1872, which imagines the characters of the Marvel Universe in a western setting.
    • Shang-Chi starts the fight with Walker's goons by punching one in the chest in slow motion, just as he started the fight with Razor-Fist's goons in his own movie.
    • One of the universes in the Nexus has Throg being almost eaten by Alligator Loki.
    • Kate Bishop remarks that Jun-Fan "has some iron fists on him". Jun-Fan also wears a yellow shirt with green suspenders, the main colors associated with the Iron Fist.
    • The Watcher talking about really out there alternate universes, like one where Ultron was programmed to sing show tunes, that make you exclaim "What the Hell?" instead of "What If...?" is a reference to Marvel's "What The...?" gag stories that Self-Parody the What If concept.
  • No Good Deed Goes Unpunished: Uatu saving Jun-Fan is the last straw for his superiors, who decide to have him pay for his constant interference.
  • Point of Divergence:
    • Played for Laughs in one universe that branched off from the Sacred Timeline when Ultron was programmed to do showtunes.
    • In Shang-Chi's universe, the episode's events branched off from the Sacred Timeline when Shang Chi and Xu Xialing were born much earlier, in the 1800s (as were several others), and, seeking to escape Wenwu's tyranny, Xu Xialing immigrated to the United States in the late 1860s. Uatu admits that this isn't a typical POD in the sense of a single event that differs from how it happened the Sacred Timeline (even the 1602 universe diverted when one person arrived in that time period who shouldn't have been there), but that in the outer reaches of the multiverse, things are different.
  • Politically Incorrect Villain:
    • John Walker is a much more unpleasant man in this universe, with him making a racist remark against the Chinese when Shang-Chi interrogates him about where the Hood is.
    • Sonny Burch also appears to be far less inclusive of a villain, openly reveling in how he's enslaved several Chinese migrants to mindlessly obey his orders for the sake of profit.
    • The original Hood exploited racism towards Chinese immigrants to shore up their power base.
  • Production Foreshadowing: Xialing appears as The Hood and claims to have killed the previous one. The Hood won't appear in the Sacred Timeline until Ironheart.
  • The Reveal: It's revealed in this episode that Alligator Loki wasn't lying about being a Loki variant, and that he and Throg came from the same universe. It's implied that this universe's inhabitants are animalistic variants.
  • Schizo Tech: The setting is the Old West with the tech you'd expect, but companies like Stark Industries exist and still have technology that'd be futuristic even in the present like hover trains powered by a glowing energy source.
  • Smug Snake: While his brainwashing watch affects Kate, Burch is all smiles and gloating, gleefully admitting that he killed her family and enjoyed it. As soon as Kate is free and armed, Burch is quick to start begging for mercy.
  • Spanner in the Works: Both Uatu and Jun-Fan end up derailing Sonny Burch's plans. The former by flicking Burch's goons chasing Jun-Fan and the latter for ringing the bell that snaps Kate and Shang-chi out of their trance.
  • Stealth Pun: Burch's pocket watch being destroyed means that his time is up.
  • Symbolically Broken Object: Kate destroys Burch's pocketwatch that's been brainwashing the Chinese workers, signaling that he has no more control.
  • Villainous Legacy: The "original" Hood preyed on the locals fear of their Chinese immigrant neighbors to gain more power, until he was killed by Xialing and had his place taken by her.
  • Well-Intentioned Extremist: Xialing plans to use the brainwashed railway workers as an army to forcibly turn America into the land of opportunity that Chinese immigrants were promised it was.
  • Wham Line: As Jun-Fan is about to be killed by Sonny's henchmen, Uatu narrates about how sometimes, even the bravest of heroes die...but not this time. What follows is him stepping in to save Jun-Fan, which ultimately proves to be the last straw for the other Watchers, prompting them to punish him for breaking his oath and setting up the final two episodes.
  • What Happened to the Mouse?: Despite Kate's promise to see him suffer for murdering her family, Burch disappears from the story after she knocks him out.
  • Would Hurt a Child: Sonny and his goons have no problem trying to kill Jun-Fan, and had Uatu not intervened, they would have.