Spoilers

“What If… Happy Hogan Saved Christmas?”

What a delight.

‘Twas the morning before Christmas

And I couldn’t sleep

So I popped on What If…?

Season two just for keep.

The Avengers were tussling

With a purple freak,

Inside Avengers Tower

Things looked really bleak.

The Watcher took us back

Before things got too charred

And we realized the show

Was a nod to Die Hard.

With Happy and Darcy,

And Maria Hill, too

While Justin Hammer dances

As he is wont to do.

From a purple “Hulk” Hogan

Whose punches are stiff,

Merry Christmas to all

From the world of What If…?

This was an unbelievably fun episode that filled me with joy… and not just Christmas joy. Die Hard is one of my all-time favorite movies, so seeing Marvel put an Avengers-spin on it was so epic. 

And then, the actual writing of the episode was so good. Christmas puns and tropes scattered throughout and great use of two secondary characters in Happy and Darcy that we all love. There was some great comedy in this episode and the use of the actual Avengers was just perfect as well. Was this the first What If…? episode that included Tony Stark where Stark did not die?

This was the first episode this season that did not feel as if it had a rush to finish. I thought the pacing of this was spectacular. 

And the return of Justin Hammer, voiced by the one and only Sam Rockwell, as a stand in for Hans Gruber, was inspired. Sam Rockwell sounded as if he was having a blast with the character. You could hear the lilt in his voice. The fact that Marvel is able to get these huge stars to come back and voice their characters in this animated series never fails to blow my mind. Sure there are some who are voice actors (hiya Lake Bell), but the fact is this episode had Mark Ruffalo back for like two lines of dialogue. Jon Favreau, Chris Hemsworth, Jeremy Renner, Kat Dennings, Cobie Smulders were all here for this episode.

And that Happy Hulk Hogan fight with the Iron Man suits/robots in the hallway was amazing. The oil splatter, replacing blood, as the purple hulk rampaged through the suits was some special visual storytelling. There were plenty of visual jokes/bits that helped tell this story. 

Legitimately, this is probably my second favorite What If…? episode of the entire series, only behind the S1 E4 Supreme Strange episode, and that is just barely ahead of this.

Merry Christmas to all…

Up to Date Running Order:

E3  ”What If… Happy Hogan Saved Christmas?”

E1  “What If… Nebula Joined the Nova Corps?”

E2  “What If… Peter Quill Fought Earth’s Mightiest Heroes?”