X-Ray VisionWhat If... Any of this mattered? And Creature Commandos!
Marvel's What If debuted its season 3 over the holidays. Jason and Rosie have some notes. How much interfering is a watcher allowed to do? They're quickly recapping the season and then dissecting what works and what isn't landing. Why all the happy endings? Then, is anyone else shocked at how good Creature Commandos is getting? We have some thoughts on that, too.
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Worrying.
Today's episode contains spoilers for Marvel's third season of its animated what If television program on Disney Plus End and the fourth episode of the getting increasingly Better Creature Commandos HBO and Max You're one. Hello, my name is Jase Kencepcion and I'm Rosday Night, and welcome back. Xtra Vision, the podcast where we divey bit de your favorite Joe's movies, collably some pop culture coming to you from my Heart podcast where We'll be you three episodes a week, every Tuesday Thursday, with an extra episode every Wednesday.
In today's episode, we are giving you a reactions to what If Season three of the final.
Season of what If. What If Marvel.
Made a good cartoon again, I don't know, let's talk about it, and we will also be looking at how it compares to some of the great animation that we've gotten this year, including Creek Commandos, which is getting very good.
It's getting really good. Okay, first year luck Okay, what If? Season three? Let's first just run through the what ifs. Episode one is a universe in which Bruce Banner and Sam have a relationship that's very similar to Tony and Banner. In the MCU main universe, Banner accidentally creates these like super Gamma monsters that are like Kaiju's essentially. He then goes into hiding. The Avengers have to create giant mech suits to deal with the monsters. Many of them die in the fight, but they do win, but then the monster is re emerged and Banner has to turn himself into a Kaiju to deal with them, and then.
Make like a Kaiju park.
He makes like a monster like a hulk Monster Island where he hangs out with all his little cute little Kaiju.
Banner's Jurassic Park. Yeah, interesting as well. It's Sam Monica, Rambo, shang Chi, Moonnight, Bucky, Red Guardian, Shuri.
So I'm like, this feels like it.
Is supposed to be the Phase four Avengers team that we were kind of meant to get, you know.
They seem like that.
It feels like they're throwing back to that and bringing back a lot of old characters.
Episode two it is Hollywood's Golden eras. I think it's like forties fifties. I don't think they ever say the year, but it feels like the four. It feels like the usby Berkeley era, like classic Hollywood. Agatha is a movie star. Kingo also a movie star. She's there Agatha in order to like a fight the Eternals does this like massive spell using the Hollywood set and all the extras and dancers.
She wants to like steal the celestial's power.
To create this entire like huge magic ritual using the infrastructure of Hollywood, and at the end, King Go manages to convince her that actually movies are better than magic and we can do good. Okay. While yeah, episode three, it's a Red Guardian Winter Soldier to Hander. They are sent by the Red Room to America in order to you know, assassinate the Starks. But it goes sideways and then you know, Bucky and the Red Guardian like grow in terms of their friendship together. But then at the end of it, Bucky's recaptured in his mind is wiped and he doesn't like remember any of it, and Red Guardian just becomes like a Jimmy teacher in the US.
I will say, I think of all the episodes from this season, this is the one that is most akin to what the comics do.
I was going through a bunch of old what if Comics.
Yesterday, and they had a like what if Rick Jones died before he could help in the cree Scroll War or something? And I was like, oh, okay, what if Red Guardian stopped the Winter Soldier?
Is actually like an interesting.
Let's discuss because I think that there is an important conversation about this show to be hack yes Episode four, Uh, what if Howard the Duck got hitched at a party thrown by Thor Darcy His friend Darcy, Our friend Darcy meets Howard the Duck, They get.
Married, They have a egg baby.
An unhatched egg that becomes like super valuable and gets stolen and all this stuff happened.
Grandmasters to eat the egg.
The grand a lot of people for a lot of different reasons. Dark elves are there anyway, the baby egg has powers itself and then everything turns out.
Great, and the baby egg is played by Natasha Leone.
But he is who.
Who is spoiler alert is the very tangential like extremely extremely deep deep deep deep deep deep cut Marvel mutant character Birdie. Episode five, What if Emersions destroyed the earth? Quenton Beck leads the Iron Legion and this is an apocalyptic future in which basically Ai and Tech takes over the Earth. In this future and versions of this future Rearave Williams always stands alone like trying to resist. She does resist, and then eventually she does defeat uh Quentin Beck aka Mysterio, who was like had become like the Singularity and it's like it had nanoparticles that he'd used to take over the universe and.
He has the Iron Legion and all that kind of stuff.
Yeah, And in this asrary Williams is like on the cusp of defeat. Huatu is like kind of puts his finger on the scale very slightly, but puts his finger on the scale, and the other Watchers are like, oh shit, we're gonna have to put in an HR complaint against Watch.
Is the most interfering of all the Watches, Like he does this ship all the time.
Guys, you should.
His whole wad is like, well, you know, I guess I'm gonna have to get involved this time. Episode six is a Western Shang Chi and Kate Bishop in an Old West universe. They beat up John Walker to get information about the Hood, and the Hood is revealed to be Uh sham Chi's sister Jusai Ling.
Yeah, who they.
Thought she was kidnapped, but actually she is the Hood. Very yeah, very classic noir twist of them that Kate Bishop and Chang Chi in the West. I think we're going to talk more about these concepts as we go forward.
Episode seven, What if the Watcher disappeared? Zandar home of the Novacore is being attacked by a giant monster squid. We see that various members of the Guardians are in the Novacore Nebulaus nover Prime. Captain Carter arrives with her own team around her. Bertie the duck now hatched and grown to adulthood.
Kahori, who was introduced in season two, was.
Introduced in season two, who you know, has like the cosmic power, natural hours of the universe and storm Thor and they save the day, but then they realize that the Watcher is gone and they have to figure out what's going on. Captain Carter goes off on her own to get Ultron to help them with this mission. Bertie realizes that happened, and then they all go into the fifth dimension to try and fight this thing. That leads us to episode eight, in which that group Captain Carter's team, Bertie the Duck Stormthoor Ghori all become watchers themselves, take the powers of the watchers to fight three other watchers who are trying to basically execute Uatu for HR violations against Watcher Incorporated.
And I'm not gonna lie. They are not wrong.
He is the HR violate thought like, I'm not saying it is upstate execute.
Just keep getting involved.
That man should be called the interferer instead of the watcher.
Like just don't do it, don't listen, just don't become a watcher if you don't. But Okay, be that as it may, but be that as it may.
We have to critics, but be that as it may.
Let's go to a regular come back and discuss the season, and we're back.
We're back.
First, what's your favorite of these episodes? You pick yours and I'll pick mine, and then let's talk about this this season as a whole.
I like that if I'm just going by like vibes, I do think that the Western episode is like cool.
Like did it need to be made?
No?
But like shan Chi Kate Bishop, that was kind of fun. I can't.
I know, I'm not trying to be a downer, but I do kind of find it hard to like pick a favorite episode because I don't necessarily.
Know that the show.
Is delivering for me on the potential of what a what If can be. I think there are fun moments, but it definitely feels more like kind of like, hey, look all these characters are back. Like it doesn't necessarily have like the I do think the first season of what If had a lot of narrative theft, and that weekly released schedule meant that we were having conversations about it. I did find the what If hulk for the Mechavengers funny because this was obviously an idea they had for a long time, because a couple of years ago they did like a toy line called Mech Strike, and it was like all these different characters as mechs. So yeah, I think probably I'll go for what if Red Guardian stopped the Winter Soldier, just because I think that's the one that's most like a what if comic.
Yeah, that is also mine. And here is I agree with your critiques of this season very similar to my critiques. I think the way I feel about season two and season three, and I you know, this is fine. I think the animation is good, I think that the everything is uh, you know, it's interesting to talk about and think about these like alternate dimensions. That said, I think, to me, here's the problem for me. What I think what if should be and I think you're right is to me, the best version of what if execution is you take a moment from the MCU and you treat it as a sliding doors moment, stop the winter soldier from killing the Starks. You know, you could pick a million of these. What if Captain America died on a mission in World War Two? What if Howard Stark was a Nazi spy? What you could pick them?
There's a million of these.
And I think doing that gives an anchor point to a story like and makes it not just like a hey, let's come up with a crazy scenario, yeah, fun like and make it mean something, make it uh huh.
If you do it.
Where something from the MCU is a sliding doors moment, then you add some heft to the MCU storyline because you're saying, like, look, how things could have gone? What if? What if?
What if?
Thanos won like that's a.
Really exactly the fact that they even like, I think something that proves the misunderstanding of this version of what if? In my opinion is like one of the things that people were most excited about is like Storm as Thor, which comes actually from a what if story. What if Storm was the goddess of thunder? You know, that could have just been its whole own episode. I just want to know about how Storm got the hammer. I want to know how that in itself. I think sometimes the simplicity of the what if is where it's kind of joy comes from. And I think you're right, like what if Howard Start could help the Red Skull or whatever versions you want to do, like, and I do think that you're right.
Hilariously, when I was in London with my nephew, he.
Was watching a lot of YouTube shorts and a lot of the critiques that people were giving before the show came out was like, here's five MCU.
Moments I would want to see turned into a what if?
And I have to say, I was like, actually, these are really smart, Like it was just simple moment, you know, what about if you did one where it was like what if Colson never got killed?
This is great?
And here's the other thing. And part of this is like listen, I just I've been playing more of a rival, so like in a lot of downtime as getting over a cold. I'm still kind of getting over it. I've been watching a lot of rewatching a lot of mcu stuff, And you know, there's that famous line where Doctor Strangers like, there's fourteen million different scenarios. This is the only when we went in why and here's and so here based off that. Here's another of my critiques. Why do all of these end in happy endings? Yeah, there should be several ones where it just turns out worse people die. It's tragic. That would add some real heft to this story if you see how the heroes could feel, how actually in the in the MC universe that we're aware of, the heroes succeeded, and how rare that is and how and how valuable that is. It's it was really strange to me that in every single one of these what ifs, things turned out Okay, I think that's not I think that's I don't think it should be like that.
When you think about the first season and four if and that fourth episode which we you know, everyone talks about a lot, the Doctor Strange episode that was like a tragic episode, and it's the episode everyone still thinks about.
And you know, we were.
Talking about this, we were texting each other about this. But I do think as well, like I do think the relevance of this show for MCU fans did wane once they chose not to use that version of Strange in Multiverse of Madness and instead created like a different evil Strange.
I was like, Okay, I feel like you're saying that you don't think this show matters, and I do.
I think the release, I think the release cadence tells us that, you know, eight eight episodes in eight days, feels like they're kind of just dumping it on us. My senses, they probably had a lot of these vocal performances, if not the majority in the can five years ago, and they're just like, Okay, let's get this out and then move on from it. Not that and again not that it isn't.
Good, it's like it's so fun. But yeah, I don't know.
I think this comes from that is the leftover of the era where they were like, the MCU is the biggest thing in the world.
We just got to keep them.
They make But I'm like, guys, like, what if has so much potential, and I think what you could do is you could do. I think any one of these episodes would have been a good addition to like a more EMCU heavy what if, Like a random episode like Howard Duck and Howard the Duck and Darcy have a baby, or like Shang Chi and Kate Bishop are in the West. That's cool, as like the Oh that was a weird episode. But to have a whole thing of just kind of like no impact, nothing mass. I don't necessarily think that it's gonna have the same impact as something like X Men ninety seven, which obviously, you know, we saw how fantastic and kind of brilliant show was, and also how it you know, controlled the conversation.
They did weekly releases and people talked about it like it was a prestige TV show.
Yeah. I think part of the reason we're being kind of tough on what If as we just got off covering our Cane, We just got off watching Blue Eyed Samurai x N ninety seven, and I just think the bar for animation is high, and while this is fine, it could have been really good. Here's my pitch for a tweak on season three. Yes, maybe makes it better I think you open with Uatu in chains before the three other watchers they're sitting in judgment of him, and then the season is basically a flashback to moments from these different what ifs where u Watu increasingly gets involved, and I think in there you have to have some it just goes really bad, like why would Uatu want to get involved? He'd want to get involved because we just watched maybe two episodes of this universe gets completely destroyed, shreds it down to the to the last atom, the hood reigns, Supreme whatever, it is, like something really tragical. Then you get to the Reary Williams one and then he's like, okay.
I gotta do something on the scale, and.
Then you increase it from there because to me, one of the things that a little bit of the strength of the show and not done enough is it's an anthology series, but there is a through line. The through line is a watchu Yeah, but that through line doesn't emerge until really episode six kind of, and then it needs to be there more. And this season should be a character art for him.
Yeah, yeah, And they did set that up in the first season too, they said their main character, so I also think like, and obviously this is gonna be hilarious coming from me, because I am everyone knows I love an Easter Egg.
I love to catch an East Egg.
And there's all kinds of outrageous samurai ghostwriter like you know, Dannos Wolverine, all these different kind of versions of Holka is the Sorcerer Supreme?
Like yeah, bah. I also do feel that.
This season feels a lot more like they were just kind of throwing stuff like that in to be like, look at these characters who are back, Like you, you don't know if you like the MCU right now, but look at all these characters. Look at this at Easter Egg here, look at the like characters. But they it doesn't feel like they're gonna lead to anything. It doesn't really feel like there's necessarily a payoff to the inclusions. Like I think that's what's tough, because you know the origins of Easter Eggs and the MCU, and the stuff that really makes people excited is like when Colson shows up and.
Says the full name of Shield, or you know, when you get thors Hammer and people know what that means.
Like I think that this feels a little bit like Flighty, and I appreciate every single person who worked on it, like I love it.
This people's job.
But also I have to say I do think post X Men ninety seven. And this is just because I'm in the mid thirties, you know, I have my taste. It was hard for me to enjoy this as much as the more classic two D animation that we have been getting, like with X Men ninety seven, or the kind of more inventive animation of Arcane that kind of like almost rotoscoped, like heavily cg look that this show has. It just isn't my favorite either, So I think it's easier for me to kind of feel less engaged.
And I'm saying this, guys.
There's a whole episode about the eternals, but it still didn't capture me. You know.
Again, I think it's I do think it's fine, and some of the action scenes are very hanime, but it does also feel again, and some of this is just we just got done watching Hurricane. We just got done watch it xtra days Ozo, we just got don't watch it, believe it the Samurai. It does feel a little no disrespect to anybody who worked very very hard on this show a little bland in comparison, and I think when you couple that with a storyline that feels like it kind of doesn't matter. Yeah it has, it doesn't have the impact that I kind of wish it had.
Yeah, I agree.
We'll be right back after a quick break.
And we're back.
Let me ask you then, Okay, So like, because it's also been an unbelievable year for anime.
Dand Dan just finished which was unbelievable. There's been so many great shows.
Let's talk about before we end this little animation start to the new year, Let's talk about Creature Commandos. Because we went enjoying Cat but the fourth episode, which when we are recording this was the newest episode.
There will be more. We know.
We haven't talked about it for a while, but we'll be checking in again. That compared to What If, which, like you said, very funny, very kind of like light. Not a lot of impact going on here in this show. It's kind of more just like a few running jokes and some outrageous episodes.
Creature Kimanos episode.
Four is the opposite, and we finally get some of that heartbreaking gun melancholia, and I think it really like upped the anti and the impact of the season so far.
Yeah, the show is really over two episodes. The first two I was like, okay.
This is we get it.
It's it's episode three about the same episode four. I'm like, okay, wait, hold on, this show is getting very very interesting. So we open uh every episode and I really love this dynamic. Every episode has been as doubled as one. An opportunity to move the main plotforward, which is what's going on with Circe.
And why Amanda Walla is after her yeah.
In this alliance with the Sons of Themyscira, and an opportunity to also delve into, you know, the story of one of the creature commanders, and this one it is Weasel. We learned from episode three that Weasel is stands accused and has, indeed, I believe, been convicted of the murders of like twenty seventy Yeah.
In the in and that was first introduced in the opening of James Gunn a suicide squad movie, where they kind of casually mentioned like, oh he's like is he a were wolf? Like, oh no, he's just this guy who killed twenty seven kids. So the idea is that's why he's in jail. That's how he ended up on the suicide squad. But we learn him through like a series of really bleak and heartbrending Flashbar really said the reality.
Of what actually.
Happened, So it's a tragic misunderstanding. Weasel was kind of lurking in the bushes near a school and he befriends the school children who then a while playing with Weasel and everything is wonderful. They go into the school to kind of cause a little like light juvenile vandalism. They accidentally set the school on fire. While that is happening. An adult who witnessed the kids go into the school with Weasel believes that they like he's like a dangerous werewolf for some kind of like magical evil animal rabbit he basically and he basically calls the cops and then starts opening fire on him, and the cops eventually arrive in the arrest Weasel. And this is after the deaths of many of the children.
Yeah, but we also learn eight of them died in the fire, so even the twenty seven number is not correct.
But yeah, I thought this was so good.
This was actually exactly what this show had been missing, because I think the stuff that gun does best is why is this person perceived as a monster?
What happened to make them monstrous?
And is it actually something they did or is it the way that they are seen by others?
And I thought this was really great. I love that it adds this.
Kind of tragic element to Weasel, which we're all going to see throughout the series. I'm feeling, especially as we go on, that each of the characters have that tragic concept of monstrosity he kind of thrust upon them.
I love. You know, Gunn is the patron saint of weirdos and outcasts, and he he displays that so well. Here we understand Weasel's backstory because of his lawyer, who you know, basically shows up at Belle Reeve to give the Creature commandos and Waller shit for their mistreatment of her client. Also at Belle Reeve is Circe, who has been captured after the battle in Pecola Stan. There's some interesting there's some real problems now because Circe is claiming that what she was doing was trying to save the world. Why is this problem because all the scientists and people who have studied Circe at Bell even elsewhere agree that she's legitimately able to predict the future with basically one hundred percent accuracy. She's very prophetic and if she's saying that this, they have to take it seriously. Waller goes in and allows Circe to project her vision of the future what she's seen into her mind, and what she's seen is the princess who flagged Junior has been fucking and is incurrent, and who everybody thought was just like a very sexually adventurous but innocent, promising, promising and promising future leader of Pecolistan is in fact a budding authoritarian world dictator in waiting who is biding her time until she can invade and you know America destroy the with and uh you know, impaled just this league on spikes, and not only is she planning to do this, she is going to fucking win.
Yeah.
And when Waller sees this, it shakes her. She's like, oh no. She tells Flag, listen, we got to send the commandos back to polost and we have to take the princess into custody and or just take her out, like kill her whatever. So Flag is like, wait a second, wait, not the princess.
That's my goal.
Oh my gosh, she would ever have what? So Flag now it begins secretly plotting against the commandos and Waller because he believes the princesses in this and this is crazy, how can we do this? And he allives with none other than Eric Frankenstein, who of course is completely obsessed in a very very toxic and dangerous way with the bride. And we actually watched this play out several times as he like kills several soldiers who he believes are like mocking his feelings over the bride, and then he at one point almost kills Flag because he believes that the bride is in love.
With Frag Yeah, not the princess. Yeah.
So this sets up in our coming episode is a conflict between Flag and the rest of the creature come and.
Waller and Flag and they kind of team up between Flag and Frankenstein.
And I would also, oh sorry, Eric, I would also say.
As well, I do I do think that this is the magic spice that James Gunn has that in comparison to What If three, which, by the way, Marvel could have this spice because they are made by the same studios. What James Gunn does in this episode is he's like, yeah, you know those like big characters the Superman trailer you just watched and everything.
Guess what I'm.
Gonna do a future where they're all dead and you're gonna feel like, oh shit, this is actually those characters. Like if we don't stop this thing in the animated series.
It could impact the real DC universe.
Yes, And I think that that is added by having you know, John Economos show up in this episode. Another connection to live action obviously, we have Viola Davis legend as Amanda Waller as that anchor. So I feel like they make you feel like, oh, this is happening, We're just watching it from a different angle.
And I feel like that is what was missing in three. And also, I mean this is just such an unbelievable cast.
Like Linda CARDLINI shows up, love her obviously, Like we get Stephanie Beetris like.
From Brooklyn nine nine.
She's playing I think, like a Gotham Academy character, which I love because I love that comic Isla Macpherson. There's just so many great moments in this episode where I was like, Okay, you know what, I take back some of my sassier opinions about the first couple of episodes because it was fun, it was a little bit light, it was a little bit saucy, like it was a little bit at G But by four I'm like, okay.
It's now, it's hitting its stride, and I love that it's spent. The first two episodes is basically a fake out of what the show was going.
To be and.
What it was going to be about. It seemed like it was going to be an extremely straightforward show. You know about this team of misfits that get sent into an impossible mission to do a thing, and it goes sideways, but you expect they eventually win. Now it turns out that hold On, the bad guy is the good guy.
The good guy.
Doesn't believe that the princess is now a bad guy, and you've got all these wonderful, really juicy conflicts brewing, and man, the show is really good.
And also, Weasel, the most monstrous character, is actually probably the only.
One who's professional gun.
Yeah, not a professional killer, and it's probably going to be like a save the Day type character.
Which is absolute, classic, classic, classic gun. Great show, and I think you're exactly right underlines what we feel is missing from season three of What If. There's not enough heartbreak, not enough sadness to make the triumphal victories mean something, not enough tie back to the main MCU storyline to give us these contrasty different angle perspective moments of like these what If sliding door moments to make the main mc really feel like it matters more. And all those things are things that Creature Commandos right now is giving us.
Yeah, great show, great show, and especially in a year like twenty twenty four when there has just been so much incredible animation.
I mean, I haven't even talked about yet on this series, So this is gonna be my my.
You might not have watched it yet animated offering now I will say it's only partially animated because it is a live action show with animated characters.
But the Knuckle Show on Paramount Plus is so fun, Like.
I cannot tell you even if you don't like those Sonic movies, however you feel about them.
Idris Elbert has.
Knuckles going on a Kingpin inspired bowling road trip with like a do Fust character called Wade Legit one of the funniest shows of the year. Like I wrote a lot about ign because I just thought it was so good. And there's even those elements that we have now of this kind of hybrid animation live action that are also offering up really cool stuff other things that we didn't even talk about Batman, Cape Crusader. It was so fun, so beautifully animated, Like it's been a great year. New Ninja Turtles obviously iconic, and I just think that, yeah, it's a little bit harder for Marvel to just be like, let's just make something when we like in the animation, Yeah, you know, renaissance essentially. And by the way, we're not even talking about some of the biggest animated shows in the world, like Rick and Morty, which have already taken a lot of the tropes and ideas that Marvel have had over the years in the comics and distilled them into a very popular reimagining and kind of reconsideration recontextualization for modern audiences. So then when Marvel's making something like what If or a Man Quantumania as we saw it feels derivative of Rick and Morty, even though that stuff is actually.
Being taken from Marble. So there's so many layers to it. Okay, Jason did you have any more.
We talked about Arcane, Blue Eyed Samurai X Men ninety seven. Was there any other great animation or animated movies you watched this year to recommend before we go.
Oh, you know what The Terminator? Uh? Yeah, heiro on Netflix. It took a little while to get cooking, but when it gets cooking, it is it has some surprises for you. And you know, we've seen the Ai comes Alive things so many times, and so there's some twists in this one that really feel shockingly fresh, especially for a Terminator series. And of course in terms of the animation.
I was gonna say production like fucking unreal, gritty, ghost in the shell, incredible action like.
Just unbelievable. Their action has this incredible like loping fast, slow rhythm to it that is a cadence to the action scene that feels almost like a dance where you feel the immense power and speed of some of these characters who are doing the thing. But then you also feel these moments of like agony where it seems like a moment where a hit is like stretched out in the most sublime way. Anyway, I really like that one as well. Yeah, well that's it for this episode That's.
Up.
We're gonna be talking about stuff.
All kinds of stuff in twenty twenty five Baby Happiner Yeah Where twenty twenty five We Can Survives Listening.
X ray Vision is hosted by Jason Kensupsion and Rosie Knight and is a production of iHeart Podcasts. Our executive producers are Joelle Smith and Aaron Kaufman. Our supervising producer is a Boo Zafar. Our producers are Carmen Laurent and Mia Taylor. Our theme song is by Brian Basquez.
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