In the latest episode of What If?, Odin never adopts Loki and so without Loki testing him through the centuries, Thor becomes a "frat boy" who constantly wants to party. When he brings the party to Earth along with Asgardians like Sif and frost giant Loki and a bunch of aliens including the Grandmaster, Nebula, Korg, and Howard the Duck (all voiced by the original actors), SHIELD gets involved. Korg accidentally injures Fury though so Maria Hill has to take over and she summons Captain Marvel back from space because she fears Thor's partying will destroy the entire planet.

Maria Hill says that one Captain Marvel punch is equivalent to ten nuclear bombs and that she should beat Thor. Carol starts the fight by punching Thor, who isn't interested in fighting. But then she punches him again when he's still trying to talk it out. Then he hits Carol and knocks her from Paris to Stonehenge in the UK. She lands against one of the stones and almost knocks it over, but she uses her super strength to steady it. Thor arrives and when Carol tells him to be careful around the landmark, Thor taps one of the stones with one finger and knocks all of Stonehenge down. This really pisses Carol off and she punches Thor over 5,000 miles from the UK to Monument Valley, Utah. Thor gets up like nothing happened.

They exchange numerous blows until Carol knocks Thor away. He uses Mjolnir to shoot lightning at her, which does absolutely nothing. I assume her power is still like the comics and she can absorb energy. Thor is surprised by this, and she delivers a huge punch that knocks Thor into the ground creating a giant crater. He gets up again and Carol tosses him through the air again. She starts punching him and she's sending him over the tropical Pacific now, apparently over Hawaii. They land in some storm clouds and fight some more. Then Thor knocks Carol back to Paris. She's only stunned for a second, but it's enough time for Thor to put Mjolnir on top of her and she's trapped. Thor then takes Mjolnir and walks away.

Carol goes back to Maria Hill who berates her, and Captain Marvel says if she uses her full power against Thor, it would create a giant crater in the planet. Darcy offers up North or South Dakota as collateral damage. Hill and Carol come up with a plan to get Thor to Siberia to finish him off. Thor is in Sydney, Australia, and about to slide down the side of the opera house when Captain Marvel blindsides him and knocks him to Siberia. Thor says, "I actually felt that one." They are about to clash again when Frigga appears as she was brought by Jane Foster. And that's the entire fight.

So there you have it. The MCU's big guns go head-to-head and more or less come out even. Captain Marvel was holding back some due to the potential for collateral damage, but Thor was clearly not fighting his hardest either as he never took the fight seriously. Carol looked better on points but part of that was because she was the aggressor while Thor didn't want to fight, and even despite that, he immobilized her in the first fight to technically win it. And the scale of the fight was planetary. They literally fought around the entire globe, starting in Paris and ending in Paris.

Well done recap Zvelf. I think Thor looked really impressive against CM given it really seemed like this Party version of Thor really has no interest in a brawl and just wanted to continue the fun times. CM looked like she really was going ALL out without going into Binary mode. Thor tanked ALL she had very casually. Then Thor humbled CM with pinning her under his hammer as if he could have done that at just about anytime.

On another level I always enjoy Thor and his Mother interacting, I really loved the MCU time travel scene when Fat Thor meets his Mom again and comforts him. IMHO both Actors nailed that whole sub-plot so nicely.

The big battle for the last two What IF episodes is going to be EPIC!!!

I thought the voice acting was fun in this one too. Some of these it seems like the actors are phoning it in or are just not used to voice acting.

Everybody here, particularly Hemsworth and Hiddleston, were having a good time.

I agree with the take on the fight. To me they were fairly even through most of it. Even at the end it is the classic the fight was stopped situation. They played up super strength, that is for sure for both.

I do agree that CM looked better in general, but that Thor was not taking it seriously either and was more than able to hold his own and even win the first round. It is clear that CM and Hill thought it would not take the effort that it turned out it would.

And the thing you left out is that they still were not sure if CM could do it. Hill was going to have the area nuked while they were fighting to kill Thor for sure. Or at least she thinks it would. She says CM would be fine, but it is more a throw away line that she did not really care.

it seemed though that they thought Nukes would kill off Thor and not her, and she did seem to have the edge when they fought!

seemed that they were evenly matched, but that Carol has not yet gone full blown power levels!

The NUKE option was a last-ditch option because CM was NOT getting the job done per Agent Hill/Shield and even then, they were not sure that it would work bringing Thor down. It was a complete "Hail Mary" move because they did not think anyone could stop Thor and the funny thing is he was not even trying to fight CM in a serious manner. If CM was winning why go with the nukes? Her going Binary mode was NOT a guarantee win either only another last-ditch effort…

Just saying that they seem to be implying that the Nukes would stop Thor but not her!

Thor saying "I almost felt that one" makes it sound like nothing she was doing was affecting him.

Yeah, but Thor hadn't either. At no point did Thor even get really angry during the fight and was mostly fighting reluctantly.

By "they" you mean Maria Hill, but Hill doesn't know what can stop Thor. Hill specifically stated that Captain Marvel's punches carry the power of ten nuclear bombs and Thor wasn't bothered by those punches despite it launching him from one continent to another. In MCU continuity, Thor took the "full force" of a neutron star for an extended period of time before falling. Some nukes don't top that.

I agree with your comments here and above

Regardless of exact power levels, if we go off of powers displayed it made the brief scuffle between Hulk and zombie Scarlet Witch look like kids play

In other words they both showed powers significantly higher than the Hulk ZSW battle

I take it all with a grain of salt. In the live action stuff, its at least implied that Scarlet Witch and Captain Marvel are tops, but you could make some arguments otherwise.

In the what ifs, Thanos seemed kind of wimpy compared to the guys who worked for him in the mainstream MCU when T'challa became Starlord...certainly didn't seem like someone who could beat down the Hulk.

That said, I thought the episode did a good job at keeping it vague enough and treating both characters with respect....much like the Thor vs. Iron Man vs. captain America fight in Avengers, and the Thor vs. Hulk fights

I do think the choice in the MCU to try to make CM and Wanda potentially clearly tops is a questionable one. I also think Endgame did a disservice to Hulk, and never gave him the chance to redeem himself as a physical powerhouse.

I have always felt the best way to handle it was to make Hulk pretty clearly the strongest, most durable, fastest healer, CM have better EP, speed, etc. with Thor being the best all arounder, so a reasonable argument could be made for any of them being the most powerful...throw Wanda into the mix as maybe even the most versatile with EP, but no durability and strength....fine....but that is a discussion for a different time.

Sort of, I mean she was unable to hurt Thor either and was trying. Thor was not really taking the fight very seriously and he won the exchange.

The second fight going all out she was able to hurt him, but it was not going to be a sure thing.

I think that is best but this is the first conflict we have had between characters like that.

I mean the SW vs Hulk was not bad. It assumed Hulk lost I think and that seemed about right. In the films I would agree that it is those two, but SW is something of a glass cannon.




True, although his motivation was different and not sure if the BO turned on him how he would do. He was fairly limited in the movies in many respects. The one guy with telekinesis hypothetically could have done similar to what SW was doing to him if he was not a devotee.




Yeah, although in those there were clear ways the fights were going. They just did not reach conclusions. Which is for the best.




I do not think it is bad to have them as powerhouses IMO. I just thing it is wrong to have them on a different tier. SW to me is less of an issue than CM. As CM is so powerful than Thanos cannot even hurt her without an infinity stone. I get having her powerful, but to me that is too much.

Hulk got a lifting feat and the gauntlet, but I do agree with you that Hulk got shafted in Endgame. Thor got the fat thing and was the fool but did some cool things even if I thought he should have looked a bit better. Hulk is part of the main team and founders. I figured he was going to show up at some point and at least get a punch or so in.




I mean I think that is reasonable honestly. I honestly think that CM grates on me so much because her story was very weak, she is not shown as that likable and she is given great power to just sort of have it.

With her level of power at the moment she is more like Sentry in the end and may work better as a villain of sorts.

I think it's very clear from the fight being interrupted with no decisive winner that Marvel wants the MCU power hierarchy to be unclear. I do think it is clear though that Iron Man would have beaten Cap in Civil War had Bucky not been present and had Iron Man not been withholding from using lethal force. Likewise, in Thor: Ragnarok, Hulk looked all but beaten until the Grandmaster interfered with the fight. I mean, if the Hulk does a brutal ground-and-pound on Thor and Thor just gets up even stronger, then what else can Hulk do?




Agree with Hulk not getting to shine more in Endgame, but I guess the writers thought it was enough that he was the one who brought back half the universe. This What If episode goes a long way toward saying CM and Wanda are not clearly the tops and that this kind of thing is debatable. I think Marvel recognizes it's to their advantage if fans debate the power hierarchy.

I mean it is a comics sort of trope that goes back to the beginning of comics, film and so on. Who would win...

oddly Marvel has gotten worse about it in the comics. For years things were left mostly vague when equals or near so fought but seems anymore there has to be a winner and the ending never in doubt when it happens.

Just odd.

True, although we did not see a drawn out fight there. SW destroyed a building easily and was picking heroes off one by one easily. Hulk started to fight her and then our view was off.

However, I do agree that they did for sure show power level at a high end there. I honestly sort of wish they would have shown things like that in the movies a bit more between the heavy hitters. It got the point across though.

I enjoyed it at the least. More than just getting knocked back dozens of feet with folks with power that is supposed to be that high.

Yeah, when I referenced some of the fights, I meant more from a treating characters with respect perspective.

But yeah, I agree, it brings things back into reasonable debate territory.

They assumed that Nukes could Kill Thor that means they can kill Thor?
Is that what you're saying?

When they Thought their last resort Captain Marvel was enough to beat him the first time right?

How did that go?

Marvel or the Characters in the show?

I'd like some clarity from such a vague statement...

Because if you assume that Marvel Believes that, then you're wrong...

Now if you assume the characters are implying that...well yeah I assume they would think that since absolutely nothing else worked and thats their last resort!

But let's ask ourselves something...
Why would they be so confident in that if Carol herself is said to punch many times harder than just one nuke?

So if that's true why would a nuke work when their last resort Carol wasn't enough?

Hmmmm...

Sounds like they don't know what to do and can imply anything at all...

Not that any of that will matter.