What if ... The Red Guardian stopped the Winter Soldier?
Red Guardian wants to serve Mother Russia honorably, but his home country chooses to send the Winter Soldier on a mission he wants. So, Red Guardian steps in to stop the Winter SoldieR.
Courtesy of Marvel Studios
Red Guardian Loves Russia
The Red Guardian wants to serve his beloved Russia but is less than thrilled when he’s assigned an undercover mission as a data analyst in Ohio named Bob Toledo. Rather than go where he’s supposed to go, he hops on the Winter Soldier’s mission and tries to help get the drop the Red Room wants.
Courtesy of Marvel Studios
This, of course, leads to problems as the Winter Soldier has been told no witnesses and is intended to kill the Starks for the information. Instead, Red Guardian just wants to get what they came for and leave. They argue until police arrive and they have to flee. Winter Soldier informs the Red Room they got one of three boxes and two people survived. He’s told it’s “mission failure” and there will be no extraction. Now, Winter Soldier and Red Guardian are on the lam.
Fugitives from Justice
The rangers who find the Starks’ car call in S.H.I.E.L.D. for help. Agent Bill Foster arrives and learns from Ranger Morales that Howard Stark saw two people arguing. The ranger thinks it's a carjacking gone wrong, but Agent Foster knows they are dealing with enhanced humans.
Meanwhile, Red Guardian and the Winter Soldier are trying to get out of the US, but S.H.I.E.L.D. catches up to them, and the pair try to flee in a convertible. Bill Foster breaks out his Goliath persona to try to catch the two fugitives. They flee and, in a nice homage to Thelma and Louise, drive their car over a cliff. The car is destroyed but the two enhanced supersoldiers survive and continue to flee.
Courtesy of Marvel Studios
They decide to head to Las Vegas to find Rook, the intel operatives in the US who gave them the info on the Starks. However, Winter Soldier receives a call from the Red Room telling him his new mission is to kill the Red Guardian. Winter Soldier and Red Guardian have been bonding, so Winter Soldier doesn’t want to do that.
Rook is Revealed
The pair make it to Las Vegas to meet up with Rook. It’s revealed that Rook is just Obadiah Stane who only sold the intel in exchange for the Starks being killed, which didn’t happen. Red Guardian has a crisis of confidence as he realizes his beloved Russia is in bed with capitalists like Stane.
Courtesy of Marvel Studios
The pair kill Stane before Goliath arrives to continue their battle after the attack on the Starks. The pair fend him off, but Hydra descends on them. Winter Soldier reveals that Hydra and the Red Room ordered Red Guardian killed, but Winter Soldier couldn’t do it. Winter Soldier is taken back in for conditioning and tells his overseers that Red Guardian died a hero defending Russia.
Bob Toledo
The episode ends with Bob Toledo working as a gym teacher in the US. He’s still speaking out against the evils of capitalism as Red Guardian is still a proud Russian. He’s just hiding from those who seek to kill him.
Bill Foster shows up and hints that he knows who Bob Toledo really is. He returns Red Guardian’s shield. Red Guardian thinks he’ll be arrested but instead Foster offers him a spot on the Avengers. The episode ends with an animated version of the iconic scene from Avengers that circles around the team with Red Guardian joining the main six.
Courtesy of Marvel Studios
Rating
This episode is not nearly as strong as the previous episode featuring Agatha Harkness and Kingo the Eternal. However, it has some strengths that definitely work better than the season opener about Hulk and the Mech Avengers. It’s interesting to see what could’ve happened with Red Guardian had he interfered with the Winter Soldier killing Tony Stark’s parents.
My only issue is with the final scene. If Howard Stark survives and ObAdiah Stane is killed, then there’s like not an Iron Man, because Tony Stark isn’t captured in the Middle East. It’s also unclear if Natasha Romanov would’ve been part of the Avengers as the Red Room wouldn’t have paired her with Red Guardian as a child. She still becomes a Black Widow, but she likely doesn’t become an Avenger. That scene was clearly put in to be a cool visual without thought about how the events of the episode would’ve affected that scene. Still, I liked the episode but didn’t love it.
Check out What If…? streaming exclusively on Disney Plus.
Article Written By: Jeremy Brown for Stelmach Brown Media 2024
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