What If… Howard the Duck got hitched?
Howard the Duck and Darcy Lewis bond after meeting at one of party Thor’s gatherings and eventually marry and welcome offspring. However, this egg-child leads to forces across the galaxy trying to take the child due to its connection to a wider cosmic happening.
Courtesy of Marvel Studios
Howard and Darcy
Back in season one of What If…? Thor was known to host wild rager parties in each of the nine realms. During one on Earth where Thor was partying in Las Vegas, both Howard and Darcy were in attendance. They share a scene where Darcy agrees to go to dinner but tells Howard it’s not a date.
Courtesy of Marvel Studios
This story picks up with them now married and welcoming a child. That dinner sparked a relationship that turned into a marriage and they are now becoming parents. From there, the Grandmaster (shout out Thor: Ragnarok) invites them to his home planet for a feast. While there, it’s revealed the Feast is actually for their egg. The pair work together to get the egg away from the Grand Master, but Yondu arrives taking the egg to Ronan the Accuser setting up one of the weirdest and wildest chases in Marvel history.
Plethora of Cameos
While trying to save their egg and being on the run, numerous characters beyond the Grandmaster, Yondu the Ravager and Ronan the Accuser try to take the egg. These include Malekith, Kaecilius from Doctor Strange, Carina, the Collector’s Slave from Guardians of the Galaxy and Zeus FROM THOR: LOVE AND THUNDER.
Getting away from these villains and henchmen causes another issue because S.H.I.E.L.D. also wants control of the egg. Nick Fury and Phil Coulson appear to try to take it insisting they need to keep it safe from all of these villains trying to get it.
Courtesy of Marvel Studios
Loki Returns
Howard takes Darcy and the egg-baby to Jötunheimr to meet with Loki. He may be the God of Mischief, but he’s now a proud son of Lauffey and showing himself off as a frost giant who is trying to turn Jötunheimr into a winter vacation destination. Loki is far more friendly and calls party Thor his brother from another mother.
Courtesy of Marvel Studios
Eventually, the villains and allies converge on the pair, but the egg hatches unveiling Byrdie. Byrdie vaporizes the villains chasing them to protect her parents. For an episode that was incredibly crazy to that point, it was an incredibly dark ending.
Rating
This episode somehow manages to capture the spirit of the Comics and provide wild, zany and absolute crazy scenarios while still being an overall letdown. It’s odd. Any comics fan understands the writers progress insane, out-there storylines that could never be shot in live action, even with the advancement of CGI. That’s where an animated series really should shine. But this episode still falls flat.
It’s not an insult to comic fans like people who don’t understand how zany comics can be, have been saying. It’s perfectly fine; it’s just not spectacular. It’s great to see Howard the Duck, and this appearance is his best in the MCU, and miles better than his awful film. And Darcy seems to be the running thread of Christmas Day episodes as she was part of Happy Hogan’s Diehard themed episode in season two. I enjoyed it, but I 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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