The second season of Marvel’s What If…? is here. The animated series will once again take us through various hypothetical situations that put some of our favorite characters in completely new circumstances. And to kick things off, we get an answer to the question, “What If… Nebula Joined the Nova Corps?”
The episode opens with voiceover from Nebula, who explains that we’re on Xandar. She finds Yondu dead in an alley and reveals to us that in this universe, she is a member of the Nova Corps. Before she can begin investigating Yondu’s murder. She’s interrupted by Garthan Saal and a team of Nova officers. Saal seems pleased with Yondu’s death and orders his men to scrub the scene, referring to Nebula as “Black Order trash,” a reference to the codename for the children of Thanos.
After title sequence, voiceover from The Watcher and Nebula explains that, in this universe, Ronan betrayed and killed Thanos and Gamora. Nebula was then recruited by Nova Prime and took an oath to become a member of the Nova Corps. Eventually, Ronan launched an attack on Xandar, forcing Nova Prime to lockdown the planet behind a shield that would protect them but also cut them off from the rest of the galaxy. Xandar became a dystopian wasteland as a result.
Nebula returned to the crime scene to search for Yondu’s yaka arrow, using a recording of his voice to find it. When she does, she sees that it is blinking and it projects some kind of mysterious schematics. In her ship, she asks Worldmind, the Xandarian artificial intelligence, to find out exactly what this projection is, but it returns no answers. She then gets a call from Nova Prime who explains that Yondu was caught up in something big and that Xandar is in danger and only has until dawn. She gives her orders to solve this case by any means necessary.
Nebula heads to a bar/casino to look for answers. As she makes her way though the establishment, we see Groot playing craps, Miek using his blade hands to chop up some kind of food and Drax losing at a slot machine. She then works her way up to the bartender, which is Korg, and asks him if “the big man” is in. She heads up to meet this “big man,” which is none other than Howard the Duck.
After clearing the room, Nebula shows Howard the schematics but he tells her he does not know what they’re for. However, Korg enters the room and quickly explains exactly what they are: a citywide mainframe core. He also explains that this mainframe would contain source code for the shield generator. Nebula deduces that someone is trying to open the door for an invasion.
In order to get to the mainframe, Nebula needs the help of someone who knows how to infiltrate Xandarian security. She heads to a prison to enlist the help of Yon-Rogg, the villain from Captain Marvel, by breaking him out. The two escape and head off to the mainframe. Thanks to Yon-Rogg’s skills, they get to the core and Nebula hooks herself up to it in order to get the shield generator source code. However, while she is connected, Yon-Rogg betrays her and plus a drive into her head to steal the source code for himself, leaving Nebula compromised.
The room fills with water after Yon-Rogg escapes and the path closes behind him, leaving Nebula trapped inside. As she finds another way out, the core explodes, blasting her out into a tunnel. As she struggles to get up, she is approached by Yon-Rogg and Nova Prime who reveals that she set Nebula up. Nova Prime reveals that her plan is to surrender to Ronan, who promised to leave her in charge. Prime needed a cyborg to extract the code from the core, so she used Nebula. She orders a Saal and his men to kill Nebula as she walks off. Nebula tries to fight off Saal’s men but eventually she is forced to run and jump off of the top of the building on which they were fighting. Saal calls off his men, assuming Nebula is dead from the fall.
A badly broken Nebula struggles through a crowd of people who clearly do not like the Nova Corps. We then see Miek, Korg and Groot playing rock, paper, scissors back in the casino before Nebula bursts in. Howard and the others try to help Nebula, who tells then she just needs a drink and guns and an arm, which she is missing. The group fixes Nebula up and she asks again for guns. Howard is reluctant to help her any further and she explains Nova Prime’s plan to him. He’s still hesitant until she tells him Nova Prime will take his liquor license from him. Howard then refers to the other three as “Rock, Paper, Scissors,” representing Korg, Groot and Miek respectively. If anything is taken from this entire series, it should be that nickname for this group.
The five of them gear up, with Nebula taking Yondu’s fin and yaka arrow. They head off to confront Nova Prime, who is beginning the process of opening the shield as Ronan looks on from the outside. Nebula takes out a group of Nova Corpsman with the arrow and Nova Prime sees that they’re approaching. By the time Nebula nad the crew reach Nova Prime, the shield is already opening. Nebula however, reveals that this episode has one more twist. She knew Nova Prime’s plan all along and she altered the code to reclose the shield, destroying Ronan’s ship as it tried to enter and ending any threat of an invasion.
A firefight breaks out between Nebula’s group and the remaining Nova Corps. Nebula goes off after Nova Prime while Korg smashed Yon-Rogg and Saal. Prime tries to escape in her ship but Nebula grabs on and goes along for the ride. They crash the ship and wind up on top of a building. Prime tries to shoot Nebula but falls off the ledge in the process.
Nebula looks up to see the shield opening, shedding light on Xandar for the first time in this episode. Howard arrives and refers to Nebula as “the Supernova,” a codename held in the comics by Saal. Nebula promises Howard his liquor license is safe as the episode comes to a close.
This was a fantastic first episode of the second season of What If…?. The first season of the series delivered with a different genre in each episode and a sort of film noir/mystery/thriller was a great way to open up. With twists and turns and plenty of beloved characters, this was a great way to set the tone and start things off.
New episodes of Marvel’s What If…? season 2 will debut daily between now and December 30 on Disney+.