What If...? Season 2: What If... Happy Hogan Saved Christmas? (2023)

At the time I'm writing this, I'm six episodes into season 2 of "What If...?" and my largest takeaway might be that Disney bullocked the release of this season majorly. The first season, you may recall, felt like an event: it was treated like a significant series, episodes were released weekly, and it was widely discussed. The second season, in contrast, feels closer to the release of those Groot shorts: I doubt most subscribers of Disney+ even realize the show dropped one a day over Christmas. And that's kind of a shame because, with the exception of a couple lackluster episodes, the first six installments of this season might be better on average than those in season one.

The bad news for our purposes is I'm counting the one we're here to discuss among those "lackluster episodes." Released on December 24th, "What If Happy Hogan Saved Christmas?" is basically what you'd expect: a holiday action/comedy homage to Die Hard centered around Iron Man's head of security, voiced of course by Jon Favreau, the director who kicked off the MCU itself. Favreau is joined by fan favorites Kat Dennings (once again playing Darcy), Sam Rockwell returning as Justin Hammer, and Cobie Smothers reprising the late Maria Hill (for those who haven't seen Secret Invasion, don't bother). All the original Avengers make cameos, as well, though Iron Man, Captain America, and Black Widow are voice actors doing impressions of the original stars (Hemsworth, Ruffalo, and Renner all lend their voices to the episode, albeit briefly).

The plot concerns Justin Hammer, aided by a couple hired henchmen, breaking into Avengers tower during a Christmas party sometime between Iron Man 3 and Age of Ultron, taking control of Tony's devices and sentries, and attempting to acquire a vial of Hulk blood he can use to turn himself into another Hulk. Standing in his way are Maria Hill (who spends most of the episode with a broken leg), Happy Hogan, and Hogan's new intern, Darcy (once she's back from picking up coffee).

Hill tasks Hogan with securing the Hulk serum, but in the process he accidentally injects himself and begins slowly transforming. Hill and Darcy go on a side quest to reboot J.A.R.V.I.S., while Hogan evades the bad guys long enough to become Hulkified to the point he can hold his own even after Hammer summons the Hulk-Buster armor.

At the end the Avengers show up and Tony revokes Hammer's control with the push of a button. After a brief fight between the Avengers and the monster they assume is with Hammer, Darcy clears up the misunderstanding and everyone's friends again. Hogan evens saves Hammer from falling to his death Gruber-style. Because, you know, Christmas. There's a comedic close leaving things ambiguous as to whether Tony can "cure" Hogan.

In a sense, this is all fine. There are a handful of solid jokes, it's nice to see Hogan get a bigger role, and there's boatloads of fanservice (it's genuinely impressive these episodes have casts on par with Hollywood blockbusters). But... here's the thing....

The selling point of this series is mainly the promise of getting weird, alternate universe and alternate genre versions of these characters. The show has delivered Looney Tunes-style antics, zombie horror, and a paranoid suspense thriller, among others: while the quality varies, each episode feels like something new and surprising. Mostly.

Only this actually could have taken place in the main MCU about six months before Age of Ultron. Assuming Tony is somehow able to cure Hogan, nothing that happens here contradicts anything in the normal timeline. On top of that, the genre conventions this is playing with are ones the MCU has already done. Better, in fact.

Iron Man 3 is an MCU-set Marvel Christmas movie featuring several of the same characters, right down to a Bruce Banner cameo where the joke is that he's kind of aloof. Hawkeye's entire series was likewise set over Christmas, with similar references to Die Hard (and Hawkeye was a lot funnier). This isn't new ground.

And that's before we even touch on the fact that the MCU's default tone isn't actually that far from Die Hard's to begin with. Die Hard is, for all intents and purposes, basically just using a very well-executed version of the quip-heavy, semi-ironic generic blend of action and comedy permeating 80s movies. The MCU has been using that same formula of comedy and action, coupled with quirky, relatable characters in the vein of John McClane since the guy voicing Happy Hogan kicked all this off in 2008. I'm not saying they were specifically inspired by Die Hard - you could make the same comparison using Ghostbusters, most Shane Black movies, or a host of other films - but it's not like this is a huge deviation from the norm.

I really don't have much to offer in terms of holiday analysis here. They're basically doing a Die Hard riff, along with a handful of references to other holiday stuff. When the Avengers show up, they're all Christmasified in some way due to their plans being changed at the last minute. It's a cute visual gimmick aided with some fun musical cues, but it wasn't really enough to sell this as its own world.

Is it even an issue that an episode of "What If...?" could ambiguously be set in the MCU proper? Not if that episode is amusing enough to stand on its own or deliver a subset of the fanbase something they're missing. Lindsay, who enjoyed this a little more than me, pointed out there are fans who always felt cheated out of Avengers adventures with this team together in the Tower (aside from a throwaway line or two in Age of Ultron, the movies implied they only ever Assembled a couple of times). So this might be a nice present for that group of fans.

And, again, it's not bad. But I found myself more than a little underwhelmed watching this installment (same goes for the one directly before it). Fortunately, I found the other episodes in season 2 a lot more interesting.