Killmonger Surprises Nobody in the What If? Finale

The Season 1 finale of Marvel's What If...? debuted on Wednesday, bringing the ambitious first chapter of the Marvel Cinematic Universe's first animated series to a close. The episode was chock-full of elements that were designed to captivate fans, especially as the "Guardians of the Multiverse" began to assemble. That being said, one moment — particularly, one involving Erik Killmonger (Michael B. Jordan) — appears to have played right into fans' expectations. Spoilers for the Season 1 finale of Marvel's What If...?, "What If... The Watcher Broke His Oath?", below! Only look if you want to know.

The episode saw The Watcher (Jeffrey Wright) uniting heroes from various worlds to fight Ultron (Ross Marquand), who had gained the Infinity Stones and threatened to destroy all life across the multiverse. The team orchestrated a plan to trap Ultron in his own Earth and crush his Infinity Stones into nothingness, a fight that proved to be surprisingly difficult. At a certain point, it seemed like the team could win, as Natasha Romanoff / Black Widow (Lake Bell) shot an arrow embedded with the Arnim Zola virus into Ultron, changing his internal programming. As Zola began to take control, Killmonger used a spare Ultron bot head to call the Ultron armor towards him, and took control of the Infinity Stones themselves. When the rest of the Guardians called him out on this, he argued that the stones could be used to fix their respective realities — but was then pulled into a fight with Zola/Ultron, until Doctor Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch) intervened and trapped the two in a pocket universe.

The moment left the battle of What If...? on an unexpected note — but also surprised basically no one, considering the way Killmonger betrayed basically everyone in his path during his previous episode. Here are just a few reactions to that scene.