What If Vision as Ultron Is the New Thanos for the Guardians of the Multiverse
Ultron is here in the latest What If…? and he could possibly be the new Thanos for the fledgling Guardians of the Multiverse. "What If Thor Was An Only Child" introduced fans to a version of the Avengers villain where he was actually Vision. This reveal comes right at the tail end of the Disney+ adventure. All season long, What If has been hinting at a larger unifying threat, and it seems like Ultron would be a good candidate. Thanos has popped up multiple times over the course of this season and it seems like Marvel has cooled on using the Mad Titan as the main villain for much of anything in Pase 4. Remember just a few months ago when Loki decided to just riff on how inconsequential the Infinity Stones were during its run? This could help signal that as well.
Having Ultron be a recurring villain would give the group of heroes a formidable threat. One that audiences could more easily latch onto than the pile of tentacles that has been something of a recurring character this season. Also, Zombie Thanos from the previous episodes will probably be thwarted in some way, shape, or form. If the Avengers assembled in a universe, it would stand to reason that there would be a version of Ultron skulking around. (To take this to the logical extreme, it's possible that if Tony Stark exists, there would be a version of the malicious machine afoot too.) Fans will just have to wait and find out for themselves.
What If…? character designer Paul Lasaine spoke to The Direct about what could be coming up in Season 2.
"Some of the new movies that are coming out, there are some characters [in Season 2] that are based on that. And then there's some that are brand new, like... literally brand new," Lasaine shared. "There was one thing, and this is a Season 2 thing, and this will not be a spoiler, but we wanted to do this cool effect in this one place, and it was really a cool, interesting camera effect. And the producers came back and said 'Well, actually, we're gonna be doing that on this other movie which isn't coming out yet for another year or two, so can you come up with a different effect?' 'Ok, yeah, sure, we can do that.' It doesn't happen that often, again because we are primarily basing...every one of these episodes, for the most part, is based on these existing movies, even if it's a mash-up. You know, our Episode 2 was Guardians of the Galaxy and Black Panther, so we know what that pretty much entails, and we don't go too far off field."
Do you think Ultron is the endgame in What If? Let us know in the comments!