What If... Happy Hogan Saved Christmas?

If the first series of What If... went to the darker aspects of Marvel multiverse.

The second series has been lighter and frothier so far. This Christmas episode is what if Happy Hogan did Die Hard.

As Happy Hogan the head of security for Tony Stark is getting everything ready for the Avengers Christmas party.

Justin Hammer (Sam Rockwell) breaks into Stark Tower with two goons just as JARVIS is off line for a defrag. It allows Hammer to reprogram the robots.

Hammer wants the Hulk serum. It's Happy Hogan who realises that he is at the wrong place at the wrong time and gets to the serum first.

With Disney purchasing 20th Century Fox, they could poke fun of their acquired properties. This was an entertaining instalment. I liked when the other Avengers show up, they go for the wrong target.

After such a great start in episode 1, What If...? Season 2 has gone very quickly downhill. Episode 2 was weak and rushed, this one was just weak. Even with such an interesting premise as "what if Die Hard was made by Marvel for the greater MCU?" it fails pretty hard.

There's some funny dialogue - maybe one or two lines of it - and VERY little changed from the mainline MCU - the established characters are all mostly the same as the ones we know from Earth-616/The Sacred Timeline - which makes for a quicker way to get into the story, but the story itself is NOT good. In ANY way.

Though we do get another, new-to-the-MCU, character that could prove interesting down the track. Maybe. But not likely, if I'm honest.

Imagine having all the infinite universes, with literally infinite possibilities (because that's what the multiverse is all about) and throwing all those possibilities away to show more of the same. That's exactly what this episode did.

Even with the possibilities of the infinite multiverse, the episode boils down to the Avengers saving the day once again.

Almost nothing in this new universe is really new, apart from one or two characters who wouldn't be there in the original universe - but who are still so poorly developed that they're not even captivating.

This episode, like so many other Marvel shows, was just more of the exhausting "more of the same"

This episode is my least favorite, it was sort of fun, but worthless mostly. It's like they made this episode just to fit Christmas. No stakes, no character development. What they should've done is make a more solid what if...? At the Avengers tower, with Christmas more as a back drop. Like, if this was a 22 episode season, why not. But this only has 9 episodes, 8 if you don't count the finale as a real what if...?. So using this episode just to make Happy Hogan something else. Not worth it.

The word count is so much, so I'm just going to keep typing on and on. So yeah, you defiantly got my review.

The way the villain easily hacks the systems, how the supposedly heros aren't talking the situation seriously, I mean for a "filler" it should at least be fun. But it's only really really dumb.

So I'd just advise you guys to save your precious time and skip this one. But also if you are from the US (which I'm obviously not) you may find it ok since the whole plot is about Christmas and such.

Since I don't feel Happy has charisma, I usually don't like his stories.

Ok at this point I'm just trying to reach the minimum required characters.

But that's what there is to it, a Christmas plot with no appealing whatsoever.