What If…? has been an enjoyable series, and so far the only Disney+ show to get a third season. Using animation eliminates budget issues for the most part, and it’s impressive how many stars return to voice their characters (although that might be a contractual thing, of course). This version of events shows a different, earlier forming version of the Avengers, although it gets my vote for Least Accurately Titled Episode, at least so far. Now we delve into “What If Peter Quinn Attacked Earth’s Mightiest Heroes?”

The show starts off with an alien ship crashing in New York in 1986 after being shot down by American military jets. Of course, they were told they couldn’t allow the ship to enter American airspace, and it ended up in New York City, so I guess that didn’t work so well. Emerging is a very young Peter Quill, although he’s also very different from the Star-Lord of the Guardians of the Galaxy. The young man clearly possesses powers, and the Watcher shares the cause of this change in history: Yondu didn’t raise Quill but turned over the kidnapped youngster to Ego, his father. Ego goes on about his plan, the Expansion, which will pretty much wipe out everything that isn’t him.

At Project PEGASUS (something I don’t think we’ve seen since the first Avengers movies), an odd assemblage of characters is discussing the new threat the world is facing. Peggy Carter and Howard Stark are leading the discussion, and the team they end up with includes the original Ant-Man with his young daughter Hope (I guess Scott Lang has a very different life in this reality), Bill Foster (Giant-Man from Ant-Man and the Wasp), T’Chaka, King of Wakanda (T’Challa’s father, at least in the main MCU), the Winter Soldier (who makes Peggy and Howard very uncomfortable as they remember Bucky), and Wendy Lawson with her assorted Kree tech (from Captain Marvel). The team goes to confront Peter, which goes poorly, and then everyone gets another surprise with the arrival of Thor, who has his own grudge against Ego and those who share his power.

Peter is eventually subdued, and everyone returns to PEGASUS to debate what to do next. Hope, unwisely left unsupervised, dances through the halls, finds Peter in the cell he’s been put in, and they bond over lost mothers and music. Hope, good-hearted kid that she is, ends up freeing Peter, much to everyone’s annoyance and worry. While Earth’s heroes debate what to do next, we see Peter making his escape and learn more about what’s actually going on. There has been a major misunderstanding, and things are actually worse than the heroes initially thought.

The team ends up splitting up, as Hank and Wendy try and go find Peter, while everyone else confronts a newly-arrived Ego. Suffice to say things go poorly. Ego is a vastly powerful being, and by the end of this, I’m wondering what would have happened if he’d clashed with Thanos (there you go, a What If suggestion). Hank manages to get through to Peter, Winter Soldier has a major breakthrough, and the heroes get a major new ally as they keep losing to Ego. Finally, Ego is defeated, Peter even gets in a reference to his Star-Lord name, and there’s a great after party. We also see the start of this group’s next adventure, and an interesting new living arrangement.

What I Liked: They did a good job of drawing together characters from assorted side references to pre-MCU adventures we never really saw. The new team was fun to watch. We never got to see Bill Foster in action, which is fixed here, and Thor’s inclusion made a lot of sense when we learned what had happened in his worlds. The scenes with Hope were entertaining. It was nice getting to actually see more of Wendy Lawson in action, and the different lease on life for the Winter Soldier. While they never showed up, there were some good references to Steve Rogers and Tony Stark. It was good to see more of Howard and Peggy, too.

What I Didn’t: The episode was badly titled. While I will easily grant that Ego is hugely powerful, it seemed like Thor was beaten a bit too easily. For all Wakanda’s super-science, we only see T’Chaka in hand-to-hand combat.

I enjoyed this episode. It was a lot of fun, and it’s easy to imagine that team having a lot more adventures, and wondering of any of the other Marvel heroes would eventually emerge in that world. I’ll give this one a 4 out of 5. What If is really impressing me, and I look forward to getting a chance to watch more episodes.