What If…? was a great comic series that let the readers, and writers, explore many different turns in the Marvel Universe. The animated series, set in more or less the MCU with its own new spins, has been vastly entertaining as well. In this episode, parts of both 2012’s Avengers movie and Thor: Ragnarok are reshuffled to give us “What if Iron Man Crashed Into the Grandmaster?”

The big divergence point here is that at the end of the Battle of New York, Iron Man manages to divert the missile the Council launched on New York City, but doesn’t make it back through the wormhole before it closes up. Obviously, this would greatly affect the Avengers in that timeline, but we never see that. Instead, Tony gets shunted through interdimensional space and eventually lands, badly, on Sakaar, home of the MCU version of the Grandmaster (voiced by Jeff Goldblum, in his delightfully demented take on the role).

Tony, of course, wants to go home, but doesn’t really have a way to, and gets stuck watching the Grandmaster’s birthday party. Where the Sakaar we saw was heavily into gladiatorial games, this version is obsessed with what Tony calls “intergalactic NASCAR,” although it’s closer to a combination of demolition derby and Death Race. Valkyrie is much as we saw here in the MCU, and is one of the best racers on the planet. Things get weird when her prize for wining is to face down a giant boar-like creature. Tony tries to help, although his armor is far from in great shape, and things get further disrupted by the appearance of Gamora, who Thanos sent to hunt down Iron Man. Gamora’s appearance here likely means this timeline’s Guardians of the Galaxy are also very different, if they end up forming at all.

Grandmaster doesn’t take kindly to his party being crashed, and Gamora and Tony end up in the dungeons, where we also see Korg (Taika Waititi returning for this role). Naturally, the assorted characters don’t really get on, and equally naturally they all want out. Well, it’s anyone’s guess what Korg really wants. He himself might not know. There’s an escape, during which Tony learns more about Gamora, and Korg gets a really entertaining line about his nemesis. The escape is short lived, but Tony slips away again, this time working on a new plan.

Even lost on a planet far from home, the man’s a hero, and he begins work on a new set of armor, specially designed for this odd world. He eventually recruits Valkyrie into his effort, but I think she mostly joins out of boredom and curiosity. All of this turns into a really hyper-violent race, with a lot of destruction and what looked to me at least like a nod to the old Hot Wheels toys. Somewhere in here is also the most mellow alarm ever. After a lot of twists and turns, Sakaar gets a new ruler, Gamora completes a quest, and much of the major events of the MCU are either prevented or drastically altered. The final scene is a bit more silliness from one of the odder characters in this episode.

What I Liked: This episode had a great sense of humor throughout it. I was, as usual, impressed by how many of the actors they got to come back for this. Jeff Goldblum really does have far too much fun with this role. Some What Ifs are just sort of minor changes to the history; this one would have made the MCU virtually unrecognizable.

What I Didn’t: Even for a genius, Tony adapted to alien technology really, really quickly. The big surprise near the end happened a bit too easily in my opinion.

All in all, a very enjoyable episode. I’ll give this one a 4 out of 5.