What If… Kahori Reshaped the World?

Marvel’s “What If…?” series, in all its different versions, explores various what-could- have-been realities. The animated series has also managed to bring back many of the actors to voice their characters. This time, they take the bold steps of creating new characters and also giving an opportunity for some very rare Native representation. This episode’s stroll down Possibility Lane is “What If Kahori Reshaped the World?”

Much of this episode focuses on the Mohawk people. I am glad Marvel is doing this, and the care they took behind the scenes and working with actual Natives was impressive. There is even a special dub of the episode in Kanien’keha (Mohawk). So before I start on the episode itself, a thank you to Marvel/Disney for the care they took with this.

The major divergence that causes this world is a much earlier and uglier battle between Odin and Surtur, which destroyed Agard entirely and cast the Tesseract to Earth, in the midst of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy, which in our world would eventually be known as the Mohawk Nation. After some scenes of village life, two kids run off into the woods and find a disturbing old battlefield. They find a lake with an odd history, or at least many strange stories about it, and try and unravel some of the mystery that surrounds it.

Their time in the woods gets interrupted by the brutal arrival of the Spanish conquistadors. This goes just as violently and ugly as in our world, with needless slaughter egged on by judgmental religion and greed. Kahori, who is of course one of the two kids, flees back to the forbidden lake, and eventually ends up in contact with the Tesseract. She is suddenly transported to a strange different world, populated by some of the people that have been missing for some time. Kahori has the opportunity to essentially live out her time in a kind of Paradise, but remembers what she fled from.

Not one to meekly accept, well, anything, Kahori tries to rally the people there to go back and fight the invaders. Back in the real world, the conquistadors press their attack, drawn by tales of the forbidden lake, which they have mixed with legends of the Fountain of Youth. Unfortunately, Kahori’s friend didn’t take the journey she did, and the conquistadors have captured him and learned where the lake is.

Kahori and her new friend, Atahraks, explore the limits of the powers the Tesseract has given them, and her fighting sprit begins to rub off on her companion. She struggles to get back home, but can’t master what she needs to do. Then she gets distracted when Atahraks tells her about a rare event that’s happening, which is clearly tied to changes wrought by the Tesseract. She joins in and gets something of a power upgrade, surprising the others that have been there for so much longer than she has. While she makes a name for herself, the conquistadors finally find the lake, but it isn’t at all what they thought it was, and splits the invaders into two groups.

While one group prepares itself to return to Spain with slaves, the others, who made it to the magical world, continue their usual ways of attack and conquer. Kahori has power now, and she’s not going to allow this. Easily defeating the armored interlopers, Kahori makes a rousing speech to the Mohawks about returning to their own lands. She goes back on her own, finds the flaming wreckage the conquistadors have left behind, and tracks them to their ships. What follows is a brief but intense battle with numbers and flintlocks on one side and superhuman powers and righteous rage on the other. Kahori also managed to summon reinforcements, just to completely overwhelm the conquistadors. Then things take a major change from the world we know, as the Mohawks decide there’s no real point in stopping at only one victory, and Kahori takes her objections to Spanish colonialism all the way up the chain of command. After an impressive “discussion” in the throne room, Kahori gets a visit from a variant of a certain Sorcerer Supreme, and the door to more adventures for her is opened.

What I Liked: I love that the Natives are getting representation, and it’s not all, “New Hero with Animal Name and buckskins uses animal powers.” I give Marvel huge credit for working with actual Natives to get the details right. Kahori is an interesting new character and I hope to see more of her.

What I Didn’t: Not much. The guest at the end seemed shoehorned in.

I really enjoyed this alternate history. I will give this one a 5 out of 5.

As an aside, I’ve seen in several places that Kahori gained powers “like Captain Marvel.” There have been many heroes to use that name at at least two different companies, and Kahori wasn’t really like any of them.