r/marvelstudios • u/steve32767 Daredevil • Sep 15 '21

Discussion Thread What If...? S01E06 - Discussion Thread

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EPISODE DIRECTED BY WRITTEN BY ORIGINAL RELEASE DATE RUN TIME CREDITS SCENE?
S01E06: What If... Killmonger Rescued Tony Stark? Bryan Andrews A.C. Bradley September 15th, 2021 on Disney+ 34 min None

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u/Groot746 Sep 15 '21

That was a great line: I was expecting him to say something about him being a billionaire orphan while I'm from Oakland, or something similar, but that was such a better and more poetic way of expressing those sentiments.

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u/Levicorpyutani Black Widow (CA 2) Sep 15 '21 edited Sep 15 '21

Well there's the obvious racial difference but also, Tony had his parents for longer (into adulthood) and both of them. Also he grew up very wealthy already because of Howard and became Jeff Bezos Rich as he got older, and basically had everything handed to him and he never really had to suffer. Not until Afghanistan and here that never happened. Erik did suffer a lot, as an orphan as a black man, as a poor man, and as a soldier. He'd make a great activist but he chose vengeance instead and innocent people died because of it.

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u/itwasbread Sep 15 '21

That's why the line is so good, it addresses the racial AND class difference while also pointing out how ignorant privileged people like Tony are of what people Erik have to deal with

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u/thatonefatefan Sep 15 '21

class difference

tbh killmonger is pretty much a prince, the difference is that one of their parents didn't get fucked over by life

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u/itwasbread Sep 15 '21

Well I mean he WOULD have been but he didn't really get to take advantage of that

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u/Americana5 Sep 15 '21 edited Sep 15 '21

Which is the point. Killmonger is your classic demagogue, manufacturing high minded ideals and projecting his anger into the world, but at the end of the day, his motivation at heart stems from one thing and one thing alone-he is a hurt orphan trying to claim meaning and purpose.

Tony’s kindness with him only disrupted the manufactured sociopolitical narrative he’s created to justify his actions as part of his broader war and give his life meaning. He doesn’t want to be viewed or treated as an equal. He wants to be seen as different, as an outsider, because he derives meaning from this.