‘What If…?’ Season 2 Episode 2 Summary & Ending Explained: What If Peter Quill Attacked Earth’s Mightiest Heroes?

For the next nine days, fans of the MCU will be able to enjoy one episode of ‘What If…?’ per day. The second season of the popular animated show kicked off yesterday with the inaugural episode, ‘What If Nebula Joined the Nova Corps,’ and I have to say it was an amazing story. Today, we have something different on the slate as the episode will explore Peter Quill and his origin. To be more exact, we’re going to see what would happen if Star-Lord attacked Earth’s Mightiest Heroes with his father’s ego. Let’s go!

Peter Quill returns to Earth, and he is beyond powerful

The episode begins with Captain Carter and the Avengers chasing an aerial target; something is entering Earth’s atmosphere at high speed; the target is hit by a missile and lands in the middle of New York. The year is 1988, and a couple of policemen are on the scene, ready to shoot down whatever leaves the space debris. What stands in front of them now is young Peter Quill, and he does not look happy.

The Watcher narrates that Quill is ready to destroy both Earth and the Universe, and he clearly has enough juice to prove it since he managed to blow up an entire squad of police cars.

This variant of Peter Quill had pretty much the same origin story as Peter Quill from Earth-615. He was kidnapped by Yondu and the Ravagers when he was a little boy, but instead of having a change of heart and keeping the kid, Yondu was more than happy to deliver him to his Celestial father, Ego.

As soon as Quill arrived at his father’s base, Ego took his walkman and replaced it with, well, power. Ego worked on killing everything human inside Peter and worked on instilling in him his own values. He managed to brainwash young Peter Quill into following in his own footsteps and assist him with his primary plan, The Expansion.

Peggy Carter needs to assemble the Avengers

Howard Stark and Peggy Carter are taking a look at Peter’s activity outside of the solar system and notice that every single place that he has visited gets destroyed by cosmic radiation within 24 hours since his arrival; Stark and Carter are aware that something needs to be done and Carter plans on assembling Earth’s mightiest heroes.

The 1988 roster of Avengers includes Hank Pym (Ant-Man), Bill Foster (Goliath), T’Chaka (Black Panther), and Bucky Barnes (Winter Soldier). They are ready to head to Brooklyn to contain the danger and are met by Dr. Wendy Lawson (Mar-Vell). Stark comments that her uniform doesn’t look like regular Air Force issues, and Lawson retorts that it’s not; it’s Kree Starforce Uniform.

Hank Pym gives everyone funny nicknames: Black Panther is Cat-Man, Mar-Vell is Space Broad, Goliath is Giant-Man, and Bucky Barnes is Silent-But-Deadly. Mar-Vell herself gives Hank a funny nickname, too, dubbing him the Crusty Guy.

Avengers decide to retreat when Thor shows up

Once they arrive in Brooklyn, the Avengers are met with a scene of utter destruction as Peter manages to lay the entire part of the city to waste. Young Peter is at a carnival and takes a look at the stand with stuffed animals. He levitates a raccoon toy and destroys the rest. Avengers are stalking Quill across the Carnival; he rides on the rollercoaster, and Peggy has a plan on how to bring him down.

The first to jump into action is Ant-Man, who covers his candy floss with ants and proceeds to attack him with swarms of flying ants. He is lured to a house of mirrors, where Black Panther waits with a proton field to trap him. As the proton field activates red lasers, behead the stuffed raccoon toy with their lasers. Peter is enraged and brings down the entire house of mirrors, sending Black Panther through the air.

Goliath manages to trap him underneath the metal roof, but Peter blows it up, continuing with his rampage as the Avengers scramble desperately to think of a plan to corner him and neutralize him. They decide to retreat, but Peter attempts to destroy the Quinjet as they are taking off. In the last second, they are saved by Thor, who incapacitates the kid with his lighting strike, putting him unconscious.

Quill already destroyed the Nine Realms

Thor briefs the Avengers on what kind of danger the child exactly poses and explains that he is responsible for destroying Asgard and the rest of the realms with Earth the only one left standing. He explains that Ego left behind Celestial Seedlings that act like some sort of a fuse that needs to be lit, and as soon as Celestial Seedling blows up, the planet is destroyed, and Ego is one step closer to the Expansion.

Thor managed to recover Earth’s Seedling from Missouri; Stark asks why they can’t simply destroy the seedling, and Thor further explains that seedlings are protected with a veil of Celestial energy, and the only being that can penetrate it has to be of Celestial origin.

Hope Van Dyne meets Peter

Hope wanders off into the restricted area with Hank’s security card and accidentally ends up in the holding cells where Peter is currently being held. She listens to Corey Hart’s ‘Never Surrender’ and disconnects her headphones so Peter can listen as well. Peter turns sad and explains that the song was his mom’s favorite. He asks whether Hope’s Walkman is her mom’s because she is holding it pretty tight.

Peter further adds that he would be doing the same if he had his mom’s Walkman that Ego destroyed at the beginning of the episode. Hope is confused, and Peter explains that he was actually born on Earth in Missouri and that he is not an Alien; he was simply trying to return home and traveled 10 billion light years to reach Earth.

Hope breaks out Peter out of the holding cell and Avengers are divided on how to deal with him

Hope uses Pym particles to make Peter’s holding cell extremely small and breaks him out of the facility. She says he should catch a bus to Missouri and offers him his Walkman. Peter leaves and Hope is caught by the Avengers. She explains that Peter doesn’t actually want to destroy the Earth and that Ego, his father, is behind all of this. Every single Avenger has his own approach on how to deal with Peter. Thor wants to neutralize him and bring him to face Asgardian justice, Goliath wants to examine him, and Bucky wants to kill him. Hope says that she will help them only if they promise her that they won’t hurt him.

Ego descends to Earth himself

Ego is telepathically trying to contact Peter, but Peter ignores him. Ego figures out that his son’s vessel was compromised on Earth and decides to finish the Expansion himself. The seedling starts to awaken, and the Avengers realize that one more Alien is bound to arrive on Earth.

While they are scrambling to figure out how to defeat them, Black Panther recommends that the Avengers allow the Celestials to fight it out among each other. The Avengers meet Ego in the Mojave Desert, and he asks for the selling back. The Avengers refuse, and Ego summons an army of Stone Men made in his own image. The Avengers deal with the Stone Men relatively easily, but then Ego goes even bigger and summons a massive mountain of a statue that won’t be as easy to penetrate.

Peter is ready to help the Avengers

Mar-Vell and Ant-Man locate Peter, but Winter Soldier is already on the way to take him out with a sniper being guided by Russian Intelligence. Ant-Man has a heart-to-heart conversation with young Peter, explaining how he can imagine what Peter is going through since both he and Hope lost Hope’s mom recently. Meanwhile, Stark manages to intercept Bucky’s radio connection and talks him out of killing Peter by mentioning Steve Rogers.

At the same time, Ego is winning against the rest of the Avengers and sends his tendrils of cosmic energy to take the cosmic seedling. Ant-Man and Peter arrive just in time to snatch the seedling, and Peter and Ego have an honest conversation in which Ego admits that he killed Peter’s mom so the Expansion could come to pass. Peter is pissed off and uses the cosmic seedling to destroy Ego once and for all.

The Avengers are officially formed

Following Ego’s defeat, the Avengers are celebrating in Hank’s house. Peter seems to live with him and Hope and Mar-Vell gives them her orange cat to play with, we can only assume that this is Goose. Thor says that while Ego might be dead, his planet is still out there, and he will not stop until he gets justice for all. Hank reminds him that they are a team, and I guess the Avengers are officially formed. We also find out that Bucky Barnes has defected from his service and is currently missing.

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