One of the highlights and possibly among the most heartbreaking scenes in Avengers: Endgame was the part when Black Widow and Hawkeye had to retrieve the Soul Stone in Vormir and Marvel's What If..? Episode 8 revisits that painful segment, however, the canon series has another location and a different ending, but still with the same tear-jerking feeling.
Warning! This portion may contain spoilers for Marvel's What If..?. Read at your own risk!
In Marvel's What If..? Episode 8, What If.. Ultron Won?, the evil AI got all the Infinity Stones when he slashed Thanos in half and it became an apocalyptic universe where Ultron destroyed all life on Earth, except for Black Widow and Hawkeye who remained and survived as they were on a quinjet when Ultron nuked the world.
The duo faces various robots with Nat on a motorbike while Clint makes it rain arrows. Various sentinels of Ultron try to eliminate them but they managed to escape. Clint even used a cloaking cape and it was revealed that he already lost an arm, one being metal like that of Bucky. They go to Russia, what's left of it anyway, as Nat thinks they could find something to take Ultron down.
Uatu pertains Nat and Clint as the last hope of the universe who was in the KGB archives looking for what could possibly bring Ultron down and Uatu watched them from afar. Nat found the shield of the Red Guardian and took it for herself. They found the file of Arnim Zola, the scientist in the 40s who uploaded his brain to data banks, an analog code.
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Since Ultron is a digital code, they hope Zola could infiltrate him through one of his sentinels but since Ultron is somewhere in the voids of the multiverse, Zola couldn't reach to him. Their plan failed and had to extract themselves from a Siberian HYDRA base. With too many of Ultron's sentinels, Nat and Clint had to fight them off, but there were too much for them to handle.
In Avengers: Endgame, to get the Soul Stone, Nat and Clint battled it out to be the ones to do the sacrifice for the other to obtain the infinity stone. In this timeline, they were on the run as they have to bring Zola into safety but given that there were too many, this time, it was Clint who sacrificed his life and broke free from Nat's hand.
Before totally falling, Clint made sure the sentinels wouldn't get to Nat and Zola so he blew them up, even if it means dying in the process. Nat crumbled to the ground upon realizing that she lost one of the most important people in her life, and in this timeline, the only one that's left for her.
Marvel really has a way to make our hearts hurt. If you didn't cry, might as well check your hearts right away.
Marvel's What If..? Episode 8 is now streaming on Disney+.
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