[Editor's note: The following contains spoilers for Marvel's What If...?, Season 1, Episode 6, "What If... Killmonger Rescued Tony Stark?"]
Once again What If...? staggers us with the depth of its voice cast bench, with a wild assortment of MCU veterans coming back to kill Tony Stark again imagine what might have happened, had Tony's fateful adventure in the desert, all those years ago, gone differently. As you might guess from the title, "What If... Killmonger Rescued Tony Stark?" ends up featuring the most welcome return of one of the MCU's most beloved villains, along with a very welcome array of characters whose lives ended up being very different, thanks to Tony never creating the Iron Man armor.
That said, in addition to the ever-present Jeffrey Wright as The Watcher, who played who in Episode 6? Here's the list of Marvel actors who returned to voice their animated counterparts:
Killmonger - Michael B. Jordan
Happy Hogan - Jon Favreau
T'Challa / Black Panther - Chadwick Boseman
Queen Ramonda - Angela Bassett
Okoye - Danai Gurira
Ulysses Klaue - Andy Serkis
Rhodey - Don Cheadle
Jarvis - Paul Bettany
Christine Everhart - Leslie Bibb
T'Chaka - John Kani
The cast represents a fun blend of the Iron Man and Black Panther casts, including the return of Boseman in one of his few remaining appearances (he'll be in two more episodes this season, recorded prior to his passing). Plus it's a true gift to have Jordan get another opportunity at playing Killmonger, with the character getting some additional development even in a compressed amount of screen time, as well as the opportunity to bro out hard with Tony as the two of them work together to develop Killmonger's drone concept. (The fun of course ends when Killmonger starts killing people, but that's what happens sometimes, y'know?)
Speaking of Tony, there are of course a few characters whose big-screen equivalents didn't find their way into a recording booth. Mick Wingert returned again to voice Iron Man (he first played the character in What If...? Episode 3, and in addition to that, the other MCU characters voiced by newcomers were:
Obadiah Stane - Kiff VandenHeuvel
Pepper Potts - Beth Hoyt
Shuri - Ozioma Akagha
Why Jeff Bridges, Gwyneth Paltrow, and Letitia Wright weren't available to reprise their roles hasn't been officially revealed, though Bridges has been busy not just with other roles but health issues, and there's always a chance that if Paltrow had returned to play Pepper, she'd have forgotten it happened. (Wright will be returning for Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, if you were worried.)
Their replacements did able work: In addition to multiple guest starring roles, VanddenHeuvel has plenty of voice-acting experience across Marvel and Star Wars projects. Hoyt's many TV appearances include Grey's Anatomy and Better Call Saul, and Akagha's Marvel bonafides include playing the character of Tamar in Runaways.
All in all, another dark but fun What If...? adventure. We'll be back next week to see what's in store.
New episodes of What If...? premiere Wednesdays on Disney+.