Why The Watcher Doesn’t Fight Ultron With The Guardians

Warning: Contains spoilers for Marvel’s What If…? episode 9.

The What If…? season 1 finale brought together the Guardians of the Multiverse to fight against Ultron, but why did The Watcher not fight alongside them? While What If…? was originally set up as a pure anthology series, The Watcher’s presence combined with the multiverse antics of the main MCU made the chance of a crossover between the different universes shown particularly likely. The What If…? finale paid off all the stories that had come before it, but The Watcher’s absence from the final fight might seem strange.

Throughout What If…? The Watcher, Uatu (Jeffrey Wright), continually made it clear that his oath to some other unseen force meant that he could not interfere with the going-ons of the multiverse. However, when Ultron gained the Infinity Stones and wiped out almost all life in a universe, he gained consciousness of the multiverse and The Watcher and became a threat to the wider multiverse. This caused The Watcher to eventually break his oath, including participating in a drawn-out one-on-one cross-dimensional fight with the powered-up Ultron, and eventually in bringing together a team of fighters from across the What If…? multiverse.

By the climax of the What If…? season 1 finale The Watcher had already broken his oath against interfering by bringing the Guardians of the Multiverse outside of their own universes and hatching his plan to defeat Ultron and save the Multiverse. He has also shown that he is a strong and capable fighter against Ultron, holding his own for at least some time against him. So, the fact that he doesn’t appear in person during the finale fight comes across as odd, except that he had an important role to play. Still, What If…? suggests The Watcher is weaker than Ultron.  To balance the scales, The Watcher has created a master plan that is on par with Doctor Strange’s Avengers: Endgame plan. He knows how everything must play out and his part is to create the portals to allow his pawns to fall into place and eventually trap Ultron.

While Uatu might be powerful in hand-to-hand combat, he has already shown his hand to Ultron in that regard and knows that Ultron would be able to beat him. While he might be an asset as part of a larger team of fighters, he is too crucial to the plan to place on the board and risk his being defeated. If The Watcher were to be killed then the Guardians of the Multiverse would have no way to get to the universe that contains the Zola virus and no way to return to their own What If…? universes afterward.

Ultimately, The Watcher knew how the plan would eventually play out in What If…?, with Strange even noting that Zola and Killmonger entering a standoff for the Infinity Stones must have been his endgame the whole time. He knew that he didn’t need to fight himself for their victory to be assured because he had selected an effective team. In fact, if he had entered the battlefield in person it could have distracted Ultron from the rest of the team and rendered Thor’s talent for drawing attention useless.

From a storytelling point of view, not having The Watcher face off against Ultron in the What If…? season 1 finale makes a lot of sense. The Watcher had a habit of acting as a pacifist and not becoming involved and it would have been second nature for him to stay out of the fight. Additionally, as the show had already included the fight and banter between Ultron and The Watcher in episode 8, having Uatu on the battlefield during “What If… The Watcher Broke His Oath?” would have risked being repetitive.

About The Author

Faefyx Collington
(487 Articles Published)

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Faefyx Collington (They/Them) is a senior features writer for Screen Rant. They’re a British writer of both fiction and non-fiction, focussing on science fiction, fantasy, and mystery for the former and on culture, gender, and current affairs for the latter.
Never content to settle to one thing, Faefyx is also a co-host and producer of the podcast and video series “Unramblings,” and can occasionally be found making music around the internet as well.
Having acquired degrees on both sides of the Atlantic, Fyx has settled (for the moment) in the southern United States where they live with their spouse and an entirely appropriate number of cats.

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