The Real Reason The Infinity Stones Don't Kill Captain Carter In What If...? Season 2
Marvel Studios is back with another season of "What If...?" — a Disney+ original animated series that explores branching narrative possibilities within the Marvel Multiverse. In Season 2, Episode 9, "What If ... Strange Supreme Intervened?" Captain Carter (Hayley Atwell) combines the power of multiple magic weapons to prevent Strange Supreme (Benedict Cumberbatch) from sacrificing heroes and villains to restore the universe he destroyed in Season 1. Among the many weapons she wields are the Infinity Stones, six gems with the power to alter different aspects of reality. While fun to watch, Captain Carter's usage of the stones is confusing because in every other canonical situation, controlling the Infinity Stones demands a high cost ... typically death.
During an appearance on the "Phase Zero" podcast, director Bryan Andrews said Captain Carter survived the Infinity Stones because she was protected by her more powerful ally. "It's with Kahhori's help, so you have to freeze-frame and take a look," explained Andrews. "When Kahhori sends those stones to her, they're surrounded in Kahhori's power. There's a layer of space stone energy that's shielding it from ultimate death. ... You see it when [the stones] fly up towards her ... There's that faint blue glow around each of the stones. She has — basically, it's like a little protective glove so she won't immediately die."
In that same podcast, writer Matt Chauncey noted that Captain Carter never triggers all six Infinity Stones at once, meaning that she never even needs to worry about the cost, anyway.
Kahhori's powerset is undefined (and that makes her scary)
Kahhori (Devery Jacobs) is a new Marvel superhero created from whole cloth for "What If...?" Season 2. She first appears in Season 2, Episode 6, "What If ... Kahhori Reshaped the World?" which sees her absorb power from the Tesseract, which falls to Earth when Surtur (Clancy Brown) destroys Asgard ahead of schedule. The Tesseract, as Marvel Cinematic Universe fans know, is a containment vessel for the Space Stone, the Infinity Stone that grants its wielder total control over space itself. Most frequently, that means the holder gains access to portal magic. In "Captain America: The First Avengers," the Space Stone warps the Red Skull (Hugo Weaving) to a distant realm, stranding them for eternity alongside the Soul Stone.
But that's only a fraction of what the stone can do. In "Captain Marvel," Carol Danvers (Brie Larson) is exposed to the Space Stone during a plane crash, and it bestows her with frankly terrifying abilities. The same item that launches Red Skull across the galaxy and transforms Carol into a minor deity is what powers Kahhori, and the scariest thing about that is how she seems to possess an entirely different powerset than Carol. She teleports Erik Kilmonger (Michael B. Jordan) out of his armor, runs across the ocean as if it were a physical plane, and even wields some form of telekinesis, which allows her to levitate and ... reshape ... whatever her heart desires.
According to Bryan Andrews, the new MCU hero's cosmic powers, which should technically be less than one-sixth of the Infinity Stones' collective, full might, are enough to shield Captain Carter from a power capable of unraveling the known universe with a single snap. That's pretty cool, but it's pretty scary, too.