WARNING: The following contains spoilers for What If...? Season 1, Episode 6, "What If... Killmonger Rescued Tony Stark?," streaming now on Disney+.
What If…? has imagined a universe in which Michael B. Jordan's Killmonger succeeds in taking over Wakanda, triggering the global war that was prevented in Black Panther. He does this by employing techniques he first learned working side-by-side with the CIA, meaning that American's own intelligence agency modeled its newfound threat.
In the 2018 film, agent Everett K. Ross (Martin Freeman) explains that Killmonger served in the U.S. Navy SEALs, eventually joining a ghost unit assisting the CIA to destabilize other nations. According to Ross, Killmonger was trained in this period to commit assassinations and take down governments, using transitions of power -- such as the death of a monarch -- as opportunities to gain control.
The death of his uncle, King T'Chaka (John Kani), in Captain America: Civil War thus leads to Killmonger challenging T'Challa (Chadwick Boseman) a week later in Black Panther. Though he does overthrow his cousin and take the Wakandan throne for himself, Killmonger is eventually defeated by T'Challa, who ends him and his plans for violent retribution in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
His What If…? counterpart fares very differently, succeeding where his mainstream version failed by relying more on his military training. Rather than wait for the death of a king, he orchestrates the death of a prince, murdering a young T'Challa and Colonel James Rhodes (Don Cheadle) to make it appear that they killed each other. Instead of forcing the isolationist nation into conflict, this Killmonger motivates Wakanda into declaring war on the United States, working his way into the royal family as a loyal subject eager to avenge his cousin.
However, his murder of Tony Stark (Mick Wingert) allows Killmonger to turn such tactics on the very country that taught them to him. By killing their top weapons manufacturer with a Wakandan spear, he scares the U.S. military into seizing Stark's technology under the Patriot Act, putting the Liberator drones that Killmonger himself designed into mass production.
The creation of the Liberator drones is also something the CIA may be inadvertently responsible for. Killmonger became Stark's closest confidant after saving him from the Ten Rings in Afghanistan, having been in deep cover within the terrorist organization. If his ghost unit was there in conjunction with the CIA, then U.S. intelligence gave Killmonger the means to ingratiate himself with Stark, resulting in the creation of the very drones which are deployed in Wakanda. In effect, they ensured Killmonger was able to play both sides: by overpowering the drones, he convinces T'Chaka to make him his new heir and the heroic Black Panther.
In doing so, he takes advantage of T'Chaka's grief for T'Challa, as well as his guilt over killing his brother N'Jobu (Sterling K. Brown). By feigning ignorance to the part his uncle played in his father's death, Killmonger ensures that he will replace T'Challa as T'Chaka's successor. This subtler yet more expansive execution of his black ops training, perhaps facilitated by aiding the CIA within the Ten Rings, allows him to pursue his plan of freeing the oppressed with violent force, without the opposition that brought him down in the MCU.
Even if the CIA were not responsible for Killmonger being placed in the Ten Rings, they unquestionably gave him the tools which, in this timeline, granted him victory. Through their work with his black ops unit, they showed Killmonger how to cause political turmoil, making him a valuable asset in any country America wished to sabotage. While this did not backfire on them in mainstream continuity, What If…? proves that, at least in one reality, they ended up creating their own worst enemy.
To see Killmonger's victory, stream the latest episode of What If…? now on Disney+.