Season 1 of What If…? introduced the novel idea of Peggy Carter becoming the test subject of Project Rebirth rather than Steve Rogers. The result, of course, was Captain Carter, a Union Jack-wearing Super Solider who led the Allied Forces against Hydra in an alternate universe in “What If…Captain Carter Were the First Avenger?”, the first episode of the animated series. Carter went on to be one of the main characters of Season 1, joining Uatu’s Guardians of the Multiverse, and a Variant of the character made her live-action debut in 2022’s Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness. The original Captain Carter is back for Season 2 of What If…? and as the ending of the Carter-centric Episode 5, “What If…Captain Carter Fought the Hydra Stomper?” teased, she’s going to continue to play a large role in the Multiverse. As Captain Carter creator and What If…? head writer A.C. Bradley explained, there are some compelling reasons why the character is the centerpiece of the series.
“Captain Carter holds a special place in my heart. I’ve never loved a fictional character as much as I love her,” said Bradley. “When season one was happening, a colleague asked me if I’d researched the treatment of women during World War II. As a woman in Hollywood, I’ve got plenty of my own stories to draw from.” It’s safe to say that this alt-universe Variant of Carter, voiced by Haley Atwell who has portrayed the live-action version of the character since 2011’s Captain America: The First Avenger, has become one of the most popular and transcendent characters from the series.
For me, Captain Carter stands tall not just due to her physical strength or her combat abilities—it’s her undeniable presence, her capacity to take charge and command respect, or at the very least, equal treatment.
A.C. Bradley
As the MCU continues to introduce new heroes, fans continue to have more and more options from which to draw inspiration. To that end, Carter has certainly made quite a few fans, including one near and dear to Bradley’s heart. “I have a two-year-old daughter,” says Bradley. “She walks into [daycare] with her foam Captain Carter shield. That I could give her that role model, that symbol of strength and feminism—I’ve never been prouder as a mother or writer.”
The first 6 episodes of What If…? are now streaming on Disney Plus with a new episode debuting daily through December 30th.
In an infinite multiverse, an infinite number of stories exist including those that might be incredibly similar to others…but that doesn’t mean they need to be told. Episode 5 of the second season of What If…? is, unfortunately, such a story. The episode, “What If…Captain Carter Fought the Hydra Stomper?”–much like its predecessor, “What If…Captain Carter Were the First Avenger?”–treads far too closely to the familiar ground of the Captain America franchise rather than allowing the character the opportunity to blaze her own trail.
While it’s logical that early parts of Peggy Carter’s story might mirror that of Steve Rogers in Captain America: The First Avenger, in the vastness of the Multiverse it would seem that another Variant of Captain Carter would have gotten up to something more interesting than another 70 years of adventures that end up with her simply continuing to step into the footprints first put down by Rogers on the Sacred Timeline. After founding the Avengers and taking down Loki, Carter’s next chapter as seen in Episode 5 paralleled Rogers’ so closely that the working title for it was “The Winter Widow”, as revealed by writer A.C. Bradley.
Peggy ends up on the other end of the car joke from the Winter Solider, finds herself aboard a ship at sea and even ends up sharing a scene with Brock Rumlow. A brainwashed Steve takes the place of a brainwashed Bucky and the Red Room and Melina Vostokoff take the place of Hydra but right down to pairing her up with Nat, the episode just keeps giving Peggy things to do that Steve has already done. Carter is the lead of the series and this particular Variant seems destined to make a live-action appearance down the road (one Variant made a brief appearance in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness). The character deserves her own story.
Fortunately, the creative team remedies the situation and sets the character on what’s hopefully a singular path by plucking Captain Carter out of her modern-day setting and dropping her in 1602 where she’ll have a major role in the two-part season finale. With a new head writer set to take over for Season 3, here’s to hoping they find something more original and exciting for Peggy to do than to star in the slightly altered Reader’s Digest version of Captain Carter: Civil War.
After the first season of What If…? streamed in 2021, one episode that didn’t stream got nearly as much press as the ones that did. That episode, which became known as The Lost Gamora Episode, featured Tony Stark ending up on Sakaar. Even though it spawned a Lego set, the episode–written by AC Bradley–ended up being destined for Season 2 of the animated adventure. Now that it’s finally streamed, Bradley has opened up a bit about it.
It turns out that while Bradley wrote the episode in 2019, it had been gestating for far longer. “Seeing Iron Man in 2008 was a game-changer for me,” she said. “I’d just graduated from USC Film School, was working as an assistant at a management company, writing every morning but still trying to find my voice. What did I want to write? What did I even have to say? Then one Saturday, a friend texted me—we ended up catching Iron Man at the Arclight.“
That fateful showing, it turns out, set Bradley on the path to being a major part of the creative team of What If…? as it opened her eyes to what a comic book movie could be. “I remember walking out of the theater and telling her that this is it—I want to write Iron Man—or rather, stories like that: action-adventure, but with heart and humor. Telling a very human, personal story, but wrapping it in superheroics and, of course, killer explosions.”
After serving as the head writer for the first two seasons of What If…?, Bradley announced that the second season would be her last project with Marvel Studios. With another season of the Multiversal series confirmed, it will be someone else’s turn to turn their dreams of working on comic book projects into a reality.
Season 1 of What If…? introduced a Variant of Gamora who served among other heroes as one of Uatu’s Guardians of the Multiverse. Debuting in the Season 1 finale, “What If…The Watcher Broke His Oath.”, this Gamora seemed to have quite an interesting backstory as its revealed that she killed Thanos; however, that was about the only information revealed about the character before she went about the business of defeating Infinity Ultron. Unlike the other heroes, there was no Season 1 episode dedicated to Gamora’s story but that’s not because one didn’t exist in some form.
An episode about the hero which became known as the “Lost Gamora Episode” was written and was originally said to be included in Season 1. Writer AC Bradley confirmed the existence of the episode– which at some point must have been in the Season 1 lineup because a Lego set was created for it–and indicated that it would finally be released in Season 2…and now it has been. Episode 4, “What If…Iron Man Crashed into The Grandmaster?”, finally gives Gamora a proper introduction while following Tony Stark on an interesting adventure.
Set in the semi-immediate aftermath of The Battle of New York (time works real different on Sakaar), the events of theepisode veer from the Sacred Timeline when the Armored Avenger’s mad dash with the nuke as seen in The Avengers ends with him not making it back through the portal. Stark finds himself on Sakaar, face-to-face with The Grandmaster and ,as you might expect, things get weird. Riffing on scenes from both Iron Man and Thor: Ragnarok, the episode puts Stark in real jeopardy when Gamora, still the daughter and Hand of Thanos, comes for revenge on the man who foiled the Mad Titan’s plan.
Delayed in killing Stark by one of the Grandmaster’s obedience disks, Gamora ultimately sees the good in the hero and finds her way to redemption by helping him overthrow the wily Elder of the Universe. As the episode ends, Tony is seen helping Gamora put an end to Thanos using Topaz’s Melt Stick. Unfortunately, even with the full scope of Gamora’s heroic journey now having been laid bare, no further chapter in her story is told over the rest of Season 2. That definitely makes the decision to pull the episode from Season 1 a little stranger but the episode is fun enough on its own, especially with the wonderfully eccentric Jeff Goldblum back as the voice of The Grandmaster.
The first four episodes of What If…? Season 2 are now streaming on Disney Plus. A new episode will debut each day through December 30th.
Episode 3 of the second season of What If…? was quite the Christmas Eve gift. “What If…Happy Hogan Saved Christmas?” proved to be one of the funniest episodes of the series to date, allowing Jon Favreau‘s sidekick the opportunity to step into the spotlight and Freak out. With an infinite number of potential stories to tell, having Hogan defend Avengers Tower against Justin Hammer probably wasn’t on many peoples’ wish lists; however, it proved to be a worthy inclusion in the anthology. According to series writers Matt Chauncey and AC Bradley, the unlikely story–and its unlikely hero–came out of a desire to put together a holiday special and a request by Favreau.
“AC and I grew up loving all those holiday specials and Christmas episodes that come back on year after year, and I think selfishly, we really just wanted a chance to write one of our own,” said Chauncey. “Something that might have a shot at becoming an annual tradition that gets revisited every holiday season. The challenge and the fun became figuring out who would be the least likely team of would-be heroes to rise up to save the day when the real Avengers are off doing other things,” he added.
“[We’re] creating this sweet, meta-narrative where these characters who usually play the sidekick role in the movies finally get to step into the limelight and be the heroes of the story,” Chauncey continued. “It’s about flipping the script and giving these fan-favorite characters their moment to shine, which also felt like a fitting theme straight out of one of those classic holiday specials we wanted to emulate.”
So how did they land on Happy Hogan? In a serendipitous turn, Favreau had been hoping to have Hogan take center stage in an episode and that gave the writers exactly what they were looking for. “First, let’s all agree that Jon Favreau is just an incredible talent and person. He was awesome when he came in to record for season one,” said Bradley. “Then for season two, he had one request—he wanted to headline own episode! Knowing that Happy Hogan was going to lead the charge on this one, Matt and I had a blast adding in all these Favreau touches.”
Favreau clearly had a blast doing the voice work for Hogan and his alter-ego, the Freak. And as great as he was, the return of Sam Rockwell as Justin Hammer, who served as the Hans Gruber to Favreau’s John McClane in the Die Hard riff, put the bow on the wonderful animated gift. New episodes of What If…? will continue to debut daily through December 30th.
Though tradition dictates presents are to be opened on Christmas morning, plenty of families allow their children to open one on Christmas Eve. As Marvel Studios continues to release daily episodes of Season 2 of What If…?, they gave fans a doozy of a Christmas Eve gift with Episode 3: “What If…Happy Hogan Saved Christmas?”.
An unabashed tribute to one of the greatest Christmas movies of all time, Episode 3 puts Jon Favreau‘s Happy Hogan in John McClane’s bare feet and gives the Forehead of Security a chance to be the hero. Up against Sam Rockwell‘s wonderfully petulant and pedantic Justin Hammer–who gets the full Hans Gruber treatment in the episode–Hogan blunders through defending Avengers Tower and ultimately and unwillingly becomes an all-new, all-different version of himself.
Sometime post-Iron Man 3 and pre-Age ofUltron, Hammer and his pair of Russian goons have chosen the Yuletide season to break into Avengers Tower, which on this particular night, finds itself without its Avengers. It’s no random act of terror, however, as Hammer has one objective in mind: obtaining a vial of Bruce Banmer’s gamma-irradiated blood. While attempting to defend the precious serum, Hogan accidentally injects it into himself unleashing a very obscure comic book version of himself: The Freak.
First appearing in “If This Guilt Be Mine…”, one of three stories in 1965’s Tales of Suspense #74, the Happy Hogan version of the Freak came to be when Tony Stark used a typically wacky of the time sci-fi device to try to heal injuries Hogan sustained at the hands of Titanium Man. As the Freak, Hogan exhibited superhuman powers including but not limited to strength and durability and a propensity for some pretty epic rage tantrums. Other characters have also gone by the moniker the Freak as well, including Stark employee Eddie March and, more recently, a vagrant junkie that appeared in Bob Gale and Phil Jimenez‘s Spider-Man run.
Though it’s Hogan in the driver’s seat, the MCU’s version of the Freak seemed to take a little more aesthetic inspiration from Jimenez’s pencil. Favreau is fantastic as the powered up Hogan, clearly having fun letting his Freak flag fly and getting a chance to be the hero of the day. Director Bryan Andrews and writer AC Bradley did such a great job bringing the obscure character to the MCU that it would be a shame if we didn’t see him again sometime soon.
To date, three episodes of the second season of Marvel Studios canonical animated series What If…? and so far, critics and audiences alike have given them a thumbs up. With 6 more episodes set to roll out daily until December 30th, the studio has given everyone a pretty interesting present to open on Christmas Eve: spoilery synopses of the remaining episodes. Proceed at your own risk…
Episode 4: What If… Iron Man Crashed Into The Grandmaster?
After his gambit to destroy the Chitauri Fleet during the battle of New York strands him on the planet of Sakaar, Tony Stark’s efforts to overthrow The Grandmaster lead to a ceremonial, grand prix-turned-demolition-derby—a death match that could land Tony on the Sakaarian throne.What If… Captain Carter Fought The Hydra Stomper?
Episode 5: What If… Captain Carter Fought The HYDRA Stomper?
After the long-lost Hydra Stomper is recovered, Captain Carter’s mission to save her old flame, Steve Rogers, sets her on a collision course with new enemies.
After conquistadors lay siege to her tribe, a young Mohawk woman ventures into the Tesseract-powered waters of the legendary Forbidden Lake to recruit the forces of Sky World to help save her people.
Growing weary of Hela’s bloodlust, Odin opts to teach his daughter a lesson by stripping her of her powers and banishing her to Earth. But when she lands in ancient China, the seductive lure of the Ten Rings threatens to reawaken the Goddess of Death’s villainous appetite.
Episode 8: What If… The Avengers Assembled In 1602?
When Captain Carter is transported to an Elizabethan-era locale that’s populated by modern day MCU figures, she’ll have to uncover the cause of the temporal anomaly that’s mysteriously stranded so many familiar heroes and villains in the year 1602.
When Captain Carter teams up with an old friend to hunt down vicious Universe Killers terrorizing the Multiverse, she finds the greatest threat to all existence may be closer to her than she realizes.
Episode 9’s description is especially spoilery to anyone who has been following along throughout the Multiverse Saga. While Universe Killers sounds like a big deal, MCU fans know who the true threat to existence is…
About What If…? Season 2
The Watcher returns to season two of Marvel Studios’ What If…? when the animated series begins streaming on Disney+ on Dec. 22. And in the spirit of the holiday season, fans are invited to unwrap a new episode nightly for nine nights.
With a new episode debuting nightly beginning December 22, season two of What If…? continues the journey as The Watcher guides viewers through the vast multiverse, introducing brand new and familiar faces throughout the MCU. The series questions, revisits and twists classic Marvel Cinematic moments with an incredible voice cast that includes a host of stars who reprise their iconic roles. Featuring fan-favorite characters this season like Nebula, Hela and Happy Hogan, episodes are directed by Bryan Andrews (eps 2-9) and Stephan Franck (ep 1) and written by AC Bradley (eps 3, 4, 5, 8), Matthew Chauncey (eps 1-3, 7, 9) and Ryan Little (eps 6, 8). The animated series is executive produced by Brad Winderbaum, Kevin Feige, Louis D’Esposito, Victoria Alonso, Bryan Andrews and AC Bradley.
In a shocking bit of risk-taking Marvel Studios, nine new episodes of their canonical animated series, What If…?, are set to roll out daily over the holiday season. The first season of What If…?, which streamed in 2021, was a fun exploration of the multiverse that sometimes failed to fully capitalize on its subversive premise. The creative team of director/executive producer Bryan Andrews and writer/executive producer AC Bradley returned for Season 2 and significantly upped their game; however, despite attempting to go “further outside the box”, the series still feels far too boxed in at times.
Following the premise of the Marvel comic that debuted in 1977, What If…? explores the repercussions of changes to key moments in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Narrated by the omnipresent Uatu, the stories in the anthology take place at points all around the Multiverse where any and everything should be possible; however, for a series that takes place in an infinite multiverse of possibilities, the scope of the stories told in Season 2 of What If…? occasionally still feels far too limited.
That’s not to say that Season 2 is a disappointment; in fact, it’s far from it. It’s reasonable to postulate that 7 or 8 of the 9 episodes of the sophomore season are better than 2/3 of the first season of the series. Episodes like “What If…Doctor Strange Lost His Heart Instead of His Hands?” (and let me tell you, that doozy of an episode remains vitally important into Season 2), “What If…Ultron Won?” and What If…Zombies?” truly embodied the nature of the work that could be done in telling stories across the Multiverse and Season 2 has many more episodes of that caliber. “What If…Happy Hogan Saved Christmas?”, “What If…Hela Found the Ten Rings?” and “What If…The Avengers Assembled in 1602?” are spectacular examples of the sort of stories that can be told when the creators unshackle their imaginations and, quite honestly, set out to have some fun. Each of the episodes mentioned above is arguably of higher quality and more enjoyable than any episode of Secret Invasion. And, it may turn out that one of them may be more consequential to the narrative tapestry of the Multiverse Saga than the disappointing live-action series.
Season 2 also ventures into groundbreaking territory by telling an original story with an original character. In what stands as unequivocally their most bold and audacious adventure yet, Andrews and Bradley introduce the Mohawk hero, Kahhori, into the Marvel Cinematic Universe in “What If…Kahhori Reshaped the World?”, the sixth episode of the season. An episode four years in the making, it’s clear from the opening moments–which see Asgard destroyed by Surtur in a Ragnarok set far before the events of the 2017 film–that the story set to unfold will blaze its own trail. “What If…Kahhori Reshaped the World?” not only tells the story from the point of view of the Mohawk Nation–indeed the First Nations characters in the episode speak in Kanien’kéha–but it also introduces an all-new in-universe mythology (which includes the beautiful Mohawk Skyworld), wonderfully reimagines the powers held within the Tersseract/Space Stone and finds its villains in European colonizers. The episode is beautifully animated, wonderfully inventive and in every way the epitome of the kind of stories the premise of What If…? allows for. And because it exists it also shines a light on some of the issues the series still faces.
To the point, if Marvel Studios can produce an episode with the singular ingenuity and quality of “What If…Kahhori Reshaped the World?”, what if…they were as creative all the time? The poster child of this dissonance in Season 2–as it was unfortunately was in Season 1–is the Captain Carter-centric episode, “What If…Captain Carter Fought the Hydra Stomper?”. Once again, Captain Carter, the lead of the ENTIRE series, gets done dirty by the studio’s boring choice to retell Steve Rogers’ MCU story chapter by chapter but with Peggy as the woman out of time. If last season’s episode was Captain Carter: The First Avenger, this one is Captain Carter: The Winter Soldier with Steve Rogers’ Hydra Stomper taking the place of Bucky Barnes. While things truly are not beat for beat as they were in The Winter Solider, the beats resonate far too much with that film, right down to pairing up Peggy with Black Widow. Fortunately, Andrews and Bradley remedy it by giving Carter an original and wonderful role in the 2-part finale which is one part awesome (Episode 8: “What If…The Avengers Assembled in 1602?”) and, once again, one part a little less awesome (Episode 9: “What If…Strange Supreme Intervened?”).
The finale makes a less-than-shocking reveal about the true nature of one of the series’ lead characters–at least it’s not shocking if you’re following along with the MCU’s ongoing Multiverse narrative–and introduces the evocative conceit of “Universe Killers.” An amazing idea, the nature of which seems fully congruent with a show exploring the infinite multiverse…until it unfolds on screen. In an infinite multiverse full of an infinite number of potential Universe Killers, they are almost all Variants of characters we’ve already seen with the exception of a one-second shot of a Thor Hulk mash-up that looks like the one Donny Cates dreamt up for Banner of War. While it’s more likely than not that Marvel Studios’ One Above All, Kevin Feige, has a list of characters that don’t get to make their MCU debuts until he’s ready to roll them out, spicing up the Universe Killer trophy gallery with an Apocalypse here, an Onslaught there or a Doom up in the corner somewhere shouldn’t be off limits.
Ultimately, however, even though if much like the first season the finale isn’t bulletproof-maybe it’s because trying to thread a story through it is antithetical to the anthological nature of the series but the finales of both seasons have certainly fallen short of greatness–Season 2 of the series is a marked improvement over Season 1. The creative team of Andrews and Bradley seems to have found a winning formula in which playing with influences from beloved films such as Blade Runner and Die Hard, exploring different genres and true innovation combine to make a wonderful addition to the MCU’s Multiverse Saga and allow the besieged studio to end 2023 on a high note.
About What If…? Season 2
The Watcher returns to season two of Marvel Studios’ What If…? when the animated series begins streaming on Disney+ on Dec. 22. And in the spirit of the holiday season, fans are invited to unwrap a new episode nightly for nine nights.
With a new episode debuting nightly beginning December 22, season two of What If…? continues the journey as The Watcher guides viewers through the vast multiverse, introducing brand new and familiar faces throughout the MCU. The series questions, revisits and twists classic Marvel Cinematic moments with an incredible voice cast that includes a host of stars who reprise their iconic roles. Featuring fan-favorite characters this season like Nebula, Hela and Happy Hogan, episodes are directed by Bryan Andrews (eps 2-9) and Stephan Franck (ep 1) and written by AC Bradley (eps 3, 4, 5, 8), Matthew Chauncey (eps 1-3, 7, 9) and Ryan Little (eps 6, 8). The animated series is executive produced by Brad Winderbaum, Kevin Feige, Louis D’Esposito, Victoria Alonso, Bryan Andrews and AC Bradley.
Marvel Studios held a press event for Season 2 of What If…? at the Walt Disney Studio Lot last night and screened two episodes of the animated multiverse adventure. Marvel Studios head of streaming, television and animation, Brad Winderbaum, writer and executive producer AC Bradley, director and executive producer Bryan Andrews and writer Matthew Chauncey were on hand for the event in which press viewed the first and third episodes of the new season before participating in a question and answer session. Following the event, Disney released some new information about each episode.
Season 2, Episode 1: “What If… Nebula Joined the Nova Corps?”
In a world where Ronan deposes Thanos long before the events of “Infinity War,” Nebula is recruited to join the Nova Corps. Desperate to escape her father’s shadow, she sets out to prove her detective chops.
Season 2, Episode 3: “What If Happy Hogan Saved Christmas?”
When Justin Hammer lays siege to Avengers Tower during the annual holiday party, there’s only one person left on site to stop him—Happy Hogan. But in setting out to prove his hero chops, Iron Man’s errand boy may end up transforming himself in more ways than one.
While Marvel debuted only 2 episodes, a list of episode titles for the rest of the series has leaked. Among the many interesting ideas rumored to be explored in the second season is one based on a Marvel Comics series written by Neil Gaiman that’s set in 1602.
Disney is rolling out one episode of the series a day beginning on December 22nd. With just ten days before the first episode debuts on Disney Plus, there’s still time to work your way through The Ultimate List of What to Watch Before Season 2 of What If…?!
About What If…? Season 2
The Watcher returns to season two of Marvel Studios’ What If…? when the animated series begins streaming on Disney+ on Dec. 22. And in the spirit of the holiday season, fans are invited to unwrap a new episode nightly for nine nights.
With a new episode debuting nightly beginning December 22, season two of What If…? continues the journey as The Watcher guides viewers through the vast multiverse, introducing brand new and familiar faces throughout the MCU. The series questions, revisits and twists classic Marvel Cinematic moments with an incredible voice cast that includes a host of stars who reprise their iconic roles. Featuring fan-favorite characters this season like Nebula, Hela and Happy Hogan, episodes are directed by Bryan Andrews (eps 2-9) and Stephan Franck (ep 1) and written by AC Bradley (eps 3, 4, 5, 8), Matthew Chauncey (eps 1-3, 7, 9) and Ryan Little (eps 6, 8). The animated series is executive produced by Brad Winderbaum, Kevin Feige, Louis D’Esposito, Victoria Alonso, Bryan Andrews and AC Bradley. Available press
Marvel Studios’ first canonical animated series, What If…?, is returning to Disney Plus for a second season. Season 2 will feature 9 more multiversal adventures that put a spin on familiar events from the Sacred Timeline. Season 1 memorably featured a universe where a quantum virus set zombies loose on Earth, one where Ultron won and another where Thanos was a Ravager and Season 2 promises to bring even more variety to the ever-expanding multiverse.
Marvel Studios is experimenting with an all-new, all-different rollout for Season 2 of What If…?, dropping one episode a day beginning on December 22nd. Before you start taking in that holiday treat, you’ve still got some time to prepare and so–as you’ve no doubt come to expect–Murphy’s Multiverse has put together The Ultimate List of What to Watch Before Season 2 of What If…?.
Given the premise of What If…? is unlike that of any other Marvel Studios project, it only makes sense that the Ultimate List would reflect that and so it’s a little different than what we usually roll out.
How It Started…
Loki, Season 1: Episode 6-For All Time, Always
The multiversal adventures of What If…? would never have taken place if Sylvie had not gotten all stabby-stabby with He Who Remains in the Season 1 finale of Loki. There’s no shame in rewatching every episode of both seasons of Loki, however, if you want to cut to the chase and get to the moment that each of the new timelines in which the adventures in What If…? take place, then you simply need to check out Season 1, Episode 6.
How It Went…
What If…?, Season 1
Season 1 of What If…? originally seemed like an anthological collection of disparate stories spread out all over the newly formed Multiverse. Episodes dedicated to Captain Carter and Star-Lord T’Chall were entertaining on their own merit but as the series progressed, the storylines began to converge as Uatu assembled great heroes from around the Multiverse. Some of those characters are set to return for Season 2 and reacquainting yourself with their stories will only add to your enjoyment of following their next steps.
Where It’s Going Next…
Undoubtedly, venturing back onto the branches of the multiverse to recall the events of Season 1 will be beneficial to your enjoyment of Season 2…but why stop there? New episodes means Uatu will be narrating stories from other branches–or maybe further exploring branches already seen in Season 1. While we refuse to get spoilery here, a list of episode titles made its way into the wild, allowing us to direct you toward some projects that might be worth revisiting before they become Nexus Events in Season 2.
Listed in Disney +’s Timeline Order:
Captain America: The First Avenger
The Tesseract will play a major role in at least one episode of Season 2 when a Mohawk woman named Kahhori–at totally original character created for the show–discovers it on Earth centuries before TFA. Watching TFA provides some background on the object which continues to play a big part in the MCU throughout the Infinity Saga.
Iron Man 3
Happy Hogan saves Christmas!? An entire episode of Season 2 is dedicated to Jon Favreau’s Happy Hogan and given that it’s set at Christmas it’s possible that it spins out of the events of Shane Black’s Iron Man 3 which takes place at Christmas because it’s Shane Black’s Iron Man 3. The Forehead of Security spent most of Iron Man 3 in a hospital bed after being near an Extremis soldier that went boom so this may be a way to give the character a new adventure during that time though we cannot confirm Iron Man 3 is the backdrop.
Guardians of the Galaxy
A pair of Season 2 episodes will deal with events from the Guaridans franchise but rewatching James Gunn‘s first–and best–MCU film should provide all the information you need about Peter Quill, Nebula and the Nova Corps.
Avengers and Avengers: Age of Ultron
Before Season 1 of What If…?, a leak indicated that one episode would find Tony Stark on Sakaar rather than the Hulk and Thor. That episode will be part of Season 2 but how did Stark get there? Our best guesses are that the wormhole created by the Tesseract in Avengers led him there OR he switches places with Hulk at the end of Avengers: Age of Ultron and somehow finds his way to the junk heap. Watch them both because there’s no downside to watching the first team up again or rewatching a film that has held up much better than folks thought it might!
Thor: Ragnarokand Shang-Chi and The Legend of the Ten Rings
As if she needed to be any more awesome, an episode of Season 2 will give Thor’s sister Hela, the Goddess of Death, access to the powerful Ten Rings! Her story as told in Ragnarok was absolutely fascinating and it’ll be very interesting to see how the rings augment her already unique powers.
Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness
What If…? is a show about the Multiverse and 2022’s Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness taught the audience that there’s no bigger threat to said Multiverse than Stephen Strange. Rewatch it because it’s awesome; rewatch it to meet some of those scary Strange Variants; rewatch it because Sam Raimi might be doing a lot more work with Marvel Studios in the future. One of those Variants–Strange Supreme–didn’t appear in the film but was a major player in Season 1 of What If…? and is confirmed to return in Season 2 so it’s good to remember that not all Stranges are good Stranges and also that good is relative in the Multiverse.
Bonus Reading
Marvel 1602
A first in our Ultimate List series! For decades, Marvel Comics has been known as the House of Ideas. While Stan Lee and Jack Kirby created an enormous sandbox full of rich characters, many writers over the years have thought outside the (sand)box and told stories in alternate universes much like the ones imagined in What If…? One of the most divisive efforts to tell these alt-universe stories came from the mind of Neil Gaiman who decided to bring about the age of heroes 400 years earlier than Lee and Kirby! Published in 2003, Marvel 1602 reinterprets the origins and lives of characters such as the Fantastic Four, Daredevil, Spider-Man, Captain America and more during a time when superstition reigned supreme over science. If you have time for a quick, 8-issue romp through the 17th century from the mind of one of comic’s most singular authors, pick up Marvel 1602 at your LCS or check it out on Marvel Unlimited before seeing how it’s adapted in Season 2!
About What If…? Season 2
The Watcher returns to season two of Marvel Studios’ What If…? when the animated series begins streaming on Disney+ on Dec. 22. And in the spirit of the holiday season, fans are invited to unwrap a new episode nightly for nine nights.
Season two of What If…? continues the journey as The Watcher guides viewers through the vast multiverse, introducing brand new and familiar faces throughout the MCU. The series questions, revisits and twists classic Marvel Cinematic moments with an incredible voice cast that includes a host of stars who reprise their iconic roles. Featuring fan-favorite characters this season like Nebula, Hela and Happy Hogan, episodes are directed by executive producer Bryan Andrews with executive producer AC Bradley as head writer.
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Statistics cookies collect information anonymously. This information helps us understand how visitors use our website.
Google Analytics is a powerful tool that tracks and analyzes website traffic for informed marketing decisions.
Contains information related to marketing campaigns of the user. These are shared with Google AdWords / Google Ads when the Google Ads and Google Analytics accounts are linked together.
90 days
__utma
ID used to identify users and sessions
2 years after last activity
__utmt
Used to monitor number of Google Analytics server requests
10 minutes
__utmb
Used to distinguish new sessions and visits. This cookie is set when the GA.js javascript library is loaded and there is no existing __utmb cookie. The cookie is updated every time data is sent to the Google Analytics server.
30 minutes after last activity
__utmc
Used only with old Urchin versions of Google Analytics and not with GA.js. Was used to distinguish between new sessions and visits at the end of a session.
End of session (browser)
__utmz
Contains information about the traffic source or campaign that directed user to the website. The cookie is set when the GA.js javascript is loaded and updated when data is sent to the Google Anaytics server
6 months after last activity
__utmv
Contains custom information set by the web developer via the _setCustomVar method in Google Analytics. This cookie is updated every time new data is sent to the Google Analytics server.
2 years after last activity
__utmx
Used to determine whether a user is included in an A / B or Multivariate test.
18 months
_ga
ID used to identify users
2 years
_gali
Used by Google Analytics to determine which links on a page are being clicked
30 seconds
_ga_
ID used to identify users
2 years
_gid
ID used to identify users for 24 hours after last activity
24 hours
_gat
Used to monitor number of Google Analytics server requests when using Google Tag Manager
1 minute
Marketing cookies are used to follow visitors to websites. The intention is to show ads that are relevant and engaging to the individual user.
Pinterest Tag is a web analytics service that tracks and reports website traffic.
