The animated series “What If…?” has explored the vast Marvel multiverse, with The Watcher (Jeffrey Wright) showing us how the stories we know could have played out differently if some o the details were altered. So far, we’ve seen what would happen if Peggy Carter took the Super Soldier Serum instead of Steve Rogers; if Thor was an only child; if everyone was a zombie, and more. And if that’s not crazy enough, season 2 will up the ante.
As we approach the end of season 1, viewers are already pondering what comes next? And according to showrunner A.C. Bradley, we ain’t seen nothing yet. “Season 2 is a lot of fun,” she told Deadline. “The training wheels come off and we get to do a little bit weirder and wilder . There is one episode, which is probably the closest to my own personality I’ve ever written. It’s heartfelt, it’s full of action, and bad ’90s clothing choices.”
All of this is very exciting, but we’ll have to wait a while until we can see it. Animation always takes longer. Regardless, progress is being made. “The first and second drafts of the scripts are already done,” Bradley said. “We’re knee-deep in production and design.”
As for choosing which storylines to explore, Bradley used the original What If…? comics as a reference point, but still had to stick to the restraints of the MCU. “While we’re staying true true to the comics that way, we couldn’t pull many original storylines because the mandate was use the MCU characters,” Bradley said. “For Marvel ‘Zombies’ we went back to the original run and pulled some of the storylines from that because it was so much fun and it’s a huge cult classic. So, when it came to adapting you pick the best parts, but you can’t show every moment.”
What about all of those cliffhangers?
Whether it’s zombified Thanos or evil Vision, multiple episodes in the first season have concluded with epic cliffhangers. Fans are already calling for season 2 to contain follow-up episodes.
We don’t know if that will happen, but Bradley does explain why the originals ended the way they did:
"The [original] What If…? comics had a habit of ending really abruptly and really dark to prove that the main timeline is the better timeline. So, we kind of used that as our reason for being able to cut stories off a little bit shorter. Honestly, all these episodes could’ve been 45 minutes. Some of the animatics were originally 35 minutes, but due to animation and COVID, we actually had to cut a few of them a little bit shorter than we would have liked."
That said, there’s no doubt What If…? has been a massive success for Marvel Studios. The stories have been engaging and the animation is superb. It’s been a highlight of the week for Marvel fans, so perhaps they’ll get more budget to do what they want to do next time around.
You can catch new episodes of What If…? on Wednesdays on Disney+.
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