Yesterday, the third and final season of What If...? — the Disney+ animated drama about how the Marvel Cinematic Universe would be different had this or that plot twist happened another way — came to an end. Hopefully the fans enjoyed it.
One person who did not like what he saw was Beau DeMayo, the former showrunner behind X-Men '97, another animated Marvel series. "#whatif season 3 yikes just yikes," he posted on X/Twitter. "I’d watch more to give notes on how it could’ve easily been done better but I have some water to watch boil."
That is a harsh public assessment from someone who used to work for the company, and DeMayo didn't stop there, writing that What If...? season 3 "has no substance and feels like fanfic. The dialogue is flat and so obvious, and some of the premises are just weird." He called the new season "the worst kind" of show: "Mediocre." He even explicitly called out Matthew Chauncey, who took over as head writer on What If...? season 3 from A. C. Bradley, implying that Chauncey was the reason the show fell off.
If you're wondering why a guy who was once on Disney's payroll would publicly immolate his employer like this, some history could help. In addition to working on Moon Knight and the upcoming Blade movie, Beau DeMayo wrote the first two seasons of X-Men '97, the first of which came out to fan acclaim earlier this year and the second of which is due out in 2025. But Disney fired him not long that first season finished airing. DeMayo implied on his social media that Disney canned him for posting about Pride Month, but Disney responded that he'd been let go following an internal investigation. “Given the egregious nature of the findings, we severed ties with him immediately and he has no further affiliation with Marvel,” the company said. A source at Variety claims it had something to do with sexual misconduct.
Also worth noting is that Matthew Chauncey, the guy DeMayo implied is responsible for What If...? declining in quality, has replaced DeMayo as the head writer for the third season of X-Men '97. With all of that information accounted for, DeMayo's criticism of What If...? season 3 feels less like a fan expressing their opinion and more like sour grapes.
DeMayo has a history of publicly criticizing shows he's worked on. For instance, after his stint on Netflix's The Witcher, he claimed that "some of the writers were not or actively disliked the books and games, even actively mocking the source material." Is that true? Hard to say. Is openly putting down your colleagues a good way to ensure you'll never work in Hollywood again? Quite possibly.
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