In an interview with Agents of Fandom, ‘What If…?’ director Bryan Andrews revealed the names of three characters that Marvel Studios prohibited his team from using in the animated series.
“Off-limits? You know, it’s funny…I wanted to do something with Beta Ray Bill but that’s like [Laughs]. I also wanted to do something with Ghost Rider,” he revealed. “They were just like, ‘Well…not so much.’ Or get Iron Fist and Shang-Chi together and have a real super mega Kung Fu-centric episode.”
“They’re very careful about making sure we don’t step on the toes of films that are about to come out. Throughout our tenure, our writers would often be coming up with stuff and the higher-ups would be like, ‘Nope, that’s happening in Guardians or such and such.’ They were really close and sometimes spot-on to things happening in those movies,” Andrews added.
In a separate interview with Entertainment Weekly, Marvel Television boss Brad Winderbaum was asked how ‘What If…?’ season 3 fits into the wider MCU. “I can’t really answer that specifically, but I will say that it does fit into the saga as we enter the third act of the saga,” he responded. “‘What If…?’ season 3 does set the table in a lot of ways.”
As for why the series is ending now—despite the Multiverse Saga not concluding until 2027—Winderbaum explained:
“There are bigger universe reasons to culminate it now. If you’re a fan of the overall MCU, you’ll notice that the first season premiered after ‘Loki2 season 1, when the Sacred Timeline blossomed into a multiverse and all of a sudden all these new stories emerged. That was when we started telling those stories in ‘What If…?’ And at the end of season 2, when the ‘Watcher’ takes Peggy to look out at the multiverse, it’s taken the form of the tree of stories that Loki sits in the middle of at the end of ‘Loki2 season 2. So the culmination of season 3 and of the series itself does fit in to the overall MCU tapestry in that way. That being said, there’s infinite stories to tell with ‘What If…?,’ and time will tell whether we make more. But for now it is, I think, a beautiful way to end this era and to culminate the story of the ‘Watcher.'”
‘What If…?’ season 3 will be the show’s final season. For many fans, however, the series never fully realized its potential.
