Marvel’s What If…? which recently dropped its second season on Disney+ is a fun animated series that reimagines elements from the MCU in creative new ways. We get to see Nebula become a member of the Nova Corps and Happy Hogan transform into the Hulk to see how stories like that could play out. But while the show gets to be creative with what stories it tells, it turns off some material is off limits, at least right now.
Season 2 sees a return episode that imagines Peggy Carter taking the super soldier serum and becoming her universe’s version of a very English Captain America. However, the current MCU’s Captain America, Sam Wilson, is nowhere to be found. What If…? writer A.C. Bradley recently told the Phase Zero podcast that Sam Wilson as Captain America was off limits because one rule the show has is that it isn’t allowed to introduce new characters itself, and must wait for upcoming Marvel TV series or movies to do that work first. She explained…
We also couldn't do Sam Wilson's Captain America because we didn't know when that would be coming out. Again, we were writing Season 2 as The Falcon and The Winter Soldier paused shooting and the scripts were being re-written because of other things. We don't know when anything is airing. So, we couldn't touch it because we're not allowed to introduce… It makes sense, you let the character live in live-action first and then go play in the multiverse.
Since Season 2 of What If…? was being written during the pandemic, everything was in flux. There was the possibility, however remote, that The Falcon and the Winter Soldier could end up airing after Season 2, or that rewrites would end up changing the story, and that Sam Wilson would not become the new Captain America. This meant the animated series couldn’t use that idea, because they can’t introduce characters before live action.
The same was true of the X-Men. While we’ve now seen a couple of “official” MCU mutants via The Marvels mid-credits scene, and we know they will become a big part of the MCU down the road, we haven’t been introduced to the X-Men as a team yet, and until we are, What If…? can’t do anything with them. As What If…? co-creator Bryan Andrews told Comicbook.com...
They were pretty much off the table. They're like, 'We got to do it first in live action and then you get to do it.' And we're like, 'Ah, man!' We would've loved to have played with all kinds of toys. But there's limitations.
It certainly makes sense. There has to be an initial “take” on a character before What If…? can come along and do something different with that character. If you introduce the X-Men in the series one way, you are essentially taking anything they do off the table when it comes to the “official” characters. We know that What If…? Season Three is on the way. While the X-Men will likely still be off-limits, there will be many more characters they can now use.
The first two seasons of What If...? is available with a Disney+ subscription. Check out the TV premiere list to plan your next binge watch.
