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To date, no Marvel Studios series has managed to reach three seasons, as the MCU has preferred limited series to traditional ongoing shows. Even Loki has appeared to call it a day, going by its very final season 2 finale. And yet this unwritten rule will be broken with What If…?, which is officially getting a third season.
The animated anthology series dropped its second run daily over the holidays — either as a special Christmas treat for loyal Disney Plus subscribers or a way of dumping the project before the New Year, you decide — and the release of the season 2 finale on Dec. 30 brought with it confirmation that a third batch of episodes will eventually surface on streaming.
Yes, Jeffrey Wright’s Watcher will return to narrate more stories set in vast, new realities out there in the Marvel multiverse, no doubt with a ton more familiar stars and characters on his tail. It’s still early days, but what do we know about What If…? season 3?
What If…? season 3 teaser trailer
First things first, the What If…? renewal news came via an illuminating first-look teaser trailer which took the form of a sneak peek at an episode from season 3. The chunky clip depicts a comedic scene that tells us we can expect an unlikely bromance between the Winter Soldier (Sebastian Stan) and Red Guardian (David Harbour).
Alexei Shostakov is animated as a younger man, so we can presume that this is set around the time of the opening flashback scenes of Black Widow and will likely expand on the Russian superhero side of the MCU. Well, that’s one episode down, what about the rest?
What If…? season 3 storylines
So far, this “Bucky and Alexei’s Excellent Adventure” episode (not the actual title, sadly) is the only one that’s been confirmed, but we have received hints at other potential future episodes. Showrunner A.C. Bradley revealed that she had an ambitious story planned for season 2 that was “very, very dark” and was dubbed “Children of Men with Spider-Man.” Bradley also admitted this script was “forever going in a drawer,” so it’s possible this one will never see the light of day. The same probably goes for that mind-blowing Star Wars crossover. For shame.
What’s more, a list of rumored episode titles for season 3 is also doing the rounds online. While this intel is far from confirmed, it may just give us a clue as to what we can expect. The eight alleged titles are: “What if… the other half blipped?”, “What if… Maria Rambeau was Captain Marvel?”, “What if… Wanda watched musicals instead of sitcoms?”, “What if… Pietro survived Ultron?”, “What if… Okoye took the heart-shaped herb?” , “What if…? Tiamut destroyed the Earth?”, “What if… Khonshu chose Peter Parker?”, and “What if… Natasha Romanoff survived Vormir?”
It’s worth nothing that it’s hard to fit in the Bucky/Red Guardian plot into any of these rumored episodes, although there are only eight listed, instead of the usual nine per season, so it’s possible the episode showcased in the teaser is the final installment of this line-up. A WandaVision musical episode has been rumored before now. But, again, it’s best to retain a healthy skepticism for the moment.
What If…? season 3 potential release window
You’d have to be Uatu the Watcher himself to predict when What If…? season 3 could arrive with any real accuracy, as there was no consistency at all to the release of the first two seasons. Season 1 arrived, in weekly doses, from August-October 2021. We were then told that a new season would drop annually, but season 2 only just slid into December 2023, over two years later.
That said, there was a little thing called a pandemic that occurred during the production of those two runs so season 3 is expected to have gone a lot smoother. What If…? season 3 has yet to be given an official place on Marvel’s upcoming slate, so we can presume it won’t be here in 2024. Especially as the MCU’s animated programming is already pretty stacked over the next 12 months, what with X-Men ’97, Our Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man, and Eyes of Wakanda.
Then again, if Marvel wants to finally maintain What If…?‘s original annual release strategy it could sneak onto Disney Plus once more in December 2024. If not, as things are far enough along to showcase a season 3 clip immediately after season 2’s airing, very early in 2025 seems likely. The real question we need to ponder is “what if… Marvel could be a little more orderly with how this show comes out?”