From Howard the Duck to Captain Carter – Things to know about Season 2 of ‘What If…’ from D23. We are on day three of new episodes of Marvel’s ‘What If…’ and have six more days episodes to go, and we are loving it. Without spoiling anything, the first episode blew our quacking minds!
Our odd fascination with Howard the Duck goes back to our childhood when I saw Howard in a theater at Quaker Bridge Mall outside Princeton New Jersey in late 1986. Years later, when the MCU became a worldwide success, I was one of those people being a jerk saying Howard the Duck was the FIRST MCU movie.
Howard the Duck movie does not hold up in any way to the standards of an MCU film, but still, it is fun to mess with fans. The film helped me get into comics and opened up a weird world where I judge all ducks by the Howard standard, and poor Donald suffered for it.
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In Season 2 of Marvel Studios’ What If…?, The Watcher (voice of Jeffrey Wright) continues to guide viewers through the vast Multiverse as new and familiar faces from across the Marvel Cinematic Universe question, revisit, and twist key moments from MCU films and series. The animated series will return Friday, December 22, with the episode “What If… Nebula Joined the Nova Corps?” A new episode will then premiere nightly for nine nights.
Recently, three members of the creative team—director and executive producer Bryan Andrews, writer and executive producer AC Bradley, and writer and producer Matthew Chauncey—participated in a post-screening Q&A at the Walt Disney Studios in Burbank, California, to tease what’s in store for Season 2. Below are highlights from their animated conversation.
1. The rumored “lost episode” from Season 1 will stream in Season 2.
The long-awaited “What If… Iron Man Crashed into the Grandmaster?” episode will stream Monday, December 25, on Disney+. It had nearly been completed before Season 1 was released in 2021, Andrews confirmed, but “it was a casualty of the pandemic. With the vendors, it was a little difficult for them to get cooking on it.” Luckily, another episode “was super ahead of schedule,” so they pulled “a switcheroo” and released it in lieu of the Iron Man episode. “The editors did an amazing job,” he promised. “It’s going to be a lot of fun!”
2. There is a totally ’80s-inspired episode.
“What If…. Peter Quill Attacks Earth’s Mightiest Heroes?” streams Saturday, December 23, and is set during a totally tubular time in history. “Fan casting different Avengers lineups is something we all do, and we ended up doing it in the writers room,” Chauncey said. “Early on in Season 1, one of our ideas was, ‘What would an Avengers movie look like if it took place in a different era—if there was an Avengers-level crisis in the 1980s?’ The idea of setting an episode in the ’80s really excited us.
Thinking about the history of the MCU, which is so rich, you realize there actually are so many great characters established in the films who were active during that period.” With Michael Douglas returning to voice Hank Pym, the original Ant-Man, “it was a trip getting to write for him,” Chauncey said, “since the ’80s were when he became so iconic.” Disney Legend Kurt Russell returns as Ego, “which was awesome,” Andrews said. “We got so many of the actors back. It’s incredible!”
3. One actor negotiated his Season 2 appearance back in Season 1.
Disney Legend Jon Favreau reprises his role as Tony Stark’s righthand man, Happy Hogan, in “What If… Happy Hogan Saved Christmas?” premiering Sunday, December 24, on Disney+. “First of all, he’s amazing; he’s one of the absolute nicest and most talented human beings,” Bradley said. “When he did Season 1, he jokingly made a deal. He said, ‘I’ll do it, but in Season 2, I get to headline—and I want to do ‘The Freak.’
That was the first time Matt and I had heard of ‘The Freak.’ And we were like, ‘Oh, no… What are we agreeing to?’ Later, as we were talking out the episode, we were like, ‘Let’s make it an ode to Mr. Favreau.’ We started looking at his amazing movies, and we even have a little mention of his Chef show in there.”
4. One character is guaranteed to make audiences “quack up.”
In “What If… Nebula Joined the Nova Corps?” Nebula (voiced by Karen Gillan) reaches out to Howard the Duck (voiced by Seth Green) after a problem arises on the planet Xandar. “In one of the early versions of the script, Howard was a side character; I think he was like a like a reporter/paparazzi guy giving people some trouble,” Andrews said.
“But Seth was so funny in Season 1, so we retooled the character a little bit after he did such a good job. Everybody had a blast and loved coming back to play their characters slightly differently.”
5. Although What If…? is an anthology series, a throughline remains.
“Fate has made The Watcher and Captain Carter lone warriors, and I think part of the fun of watching their journey is that they’re kind of mirrors for one another,” Chauncey said. “The Watcher is going to reckon with some of the choices he made in Season 1 in terms of how he engages and watches Captain Carter navigate her life in these episodes, which is cool.”
