While only one season of Marvel Studios' animated What If...? has aired on Disney+ thus far, with the second to debut next year, Marvel's Head of Animation already has some insight into Season 3 -- particularly regarding the series' central character, the Watcher.
"The fact that we have What If…? going into a third season, it means that we can go a little bit deeper with these characters, especially the Watcher," said Marvel Studios' Brad Winderbaum. "It's a Multiverse story, they're standalone stories, but there is a serialized aspect to it because there's this narrator who loves the subjects of these stories, he's the ultimate fanboy."
"He's watching, like we all watch," Winderbaum said, "And he loves these characters like we do. So we can dig in a little deeper into what makes him tick in the second season, and then into the third season, we kind of get to know his humanity a lot more."
What If... The Watcher Stopped Watching and Started Fighting?
Like the comic series that inspired it, What If...? begins as a series of standalone stories exploring alternate realities throughout the MCU's Multiverse, framed with narrating sequences by the omniscient, all-seeing cosmic observer known as the Watcher, voiced by Jeffrey Wright. The end of Season 1's seventh episode, however -- "What If... Thor Were an Only Child?" -- features an incursion by an Infinity Stones-powered Ultron from a reality different from that featured in the episode. In the subsequent "What If... Ultron Won?" the Watcher transitions from observer to participant when Ultron breaches the Multiverse and attacks and defeats him in battle.
In the season finale "What If... the Watcher Broke His Oath?" the Watcher does exactly that, assembling the variant characters seen in previous episodes as the Guardians of the Multiverse, who succeed in defeating the all-powerful Ultron. The Watcher later returns most of the players to their home universes, but is clearly no longer simply an entity who's necessarily content to watch as threats to the Multiverse emerge.
Marvel Studios premiered a trailer for What If...?'s second season last weekend at Comic-Con International: San Diego. While the trailer has not been released publicly, snippets include appearances by Captain Carter and Black Widow, in an apparent continuation of events from the previous season, as well as appearances by Iron Man and Black Panther.
What If...? Season 3 has not yet been scheduled. Season 2 is slated for release in early 2023. Season 1 can currently be streamed on Disney+.
Source: Twitter