Now that What If…? Season 2 has had its moment in the sun, Season 3 is currently in development. According to a recent report, the upcoming season will aim to blur the lines between live-action and the animated universe. This news comes from Marvel Studios’ head of streaming, Brad Winderbaum, who dropped a major reveal on ComicBook.com’s Phase Zero podcast.
Although the conversation was ostensibly about the much-anticipated X-Men ’97, Winderbaum veered off-script to tease that Marvel’s anthology series could become a new playground for unexpected cameos, breaking its own ‘live-action first’ rule.
For those unfamiliar, this rule has acted as an invisible barrier, preventing characters like the X-Men from appearing in Marvel Studios’ animated shows. Thus, Winderbaum’s revelation marks a major shift in Marvel’s strategy.
“Actually, in the third season, spoiler alert, we do start to push at that boundary a little bit more. There’s more fun to be had with the Multiverse, and who can kind of come in,” he revealed, setting the stage for what could be a crossover spectacle.
Reflecting on the freedom granted by setting X-Men ’97 in, well, the ’90s, Winderbaum noted the liberating nature of working outside the tightly knit MCU fabric. This approach allowed for a more “iterative” creative process, something that the MCU-based What If…? struggles with due to its remixed narrative of the MCU.
Despite this, the animated series managed to surprise viewers with Bill Foster’s appearance as Giant Man in its second season, marking a rare instance of introducing a character outside of live-action. The What If…? creative team, Bryan Andrews and A.C. Bradley, had previously lamented the restrictions imposed by the ‘live-action first’ rule, expressing a desire to explore the entirety of the Marvel universe.
Andrews recounted, “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!'” This limitation even affected the possibility of featuring Sam Wilson’s Captain America, a storyline tangled in the timing of the Disney+ series The Falcon and The Winter Soldier.
Naturally, one can’t help but wonder about the implications of breaking this rule in Season 3 of What If…?. Will this lead to a surge of animated characters making their debuts before appearing on the big screen? Could this signify the beginning of a more integrated Marvel Universe where animated and live-action characters swap arenas with ease?
We won’t know until the next season of What If…? arrives, but at the very least, Marvel fans can relish in the anticipation of unexpected cameos.
