Marvel Studios wants you to know about the multiverse. That means timelines where Iron Man is a zombie, Steve Rogers never becomes Captain America and the Avengers assemble in 1602. (Marvel has a pretty big movie coming up where different realities collide, after all.)
These scary ghost stories and tales of glory have mostly been seen through the animated series "What If ...?," which premieres its third and seemingly final season Sunday on Disney Plus. The show began as an initiation into alternate timelines and infinite realities, but it has slowly morphed into something more akin to a cozy holiday classic, shifting from a summer to winter release schedule and featuring heartwarming episodes during the holidays.
Yes, there are zany episodes -- including one this season where a duck and human get married and honeymoon on an intergalactic pleasure cruise -- but Marvel sees the animated series as a way to connect with families over the winter break. Since, as Marvel puts it, 'tis the season for time travel.
"It does feel like a little holiday show, and there is a little bit of that warm, happy -- it's a happy show, but there's a touch of melancholy to some of the stories," said Brad Winderbaum, Marvel's head of television, streaming and animation. "And it does have that holiday feel to it for whatever reason."
"What If ...?" -- based on a comic book series of the same name -- wasn't always meant to be a holiday special.
After "Avengers: Endgame" shattered box office records in 2019 and tied a bow on a decade-long superhero epic, the sprawling Marvel Cinematic Universe turned its eye toward the multiverse. Under the banner of the "Multiverse Saga," Marvel has been telling tales of alternate timelines and universes where anything and everything can happen -- mostly through "What If ...?"
The show centers on a cosmic being named the Watcher (Jeffrey Wright) who narrates the goings-on of unique universes featuring Captain America, the Hulk, Black Widow, Scarlet Witch and dozens of other Marvel heroes. Each episode focuses on a different world or timeline, with only a handful connecting to a larger story. Throughout the series, we've seen couples fall in love, heroes rescue each other from different worlds, even Christmas parties.
The first season was released weekly from August to October 2021, right on the heels of "Loki" Season 1, which introduced audiences to multiple timelines and parallel worlds. "What If ...?" was very much meant to coincide with that show and offer an extended look into the multiverse.
When planning each season, Winderbaum said, the writers spitballed which heroes they'd like to see together and where they'd like to see different heroes go.
"There's this blue-sky period where we sit in a room together, and it's like everyone gets to say what they want to see and it all goes up on the wall," he said.
Once all the ideas were laid out, the writers asked themselves a simple question: "It's not just 'what if,'" Winderbaum said. "It's 'then what?'" Each episode, he said, needed to have more than just a fun team-up and couldn't have a predictable ending.
From there, the team winnowed the ideas down to about 30, which then got pitched to Marvel Studios President Kevin Feige, head of all things MCU. Feige picked his favorites, and the team eventually ended up with more ideas than episodes.
One idea left on the cutting-room floor was a "Dungeons & Dragons"-style episode where D-list characters -- like Howard the Duck and Kurt Goreshter from the "Ant-Man" movies -- end up saving the day instead of the headliner heroes like Iron Man and Captain America, according to Bryan Andrews, director of multiple "What If ...?" episodes.
Once production wrapped on a season, the production team had one more task: ordering the episodes correctly. Some episodes were locked into their specific season and episode number because of how they fit into the wider story arc. But some of the less tethered ones were switched around to make sure there weren't too many comedic or dramatic episodes back to back.
In fact, the second-season opener that centered on Thanos's daughter Nebula was meant to be a Season 3 episode, Andrews said. But because it was farther along in production, they moved it to Season 2 and pushed back an episode featuring Sebastian Stan's Winter Soldier and David Harbour's Red Guardian to Season 3.
That wasn't the only major change for the second season. Andrews said Marvel's marketing team had an idea to spice things up: Instead of releasing the show weekly during the summer like in Season 1, the second season should be released in winter, when everyone is relaxing at home during the holidays.
"And I was just like, 'Wow, that's wild,'" Andrews said. "'I've never heard of that before. That seems kind of bold, but I get it.'"
And so it was done. The second season launched on Dec. 22, 2023, and featured nine episodes -- one released each day until Dec. 30. The second season included a Christmas-themed episode where Happy Hogan (Jon Favreau) goes on a "Die Hard"-ian rescue mission and becomes a purple freak similar to the Hulk. (The episode even featured holiday tunes, which Marvel later released as a Spotify playlist.)
The switch panned out. Though Disney declined to share specifics, Andrews said "the numbers show that it was a stronger way to go."
For Season 3, the holiday vibes are back. There are episodes where enemies come together to save the day and others where ghostly figures who resemble something out of Dickens provide some plot direction.
But the holiday spirit is really cooking in the season's fourth episode, which releases Christmas Day. It features Howard the Duck and Kat Dennings's Darcy honeymooning on an intergalactic cruise.
That one, Andrews said, "oddly enough, has a little bit more heart, a little bit more emotion than you would suspect. It kind of sneaks up on you, which is great, which is why it's perfect for Christmas."
Of course, Season 3 explores other genres -- like westerns and Gundam science fiction. There are also Easter eggs and references to other Marvel projects (this is the MCU, after all). That's why you'll see Storm from the X-Men and Agatha Harkness from "Agatha All Along" show up, too. Not to mention, Winderbaum was clear that those who have been faithful to the MCU will receive a special present under the tree this year: an "exciting" connection to the overarching Multiverse Saga.
So while "What If ...?" might not be a Claymation "Marvel Christmas Special," the third season will be full of mystery, suspense and lots of joy -- hallmarks of the season.
"Because we're an anthology show, you never know what you're going to get," Andrews said. "So it really is like opening a different Christmas present every day. You have no idea what's inside until you open and you watch it."
