Yesterday, we got an early first look at a Hela Variant in What If...? season 2. A far cry from how the villain appeared in 2017's Thor: Ragnarok, it's clear this take on the character will see her head down a drastically different route (a running theme in an animated series that explores the MCU's Multiverse).
Now, a trusted scooper has weighed in with a few additional details for us to mull over.
Apparently, "she's wearing dragon-scale armour" like Shang-Chi for an episode that's expected to pit the might of Asgard against Ta Lo. What leads the two mystical nations to war is hard to say, though this lines up with footage descriptions from last year's San Diego Comic-Con which revealed a scene with Odin squaring off with Wenwu/The Mandarin.
If we had to hazard a guess about the premise of this episode, it's probably some sort of variation of "What if Hela was never imprisoned?" or "What if Hela mastered the Ten Rings?"
Then again, if Hela is decked out in dragon-scale armour, we can't discount the possibility she's aligned with Wenwu!
Cate Blanchett reprises the role of Hela, so we're definitely excited to see what she brings to the table during this return.
It was recently claimed that the planned third season of What If...? will be the show's last, meaning there's only a finite amount of time left for this animated series to explore the Multiverse. We're guessing that's because Marvel Studios will no longer use the concept once the Multiverse Saga ends, so the show probably always had an expiration date on it.
What If...? season 2 is expected to return to Disney+ later this year, though there have been rumblings about it being pushed into 2024.