What If...? season 2 has proven to be a hit with MCU fans...even if it does feel like the show largely flew under the radar over the holidays. As well as reuniting us with Captain Carter, the show threw a newly created character into the mix with Kahhori and put a fresh spin on plenty of old favourites.
Talking to IGN, Head Writer A.C. Bradley - who recently announced her departure from the series - revealed that the creative team was given more freedom with this second batch of episodes.
"With Season 1, there was a push to use the headliners, to do the Tony Stark episode, to do the Black Panther episode and Doctor Strange," she explained. "But with Season 2, we had a bit more freedom. At the end of the day, we're not writing the big blockbuster, 100 million dollar movie. We're not even showrunning the live action TV shows."
"We're the scrappy, little animation show slipping under the Marvel machine radar. So, it was really subconscious but I think we veered toward the scrappy characters in Season 2," Bradley continued. "We started with the second stringers, the undervalued and overlooked, like Nebula (Karen Gillan), Darcy (Kat Dennings), and Hela."
While Spider-Man took centre stage in season 1's "Marvel Zombies" episode, there was no sign of the web-slinger last month and the What If...?'s writer has now confirmed that he was cut from the series.
"It felt like the world was already ending and we didn't need to add to it," Bradley said of developing the show during the pandemic. "And so it became kind of an escape and a fun release. However, I did write an episode, which is forever going in a drawer, that was very, very dark. I was calling it 'Children of Men with Spider-Man.'"
Honestly, that sounds fantastic and it's a shame the idea has been ditched. Then again, Spidey is a character who fans love for his optimistic nature so a story that's too grim may have proven controversial. There are also more than a few complications surrounding the hero given Marvel Studios' tenuous relationship with Sony Pictures.
There are rumblings we might see Peter Parker in What If...? season 3, but the hero will take centre stage in his own animated series later this year with Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man (previously titled Spider-Man: Freshman Year). On the live-action front, Spider-Man 4 is in the works at Marvel Studios and the wall-crawler is expected to be front and centre in the next Avengers movies as well. We also have Sony's Spider-Man: Beyond the Spider-Verse to look forward to down the line.
Were you disappointed when Spidey didn't swing into What If...? season 2?