What if…? EP Brad Winderbaum teases Captain Carter and The Watcher’s Dynamic in Season 3 and the future of MCU animation

What if…? EP Brad Winderbaum teases Captain Carter and The Watcher’s Dynamic in Season 3 and the future of MCU animation

What if…? Season 3 is previewed by Marvel TV exec Brad Winderbaum as the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s animated adventure enters its final season. As the Multiverse saga continues to advance its storytelling, the MCU is preparing to conclude one of its Multiverse-based properties that was already introduced in Phase 4. But as Phase 6 approaches, What if…? ends with a bang, with The Watcher returning for one final journey alongside the heroes and villains of various realities.




In What if…? In season three, MCU audiences will see the debut of Kathryn Hahn’s Agatha Harkness, Simu Liu’s Shang-Chi, Hailee Steinfeld’s Kate Bishop, Oscar Isaac’s Moon Knight, and Dominique Thorne’s Ironheart, all of whom finally get the animation treatment. What if…? Season 3 also stars Anthony Mackie’s Captain America, Sebastian Stan’s Bucky Barnes and David Harbour’s Red Guardian before returning in 2025 Captain America: Brave New World And lightning* respectively. While the X-Men movie reboot is still years away, Storm will also be introduced in the MCU, with X Men ’97 Star Alison Sealy-Smith voices the beloved heroine.

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ScreenRant recently interviewed Brad Winderbaum, head of TV, streaming and animation at Marvel Studios What if…? Season 3 to promote the final eight episodes of the series and show what viewers can look forward to in the swan song season. Winderbaum announced the return of several MCU fan favorites while also previewing the arrival of new faces What if…? Season 3. He also hinted at what’s being worked on behind the scenes in the world of Marvel TV, including the possible canonization of some previous Marvel TV shows before the Disney+ era.


Marvel’s “What If…?” Is Coming Season 3 & Agent Carter With MCU Canon

“You always ask me these hardcore continuity questions…”

Captain Carter on the back of the HYDRA Stomper in What If...?


ScreenRant: Episodes 3 and 4 are absolutely fantastic, and Episode 3 especially feels like a prelude to that lightning*. But I heard that this was originally supposed to be a season two episode, which was then moved to season three. How did this come about?

Brad Winderbaum: Honestly, it’s just a coincidence. It takes about two and a half to three years to develop something into live action. You have to add another year to the animation and it just fit perfectly. Honestly, the Mech Avengers episode with Mackie as Captain America coming out right before Captain America 4 is also a coincidence. Sometimes you’re lucky.

ScreenRant: A character we fell in love with over the seasons What if…? is Captain Carter, and we haven’t really seen much of her in Season 3 yet. What will Captain Carter be up to in Season 3? And out of curiosity that is Agent Carter Show canon?


Brad Winderbaum: You always ask me these hardcore continuity questions.

I’ll tell you this: It’s exciting for me to think about how to reconcile these ABC shows with the canon. If you know me and the way my brain works, it’s an exciting area for me to explore.

ScreenRant: Has Haley Aytwell had any experience with? What if…? influence on their decision to return End of the world? Were there Steve Rogers and Peggy Carter stories that weren’t published because they were a little too close to something developed for them in the films?

Brad Winderbaum: Well, I don’t know what we know and what we don’t know, so let’s just start there. But I have to say that she loves this character and I can’t imagine anyone else playing this character. Hayley and certainly Captain Carter are a force to be reckoned with. She is pure nobility.

But the most interesting thing about Captain Carter to me is her relationship with the Guardian. When I watch “What if…?” mostly as an anthology; maybe 90% anthology and 10% serialization. There’s something about the climax of every season, and I don’t know if you’d call it father-daughter energy or siblings or just a best friend relationship that develops between these two, but it’s a very interesting story- Territory to play with.

Much like What if…? Seasons 1 to 3 have one story arc, it is the Guardian’s story about an introverted man who is happy as a spectator watching what is happening in the world. He dares, leaves his comfort zone and enters the world. And that comes at a price, most of which has to do with Peggy.


ScreenRant: Captain Carter was one of the series’ first original characters. What can we expect from Season 3? Is there another new character that could tie some of these stories together?

Brad Winderbaum: One of my favorite characters ever is this character Byrdie, played by Natasha Lyonne, who I really must know nothing about. But she’s so much fun; She flies around, shoots lasers from her eyes, kicks a lot of ass, and is very cool.

Enter X-Men What if…? Season 3 With Storm, X-Men ’97 is brewing its own universe

“X-Men blossomed in the ’90s – I don’t want to say how – in many different directions.”

Storm holds onto Mjolnir in What If Season 3

ScreenRant: This season, Storm will hold Mjolnir. Were there any other ideas for X-Men and can we expect any Marvel streaming projects with them after this? Secret wars?


Brad Winderbaum: Alison Sealy-Smith is one of the most recognizable voices in the history of animation. I’m currently in the animation review of the second season of X-Men ’97 and what does she do as Storm? She is incredible.

She brings so much depth to this character in her vocal performance, and when the synapses clicked, we thought, “We could do that in What If?” It was just a given, and the fact that she was in a very famous edition of What If… was the Goddess of Thunder? just got the whole thing together. So that’s super exciting.

And X-Men ’97 is a universe unto itself. X-Men blossomed – I don’t want to say how – in many different directions in the ’90s.

ScreenRant: If we get an X-Factor cartoon, Brad, I’m all for it. But what can you tell me? nova? Could we get “annihilation”?


Brad Winderbaum: I can tell you it’s a really promising project. It hasn’t been greenlit yet, but the materials are very cool. I don’t want to say too much about it, but man, it would be exciting to do it. I’ll tell you this much.

ScreenRant: I’m really excited about it Eyes of Wakanda because that’s canon within the MCU, and I love that because it almost feels like it Star Wars: Clone Warswhere it gives a new dimension to something from the past. Can we expect to see more animated projects that are standard in the MCU?

Brad Winderbaum: Maybe. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. I like to watch the series like the comics, where not every book has to be in the main Marvel timeline, but it’s definitely fun to play. It’s fun to jump around universes and treat each story as its own self-contained story, like every other studio on the planet can do.

They don’t think about the fact that each of their projects is literally a different universe. You just ask yourself, “What is the story that I need to tell here that will bring something cathartic to the audience?” That’s really how we see it, and Eyes of Wakanda certainly does that. It’s really about the story of Wakanda in such a rich way, and Ryan Coogler is the executive producer, so his vision for Wakanda and the entire universe within a universe that is Wakanda is just so strong and vivid and detailed that we can relate to it could set up an entire four-part event.


Brad Winderbaum says goodbye to Marvel’s What If…? Currently

“For every one that made it, there are probably a hundred episodes that didn’t make it to the screen.”

Shang Chi Western in What If Season 3

ScreenRant: Brian just dropped a few bombshells on me and said he wanted to do a KISS episode of What if…?, where there was a Battle of the Bands and he also wanted to do a DnD style dungeon crawl episode. Were there any episodes left on the table that you wanted to do? And is this really the final season of What If, or are there more to come?

Brad Winderbaum: I think this is the final season of What If…? for the foreseeable future. As you know, nothing can be counted in the Marvel Universe and there are endless stories to tell. There are probably a hundred episodes that didn’t make it to the screen for every single one that did.

There are some great episodes that almost made it. There was a Winter Soldier Yelena episode where she was actually the Winter Soldier, back in Sam Wilson’s military days when he was with his unit. He’s the last man standing in the middle of the desert and he has the wing pack, but it’s broken. He’s about to be taken apart by the sniper, and in the end they have to work together. That was always a blast that I loved, but we didn’t make it.


More about “What If…?” Season 3

The final season of What If…? sees the return of The Watcher and Captain Carter, as well as countless other beloved Marvel characters, in new and different contexts. Some episodes include “What if… Agatha went to Hollywood?”, “What if… the Red Watcher stopped the Winter Soldier?” and “What if… Howard stopped the duck?”

Check back soon for our others What if..? Interview about the third season with:



What if…?

Season 3 premieres on Disney+ on December 22nd.

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