While Marvel kept the fact that Loki was getting a second season a secret until an announcement following its season 1 finale, the cat is already out of the bag when it comes to What If…? season 2. Due to animation having to start work so far in advance, the sophomore run of the anthology series is already in development, which means the creators can tease what we can look forward to in season 2 despite season 1 still airing.
Case in point, designer Paul Lasaine spoke with The Direct and had some things to say about what we can expect from season 2. As we’ve heard before now, Lasaine promised that we can expect to see animated versions of characters who will be making their debuts in upcoming Phase 4 movies. What’s more, though, the show will also be introducing “brand new” characters exclusive to What If…?.
“Some of the new movies that are coming out, there are some characters [in Season 2] that are based on that. And then there’s some that are brand new, like… literally brand new,” Lasaine shared.
Lasaine went on to reveal that there was a “cool effect” that the team wanted to do for one episode in season 2 that Marvel ultimately forbade because it happened to match something that’s going to be used in an unknown Phase 4 film.
“There was one thing, and this is a Season 2 thing, and this will not be a spoiler, but we wanted to do this cool effect in this one place, and it was really a cool, interesting camera effect. And the producers came back and said ‘Well, actually, we’re gonna be doing that on this other movie which isn’t coming out yet for another year or two, so can you come up with a different effect?’ ‘Ok, yeah, sure, we can do that.’ It doesn’t happen that often, again because we are primarily basing…every one of these episodes, for the most part, is based on these existing movies, even if it’s a mash-up. You know, our Episode 2 was Guardians of the Galaxy and Black Panther, so we know what that pretty much entails, and we don’t go too far off field.”
We’ve already discovered that there will be a Black Widow episode in season 2, so it feels highly plausible that there could be takes on Shang-Chi or Eternals next year, too. Lasaine’s story about the nixed cool effect recalls something we’ve heard was vetoed on season 1. One episode pitch involved having Jane Foster become Thor. This was ruled out, though, when Marvel came clean that this was the plot of Thor: Love and Thunder.
As for those characters original to the show, that’s intriguing to hear – does Lasaine mean they come from the comics but have yet to enter the MCU or are they new for the screen? There’s a long while before season 2 gets here, but What If…? season 1 continues Wednesdays on Disney Plus.