The MCU has grown into something of an immeasurable scale. It has adapted things which comic book fans would have never thought they'd see on the big screen in their lifetime. With the many accomplishments that the cinematic universe has had, it's now What If...?''s turn to flip the script.
The show marks the very first time that Marvel Studios has made an animated project, one that is just as connected to their whole tapestry as its live-action cousins. Being animated, it can go places and do things that simply aren't feasible otherwise. Stuff like Ultron having won, and collected all of the Infinity Stones.
It's insane the amount of freedom that the creative team got when coming up with the different episodes that make up the first season. The talented artists working on the show would certainly need to know exactly what they're talking about when it comes to the MCU and its intricate mythology.
Thankfully, that's something that Head Writer AC Bradley has no issues with. In fact, the writer accidentally spoiled key future events in the MCU as she pitched her ideas to Marvel Studios.
SPOILING THE MCU
A.C. Bradley, the head writer for Marvel Studios' What If...?, recently sat down with Total Film Magazine to discuss the MCU's first animated show. Amongst the discussion, the reason she got the job in the first place was revealed, and it's not quite what one would expect.
In her pitch, Bradley suggested ideas for What If...? that, unbeknownst to her, were already being done in future films––A detail that the studio spoiled for her when they had to reject them.
Spoiling the future of the MCU on accident may be considered a blunder for some, but for AC Bradley, she received a call saying that she "can definitely handle the weird MCU:"
"The next day, I had a call and they said, 'If you can guess what we're doing in the big MCU, you can definitely handle the weird MCU.' And that was back in October 2018."
Among those many ideas that she offered to the studio was "Jane Foster Thor... old-man Steve and Professor Hulk" all of which were set to appear in Thor Love and Thunder and Avengers: Endgame respectively.
"My first week, I wanted to do Jane Foster Thor and I was told no... I went into a whole feminist rant of why characters are important and why they're necessary and why a woman needs to be able to wield the hammer and then they were like, 'Yeah, we're gonna do it in live-action...' I also pitched old-man Steve and Professor Hulk... this was before they let me see Endgame."
A WRITER WHO KNOWS THE MCU
Having someone writing for a major project within the MCU who has such immense knowledge at the tip of their fingers, and pinpoint foresight, is something that a show like What If...? is going to benefit from greatly. Sadly, it's not something which could be said for other key creatives in various past projects––so it's always great when things line up.
Someone knowing the MCU like the back of their hand will only serve to make each individual episode even more enjoyable. The cascading effects that the show explores in each episode will provide additional insight into everything audiences have witnessed so far, something that only serves to provide more depth and intricacy to the Marvel Cinematic Universe as a whole.
After Loki blew open the multiverse, fans have been dying to explore the concept even further. Good thing for them, What If...? is just around the corner, premiering on Disney+ August 11. In just a few weeks, fans will be up to their neck in multiversal storytelling that will open an imaginable amount of doors to MCU theorizing and discussion.
