- A scrapped episode of What If…? featured a dark Spider-Man storyline and was inspired by the dystopian film Children of Men.
- The episode was not included in the second season due to COVID-19 pandemic-related delays.
- Season 2 of What If…? featured more creative freedom, allowing for exploration of different scenarios and less prominent characters in the Marvel universe.
The Marvel animated anthology series What If…? almost included a “very, very dark” Spider-Man episode in its second season. In a recent interview with IGN, head writer and showrunner A.C. Bradley provided intriguing details about the discarded episode, likening it to the 2006 dystopian thriller Children of Men. Bradley said, “It felt like the world was already ending and we didn’t need to add to it. 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.’”
Regrettably, the episode was scrapped due to delays caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. Details about the unused episode are unknown, but given the context of Children of Men—a world devastated by decades of human infertility—it is likely that Spider-Man would have been placed in a post-apocalyptic setting.
What If…? season 2, which premiered on Disney+ last month, gave the writers more creative freedom because they were not required to focus on the main characters of the MCU. Bradley added, “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. We started with the second stringers, the undervalued and overlooked, like Nebula (Karen Gillan), Darcy (Kat Dennings), and Hela.”
This freedom resulted in numerous “what if…?” scenarios in season 2, such as What If… Nebula Joined the Nova Corps?, What If… the Avengers Assembled in 1602?, and What If… Kahhori Reshaped the World?, which introduced the original MCU character, Kahhori. Both seasons of What If…? are currently streaming on Disney+, and a teaser for the third season has been released.