Why did Marvel's "What If" animated series stop being an anthology series?

I stopped watching Marvel's "What If" animated series after the first couple episodes of Season 2! I was left very disappointed when I found out the series was becoming an overarching narrative show with central characters. Which is a shame, because I would've love to see more alternate stories of either MCU or Pre-MCU movies. I would even love to have seen an alternate story of Sam Raimi's 2002 Spider-Man film in the "What If" series!

So what happened? Why did "What if" stop being an anthology?

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Commentaires

eagc72026-02-02 08:16

I think they always intended there to be an overarching story alongside the anthology episodes.

Now i highly doubt they would've tackled any movies based on non-MCU movies, especially the Spidey ones, they already had to change Spidey's outfit since Sony owned that design.

FewWatermelonlesson02026-02-02 08:19

A consequence of the overall problem with the early Disney+ shows: Deciding what worked for the movies would transfer to TV without having a good grasp on the differences in the mediums.

In this case it’s not even so much that interconnected storylines don’t work on TV (obviously, they do), but rather that nobody grasped that an anthology show really didn’t need that at all.

eagc72026-02-02 08:24

I won't be surprised if they thought people would not be interested in the show if there was not some sort of endgame by the end of the season.

midasgoldentouch2026-02-02 09:46

Literally someone commented that a while ago - not interested in anthology shows but willing to check it out now that they’ve learned it’s got an overarching story.

Goldman2502026-02-02 08:29

The first season’s inclusion of everything coming together for the finale was well-received, so they thought that was what audiences wanted. Captain Carter and Evil Strange were popular then, so they thought that they’d keep those two going - I suspect that if Chadwick hadn’t passed away, they’d have done more with T’Challa Star-Lord as well.

eagc72026-02-02 08:44

Yeah they said that they were gonna do an spin-off solo series for T'Challa Star-Lord if Chadwick had lived (like with Marvel Zombies)

Eric-HipHopple2026-02-02 13:11

and that was, I think, a bad misread of the fans’ reaction. I think the idea that for the last 1-2 eps of S1 the previous eps coming together in one arc, the reaction was more like “oh ok, that’s one way to do it and in this one situation makes Infinity Ultron that much more of a threat” and not “we want this every time.”

tLM-tRRS-atBHB2026-02-02 09:18

It was never an anthology show.

They just made it *look* like that, but in reality they were just introducing the cast in the first season

eltrotter2026-02-02 09:22

Because they wrote it that way.

Shaggy_Doo872026-02-02 09:24

TBH I never considered watching it bc I hate anthology shows. Now that I'm reading that it has a background narrative that just takes time to come together I might actually take a look at it.

skronk612026-02-02 09:30

Writers probably bit off more than they could chew.

Notice how all their new ideas were incredibly disappointing and went nowhere.

kingjoeg2026-02-02 10:04

It was so dissappointing. The episodes were too short as well and didn't give enough time to let each story idea breathe. The pacing was so fast. 20 minutes isn't enough for each anthology tale.

DuncanRG20022026-02-02 10:20

Because they are stupid idiot bastards and I will never forgive them.

This show had so much potential, could literally have gone on forever.

dearskorpiomagazine2026-02-02 10:24

Bad writers and lack of faith in the concept.

No episodes really pushed the limits of what could be done apart from a few like the Dr strange episode.

Mufti_Menk2026-02-02 10:40

It never was.

HackDaddy852026-02-02 13:49

It’s part anthology, part narrative. It was always this way where there were individual stories told throughout the season while the final two episodes tell a concluding story.