/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/25362057/STK_414_AI_CHATBOT_R2_CVirginia_B.jpg "OpenAI reportedly plans to launch an AI agent early next year")
Season one of Disney Plus’ animated Marvel Cinematic Universe series What If…? is still one of the most underrated MCU installments — a series of small-scale experiments that build to an epic ending. Season two, by contrast, was less memorable, built around hypotheticals that rarely seemed surprising or engaging. Season three, coming to Disney Plus in December, looks like it was designed to compensate for that lackluster middle third: The trailer for the new season is aimed at epic fights and startling imagery, including Storm of the X-Men wielding Thor’s mystical hammer Mjolnir and proclaiming herself to be the Goddess of Thunder.
Like the previous seasons, What If…? season three revolves around a series of multiverse alternate-reality stories. And it introduces Storm to the What If…? universe, once again voiced by Alison Sealy-Smith, who voiced Storm in X-Men ’97 and the original 1990s X-Men animated series. Jeffrey Wright returns as the Watcher, the observer who frames and narrates the episodes. The season’s full episode title list has not yet been released.
In previous seasons, those titles have all been in the form of questions the episodes answer, e.g. “What If… Captain Carter Were the First Avenger?” and “What If… T’Challa Became a Star-Lord?” This season may have a different approach: One of the previously revealed episode titles is “Go-Avengers: Heroes of the Gamma War.” That episode, heavily featured in the first trailer, has the Avengers piloting mecha suits, which merge into a single giant robo-Avenger, à la Voltron.
Season 3 of What If…? launches on Disney Plus on December 22. Its eight episodes will roll out over eight days.
