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Credit: Marvel StudiosSince the finale of Avengers: Endgame (2019), Marvel Studios has struggled to produce a threat as all-encompassing and enthralling as Thanos (Josh Brolin) and his quest for the Infinity Stones. Seems there is a simple solution: bring back the Mad Titan.
To be fair, Marvel has already brought Thanos back several times, albeit in animated form. The first season of Marvel’s What If…?, the speculative Disney+ series presided over by the all-seeing Uatu the Watcher (Jeffrey Wright), had several appearances by the Mad Titan, and now it turns out that the studio is doing it again.
Related: Huge Thanos Scene Cut From Key Marvel Movie Creator Reveals
According to The Nerd Rage Podcast, the plots of the much-anticipated second season of What If…? have leaked, and at least one of them will feature Thanos back at it again.
The 9 episodes of 'What If…?' Season 2 have been revealed!
They are:
• What if Gamora killed Thanos?
• What if Captain Carter finds Hydra Stomper? (Continued from Season 1)
• What if the Tesseract landed in Haudenosaunee Confederacy before the colonization of America?… pic.twitter.com/80PF1XXeA9— The Nerd Rage Podcast (@TheNerdRagePod) September 7, 2023
As always, unconfirmed reports should always be taken with your preferred amount of salt, but at least some of this has been established by Marvel Studios itself so far. The company has already announced the second season of What If…? will once again have nine episodes, so at least that’s on the ball.
The premise of one episode of the Marvel series (likely the premiere) will involve Gamora (Zoe Saldana) killing Thanos and presumably taking over his all-powerful empire. It is possible, if not probable that this may be connected to the season 1 finale episode, “What If… the Watcher Broke His Oath?”, which saw Uatu recruiting one Multiversal variant of the deadliest woman in the universe to battle Ultron.
Another episode also connects to season 1, with the story of Captain Carter (Hayley Atwell) and a non-superpowered Steve Rogers (Josh Keaton, replacing Chris Evans) using a primitive version of Iron Man armor to fight HYDRA.
The next has already been confirmed by Marvel Studios and involves the Tesseract (i.e., the Space Stone in disguise) landing in pre-colonization America and being used by an indigenous woman named Kahhori (Amber Midthunder).
Yet another episode involves Hank Pym (Michael Douglas) and Janet Van Dyne (Michelle Pfeiffer), i.e., first-generation Ant-Man and Wasp, fighting the Red Guardian (David Harbour). Presumably, this is the episode that will feature a returning Laurence Fishburne as the giant superhero Goliath.
Subsequent episodes will involve Peter Quill (Chris Pratt) actually being taken to his father Ego (Kurt Russell), Iron Man’s buddy Happy Hogan (Jon Favreau) in an alternate version of Iron Man 3 (2013), Odin (Anthony Hopkins) and Hela fighting Shang-Chi’s (Simu Liu) father Wenwu (Tony Leung), the Avengers fighting Norse fire demon Surtur (Clancy Brown), and most intriguingly, the return of Wanda Maximoff.
Related: Donald Glover Doesn’t Want to Be Compared to Thanos
The lattermost episode seems to be a take on another Disney+ series, Wandavision, in which the Scarlet Witch (Elizabeth Olsen) fashioned a pocket reality around her childhood memories of sitcoms. This time around, it would be musical, which means we’re finally going to get to see Vision (Paul Bettany) sing!
That does raise the question of if Elizabeth Olsen will return to voice Wanda, as she seems to be increasingly distancing herself from the Marvel Cinematic Universe and vice versa.
However, Marvel is definitely going back to the Thanos well for this next season. He really is the threat that just keeps coming.
What other What If…? plots do you want to see the show tackle? Give us your best ideas in the comments below!