What If...?'s first season concluded at the end of 2021 and, at the time, the show's creative team were talking about the second batch of episodes being released the following year.
2022 is now a distant memory and, outside of a Hall H-exclusive sizzle reel during that summer's San Diego Comic-Con, updates on the show have been few and far between. The animated series has been hit by delays, something which is evident from the fact merchandise has been on store shelves for several months now.
We'd guess there's something of an animation backlog after the pandemic, resulting in these shows not coming together as quickly as anticipated. As of now, though, Marvel Zombies, X-Men '97, and Spider-Man: Freshman Year are all taking their sweet time getting to us.
Going back to What If...?, we recently learned it will likely premiere on Disney+ this Christmas. Since that news broke, a reliable social media scooper (via Toonado.com) has chimed in to confirm, "[What If...? season 2] will drop in December 2023, 'around Christmas.' Makes sense because there’s an episode titled 'What If...Happy Hogan Saved Christmas?'"
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A few fans have since been critical of the news, arguing it sounds like a waste of an episode. While season one definitely had some filler - here's looking at you, Party Thor - there's nothing wrong with the odd light-hearted instalment that doesn't necessarily look to turn everything we know on its head.
As for what movie this episode will put a new spin on, we'd guess either Iron Man 3 or Spider-Man: No Way Home seeing as both featured Jon Favreau's Happy Hogan and took place over the holidays.
"We got so many episode ideas, and Kevin [Feige] was like, 'Just gimme a list of like 30.' And then Kevin couldn’t even whittle it down," What If...? director Bryan Andrews previously said. "Funnily enough, there were ideas that just kept staying around, so a couple of those ideas make it into Season 2, and then there's a few that might be showing up in Season 3."
"So many good ideas, so many fun ideas, some that were just way too crazy. They're just like, 'We're not ready for that yet.' So I think that’s why in Season 3, we'll see some of the crazy stuff that we were pitching out of the gate."
Keep checking back here for the latest What If...? updates as we have them.