Series guide
- Fantasy
- Adventure
- Action
- Science fiction
- Anthology
- Creators
- A. C. Bradley
- Stars
- Jeffrey Wright
Images: Marvel Entertainment
Where to watch What If…?
What If…? streams on Disney+ in the US, included with a subscription. All three seasons are there – 26 episodes at 30 to 37 minutes each, roughly thirteen hours – and the series is finished. It is rated TV-14.
Streaming options in the United States, updated Sep 15, 2026. More from disneyplus.com. Service logos are trademarks of their owners.
- Episodes aired
- 26 of 26
Seasons 3
What If…? episodes 26
Season 1 · 9 episodes · 9 aired · Aug 11, 2021 to Oct 6, 2021
S1.E1 ·
What If… Captain Carter Were the First Avenger?
A Hydra spy wounds Steve Rogers moments before the super-soldier procedure, so Peggy Carter steps onto the platform and takes the serum instead. Then she has to fight the SSR for permission to fight at all.
Directed by Bryan Andrews · Written by A. C. Bradley
S1.E2 ·
What If… T'Challa Became a Star-Lord?
The Ravagers sent to collect Peter Quill from Earth grab a young T'Challa out of Wakanda by mistake. Twenty years on he is a celebrated space mercenary, pulled into a heist on Knowhere.
Directed by Bryan Andrews · Written by Matthew Chauncey
S1.E3 ·
What If… the World Lost Its Mightiest Heroes?
Nick Fury sets out to recruit the Avengers Initiative, and his candidates start dying one by one over a single week. With Asgard demanding answers, he hunts whoever is picking off Earth's first heroes.
Directed by Bryan Andrews · Written by A. C. Bradley & Matthew Chauncey
S1.E4 ·
What If… Doctor Strange Lost His Heart Instead of His Hands?
A car crash takes Christine Palmer rather than Stephen Strange's hands. He studies the Mystic Arts at Kamar-Taj anyway, then reaches for the Eye of Agamotto, warned that undoing her death could unmake reality.
Directed by Bryan Andrews · Written by A. C. Bradley
S1.E5 ·
What If… Zombies?!
Hank Pym goes into the Quantum Realm looking for Janet van Dyne and comes back carrying a virus. Two weeks into the resulting outbreak, a small group of survivors chases a rumored cure at Camp Lehigh.
Directed by Bryan Andrews · Written by Matthew Chauncey
S1.E6 ·
What If… Killmonger Rescued Tony Stark?
Erik Killmonger pulls Tony Stark out of the Ten Rings ambush in Afghanistan. The rescue earns him a place at Stark Industries, Stark's trust, and a say in the weapons program he came for.
Directed by Bryan Andrews · Written by Matthew Chauncey
S1.E7 ·
What If… Thor Were an Only Child?
Odin returns the infant Loki to Laufey, leaving Thor an only child and thoroughly spoiled. With his parents away, Thor throws a galaxy-wide party on Earth, and S.H.I.E.L.D. calls in Carol Danvers.
Directed by Bryan Andrews · Written by A. C. Bradley
S1.E8 ·
What If… Ultron Won?
Ultron claims the Mind Stone and Vision's Vibranium body, beats the Avengers, and burns the world down. In the ruins, Clint Barton and Natasha Romanoff search Siberia for anything that can reach his hive mind.
Directed by Bryan Andrews · Written by Matthew Chauncey
S1.E9 ·
What If… the Watcher Broke His Oath?
The Watcher breaks the oath keeping him out of every story he observes and gathers heroes from separate universes into a single team. Their target is the one Ultron no world survived on its own.
Directed by Bryan Andrews · Written by A. C. Bradley
Nine episodes, released weekly from August 11 to October 6, 2021. Episodes 1 through 8 are self-contained and can be watched in any order; episode 9 collects them and should be watched last.
Season 2 · 9 episodes · 9 aired · Dec 22, 2023 to Dec 30, 2023
S2.E1 ·
What If… Nebula Joined the Nova Corps?
Ronan the Accuser overthrows Thanos, and Nebula ends up wearing a Nova Corps badge. Years later, with Xandar sealed behind its own planetary shield, she is sent to investigate a dead Ravager.
Directed by Stephan Franck · Written by Matthew Chauncey
S2.E2 ·
What If… Peter Quill Attacked Earth's Mightiest Heroes?
The Ravagers deliver Peter Quill to Ego as planned, and he grows up spreading his father's expansion world by world. When he turns toward Earth, Peggy Carter and Howard Stark assemble a team decades early.
Directed by Bryan Andrews · Written by Matthew Chauncey
S2.E3 ·
What If… Happy Hogan Saved Christmas?
Happy Hogan draws security duty at Avengers Tower on Christmas Eve. Then Justin Hammer breaks out of prison and hits the building for Stark technology and a sample of Bruce Banner's blood.
Directed by Bryan Andrews · Written by A. C. Bradley & Matthew Chauncey
S2.E4 ·
What If… Iron Man Crashed into the Grandmaster?
Tony Stark rides the nuclear missile through the wormhole and it shuts behind him, stranding him on Sakaar. The Grandmaster is happy to keep him, and the quickest way off the planet is a death race.
Directed by Bryan Andrews · Written by A. C. Bradley
S2.E5 ·
What If… Captain Carter Fought the Hydra Stomper?
Captain Carter and Natasha Romanoff track the missing Hydra Stomper armor to a ship called the Lemurian Star, and its pilot attacks them on sight. A briefing with Nick Fury points them toward the Red Room.
Directed by Bryan Andrews · Written by A. C. Bradley
S2.E6 ·
What If… Kahhori Reshaped the World?
The Tesseract falls into a lake in pre-colonial Haudenosaunee country and changes what the water is. Centuries later, hunted by Spanish conquistadors, a young Mohawk woman named Kahhori is shot and falls in.
Directed by Bryan Andrews · Written by Ryan Little
S2.E7 ·
What If… Hela Found the Ten Rings?
Tired of her bloodlust, Odin banishes Hela to Earth and strips her power by enchanting her crown. She lands in medieval China, directly in front of Xu Wenwu and the armies of the Ten Rings.
Directed by Bryan Andrews · Written by Matthew Chauncey
S2.E8 ·
What If… the Avengers Assembled in 1602?
Stranded in an Elizabethan-era universe, Captain Carter agrees to help Wanda Merlin and Sir Nicholas Fury stop an incursion tearing it apart. The cause is someone displaced in time and hiding among its people.
Directed by Bryan Andrews · Written by A. C. Bradley & Ryan Little
S2.E9 ·
What If… Strange Supreme Intervened?
Strange Supreme brings Captain Carter to his Sanctum Infinitum and tells her he has been caging universe-killers to atone. One has escaped into a world Hydra already destroyed, and he wants her help retrieving it.
Directed by Bryan Andrews · Written by Matthew Chauncey
Released an episode a day over nine consecutive days, December 22 to 30, 2023, rather than weekly like season 1.
Season 3 · 8 episodes · 8 aired · Dec 22, 2024 to Dec 29, 2024
S3.E1 ·
What If… the Hulk Fought the Mech Avengers?
Bruce Banner tries to burn the Hulk out of himself with gamma radiation and creates a kaiju instead. Ten years of monster attacks later, the surviving Avengers fight in mechs, and Sam Wilson goes looking for Banner.
Directed by Stephan Franck
S3.E2 ·
What If… Agatha Went to Hollywood?
Agatha Harkness wants the power of the Celestial buried in Earth's core, and her ritual needs one more Eternal. So she becomes a Golden Age movie star, cast opposite Kingo in a Howard Stark production.
Directed by Bryan Andrews
S3.E3 ·
What If… the Red Guardian Stopped the Winter Soldier?
Sent with the Winter Soldier in 1991 to take super-soldier serum from Howard and Maria Stark, Alexei Shostakov stops Barnes from killing them. One vial, no extraction, and the pair run for Las Vegas.
Directed by Bryan Andrews · Written by A. C. Bradley
S3.E4 ·
What If… Howard the Duck Got Hitched?
Howard the Duck marries Darcy Lewis at Thor's party, and their child arrives as an egg. Born during the Convergence and promised a great destiny, it is wanted by half the cosmos before it hatches.
Directed by Stephan Franck
S3.E5 ·
What If… the Emergence Destroyed the Earth?
The Emergence splits the Earth apart. Quentin Beck seizes Stark Industries and rules what is left of humanity with a drone army, until Riri Williams is recruited by the resistance still standing against him.
Directed by Stephan Franck
S3.E6 ·
What If… 1872?
In 1872, Xu Shang-Chi searches the American West for his missing sister alongside Kate Bishop, who wants the outlaw called the Hood dead for murdering her family. A ruined township gives them a trail.
Directed by Stephan Franck and Bryan Andrews
S3.E7 ·
What If… the Watcher Disappeared?
The Watcher stands trial before three of his own kind while Captain Carter's team, Kahhori, a grown Byrdie, and a Mjolnir-wielding Storm, holds back multiversal incursions. Then they spot shards of his Observational Plane.
Directed by Stephan Franck
S3.E8 ·
What If… What If?
Every time the Watcher stepped into a story instead of observing it is entered against him at trial, with Captain Carter named among the charges. His judges are not much interested in a defense.
Directed by Bryan Andrews
The final season, released an episode a day over eight consecutive days from December 22 to December 29, 2024.
Videos 2
Twenty-four standalone episodes, and two that are not
Almost none of this show has to be watched in order, and the part that does is easy to miss. What If…? is an anthology: each episode takes one MCU decision, reverses it, and plays out a universe that does not touch the next one. Season 1 episodes 1 through 8 are genuinely interchangeable – start with the premise you like and nothing breaks. Then the finale arrives and retroactively turns eight short stories into a season, because the Watcher has been keeping a list. Season 2 and season 3 do the same thing.
That structure is the reason this show is worth a guide rather than a play button. A reader who wants the zombie one, or the one where Killmonger gets to Tony Stark first, does not need the eleven episodes around it – but a reader who watches those three and then jumps to a finale will find it referencing characters it assumes they met. The episode rail above is ordered by broadcast; treat the last episode of each season as the one that is not optional. Jeffrey Wright’s Watcher is the only connective tissue, which is why he is the only performer the series bills as a lead. Everyone else, including the film actors reprising their roles, appears in one or two episodes and leaves.
It is also finished, and that is newer than most readers realize. Season 1 went out weekly across nine weeks in 2021, the way a Disney+ show normally does. Seasons 2 and 3 did not: both dropped an episode a day across the week of Christmas, December 22 to 30 in 2023 and December 22 to 29 in 2024, and the third was the last. A finale released on December 29 is a finale most people were not looking at, which is a large part of why the series reads as having trailed off rather than ended. A. C. Bradley created it, Bryan Andrews directed every episode, and Laura Karpman scored it; the production record has the full credits. For the other animated Marvel series worth the time, our X-Men ’97 guide covers the one that is still running, and our ranking of Marvel’s television puts both in context.
What If…? cast 12
Jeffrey WrightUatu
Michael B. JordanErik Killmonger
Sebastian StanBucky Barnes
Josh BrolinThanos
Tom HiddlestonLoki
Samuel L. JacksonNick Fury
Chadwick BosemanT'Challa
Karen GillanNebula
Paul RuddScott Lang
Michael DouglasHank Pym
Neal McDonoughDum Dum Dugan
Dominic CooperHoward Stark
- Creator
- A. C. Bradley
- Director
- Bryan Andrews
- Music
- Laura Karpman, Nora Kroll-Rosenbaum
- Studios
- Marvel Studios Animation
Photos via Wikimedia Commons. Jeffrey Wright: David Shankbone, CC BY-SA 3.0; Michael B. Jordan: Kevin Paul, CC BY 4.0; Sebastian Stan: Gage Skidmore, CC BY-SA 3.0; Josh Brolin: Max Surprenant, CC BY 4.0; Tom Hiddleston: Kevin Payravi, CC BY-SA 4.0; Samuel L. Jackson: Philip Romano, CC BY-SA 4.0; Chadwick Boseman: Gage Skidmore, CC BY-SA 2.0; Karen Gillan: Pedro Heshike for Galaxy Con, CC BY 2.0; Paul Rudd: Adam Chitayat, CC BY 4.0; Michael Douglas: Jan Beránek, CC BY-SA 4.0; Neal McDonough: Kevin Paul, CC BY 4.0; Dominic Cooper: Gage Skidmore, CC BY-SA 3.0.
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Frequently Asked Questions
Where can I watch What If…??
All three seasons stream on Disney+ in the US with a subscription. It has never been licensed to another US service.
Do I have to watch What If…? in order?
Mostly no. Each episode is a separate universe, so episodes 1 through 8 of season 1 work in any order. The season finales – season 1 episode 9, season 2 episode 9 and season 3 episode 8 – collect what came before and should be watched last.
How many episodes of What If…? are there?
26 across three seasons: nine, nine and eight. At 30 to 37 minutes each that is roughly thirteen hours.
Is What If…? finished?
Yes. The third season was announced as the last, and it closed the Watcher’s story on December 29, 2024.
Do I need to know the MCU films first?
It helps but it is not required. Every episode restates the moment it diverges from. The episodes that land hardest are the ones where you already know the version being rewritten, which is an argument for watching the films, not a prerequisite.
