What if Marvel’s wild ‘What If...?’ cliffhangers don’t get resolved? Writer says that may be the case (or not)

Those who’ve watched Marvel’s What If…? on Disney+ know that each episode has a scene at the end that teases potential follow-up stories. These sequences — which evoke the vibe of the MCU films’ mid-credit scenes — could just be fun tidbits for Marvel fans, or they could lead to something more. In a recent interview, head What If…? writer A.C. Bradley has hinted whether or not those scenes will have ramifications for the MCU down the road.

**SPOILER WARNING! Spoilers for the first three episodes of What If…? below.**

The first three episodes of What If…? ended with surprising scenes that teed up many multiverses of possibilities. In the Captain Carter episode, a superpowered Peggy finds herself thrown 70 years into the future where she meets Nick Fury. In the T’Challa Ravager episode, we close on Peter Quill working at Dairy Queen and meeting his dad, Ego. And in the series’ third installment, we have Fury and Captain Marvel looking to retrieve Captain America’s shield.

All of these setups pose a slew of new “What if…?” moments. Whether these moments pay off, however, is something Bradley touched on in an interview with Discussing Film.

“The ending twists that many of the episodes have, not all of them, came from a place of loving the Marvel tags — the Marvel credit scenes,” Bradley said. “So the idea was that we resolve the entire episode, like we resolve the T’Challa Wakanda Ravagers of it all. Then we give kind of what would be our mid-credit scene. So the hope is, if we do sequel episodes, if we do see the heroes later on, that we answer some of the questions raised in those twists. But they’re not meant to be ironclad promises of future episodes, it was just kind of ‘what would be a fun twist at the end of this?’ The What If comics were known for having very surprising endings. So we wanted to pay tribute to that.”

The answer, it seems, is who knows? Maybe if there’s a Season 2 of What If…? we’ll get a father-son story where Ego decides to work at Dairy Queen in order to get to know his son better. Or maybe not. The possibilities are endless, which is part of the fun. And who knows — Bradley was vague enough in her answer that we may see some of these cliffhangers come into play later this season. We’ll have to keep watching to find out.

New episodes of Marvel’s What If…? drop on Disney+ each Wednesday.