Marvel's What If...? Season 2 Will Give A Proper Introduction To The Alternate Gamora
Marvel's "What If...?" season finale finally had all of the show's different universes come together by having The Watcher assemble a new superhero team called the Guardians of the Multiverse. The team was comprised of all the superheroes we'd been introduced to in the Marvel Cinematic Universe's recently opened multiverse, giving us alternate takes on familiar stories and characters. However, there was one character recruited by The Watcher who didn't get their own episode in the first season of "What If...?" before the finale.
Gamora was snagged by The Watcher in a universe where she had somehow teamed up with Tony Stark, who had built himself a new Iron Man suit out of some scrap found on Sakaar, the junkyard planet that has gladiator matches run by The Grandmaster in "Thor: Ragnarok." We didn't know anything about what they'd been through, and it made some fans wonder if they missed an episode. But don't worry, no one missed anything, and we'll get to see Gamora's story play out when the second season of "What If...?" rolls around.
Gamora's What If...? Episode is Coming in Season 2
When Marvel's "What If...?" was announced, there were originally 10 episodes slated for the first season. However, during production, Marvel Studios decided to hold back one of the episodes for the second season. This wasn't for any narrative reason, but rather logistical production problems. We spoke to "What If...?" head writer A.C. Bradley and director Bryan Andrews after the episode debuted, and they explained what happened with Gamora's episode and what we can expect from it.
Bryan Andrews said, "[The episode] was kind of moved, because it was fully intended to be part of season one. But because of COVID, a particular vendor wasn't able to finish. They got hit to a certain degree, and that kind of messed up our ability to get it out the door in time. So yeah. But it is being worked on still. And it will be in the second season. So you get to see eventually how it all came to be for them."
Even though the episode won't debut until season two, it didn't require them to make any changes to the episode in order to make it fit into the large multiverse happenings. In fact, Bradley thinks the finale is a good way to tease Gamora's story. Bradley explained:
"We'll see how she becomes friends with Tony Stark. Tony and Gamora never interacted in the MCU, if I remember correctly. It was an episode that was actually slated to air earlier in season one, and it was a funner, lighter, less Tony-murder episode. I think fans will enjoy it in season two."
Hopefully we'll also get some kind of explanation as to why Gamora had a device created to destroy Infinity Stones in her universe. That was a bit of a surprise in the "What If...?" season finale that didn't make much sense in the moment, so perhaps we'll find out more about it.
It's also been rumored that the episode will also put Tony Stark in place of Hulk as one of the gladiator competitors in The Grandmaster's Contest of Champions, inspired by Marvel Comics. That's likely why he ends up building the Sakaarian suit of armor, which has actually already been released as a LEGO set. That same playset also included a minifigure of Valkyrie, so we'll probably see her make an appearance in that episode too, but we don't know if Tessa Thompson will be voicing her.
The second season of "What If...?" is already in the works, but we're not sure when it will premiere on Disney+, so stay tuned.