This is shaping up to be a very important season of the animated Marvel series What If…?, available to fans who have a Disney+ subscription. For starters, we learned that What If…? will be concluding its programming after this third and final run of original episodes. And so far, the show has explored some fun new genres, including a dip into anime for What If…? Season 3 Episode 1, followed by a 1930s musical homage in Episode 2. Our friends at Marvel Studios have shared with us an exclusive clip at the upcoming What Is…? Episode 6, which will send heroes Shang-Chi (Simu Liu) and Kate Bishop (Hailee Steinfeld) back to the wild, wild west – specifically, to 1872. Here’s a sneak peek at the episode that’s poised to drop on the Disney+ streaming service on Friday, December 27.
Raise your hand if you are getting a serious Back to the Future Part 3 vibe off of this clip, which sees Shang-Chi encountering another character we expect to see plenty more of as the upcoming 2025 movies start to reach theaters, and that’s John Walker (Wyatt Russell). We know that the U.S. Agent is going to be recruited to join the Thunderbolts alongside Yelena Belova (Florence Pugh) and Red Guardian (David Harbour). If only we had a better sense of the mission that Valentina (Julia Louis-Dreyfus) wants them to complete, though I think it will have something to do with Sentinel, as played by Top Gun: Maverick co-star Lewis Pullman.
We also don’t know yet what Episode 6 of What If…? will entail, though the exclusive clip provided by Marvel Studios offers up a classic moment in almost all Westerns. The bad guy – in this case, John Walker – underestimates the abilities of our heroes, and we watch as they suddenly snap into action, subduing the enemy with well-executed kicks, punches, and bullets fired from a six shooter that just won’t miss, when they are in the hands of Hawkeye.
It has been interesting to watch the What If…? Season 3 episodes place an expanded focus on Marvel characters that we will see in upcoming Marvel movies and TV shows, from Red Guardian and John Walker to the inclusion of the villain The Hood in this episode of the show. We will see The Hood later in Ironheart, where the character will be played by Anthony Ramos. I wish that some of these episodes could have set up The Fantastic Four or The X-Men, but I guess we’ll have to wait for possible additional seasons of the show, if those teams ever are going to be included.
New episodes of What If…? drop daily until the finale on Sunday, December 29.
