It’s all but assured that the X-Men will enter the MCU soon. But how, and when exactly? That’s yet to be determined outside of Hugh Jackman‘s Wolverine co-starring in “Deadpool 3” later this year. But it may be sooner than expected if what the creators of “Marvel’s What If…?” is true. In a new interview with Comicbook.com, Bryan Andrews and A.C. Bradley spoke about wanting to use X-Men characters in the animated show’s new season but were told they couldn’t because of an in-house rule: the X-Men need to appear in live-action content first.
READ MORE: ‘What If…?’ Review: Conquerers Turn Liberators & The Darkest Hearts Find The Light In Marvel’s Engaging Animated Series [Season 2]
“They were pretty much off the table,” Andrews explained. “They’re like, ‘We got to do it first in live action and then you get to do it.’ And we’re like, ‘Ah, man!’ We would’ve loved to have played with all kinds of toys. But there’s limitations.” Those limits don’t keep “Marvel’s What If…?” from being a super-expansive show, though. The animated series hops around the MCU’s multiverse to tell stories that don’t fit into the MCU’s main timeline. So no X-Men have appeared on the show, at least not yet, but other seminal Marvel heroes and moments have, albeit usually with a twist of some kind.
The “live-action before animation” rule is something Andrews and Bradley have run aground from before. For instance, the pair wanted to include Anthony Mackie‘s Sam Wilson under the Captain America moniker in the show, but Marvel nixed that option because of “The Falcon And The Winter Soldier.” “We were writing season two, season one of “The Falcon of The Winter Soldier” were shooting, paused shooting, the scripts were being rewritten because of other things, and we were like, we don’t know when anything’s airing, so we couldn’t touch it because we’re not allowed to introduce,” explained Bradley. “It makes sense. Let the character live in live-action first and then come play in the multiverse.”
And plenty of characters have come to play in the animated multiverse of “Marvel’s What If…?”  Jeffrey Wright‘s The Watcher takes center stage in the series as he drifts through various multiverses and their stories, but Hayley Atwell, Benedict Cumberbatch, Karen Gillan, Jon Favreau, Chris Hemsworth, Sebastian Stan, Kat Dennings, Mark Ruffalo, and Cate Blanchett have all showed up to reprise the voices of their respective Marvel characters. Over 30 MCU actors return to voice act in “Marvel’s What If…?” Season 2, which began airing on December 22. But there are some new characters introduced this season, too, including Devery Jacob‘s Kahhori. The entire new season is available to watch on Disney+ now.
But as for the X-Men making their introduction on Andrews and Bradley’s show? Season 3 of “Marvel’s What If…?” is already on the way, so maybe it’ll happen in Season 4, if the mutants make their live-action intros by then. But with all the internal creative shake-ups at Marvel Studios right now, maybe more X-Men will appear in Phase 5 and 6 installments earlier than fans think.