Marvel’s Newest Show Is Secretly Teasing Its Next Big Team-Up

What If…? represents the best parts of Marvel’s multiverse. As the animated anthology thrives in the hypothetical, it’s free to imagine worlds in which heroes and villains traverse different paths, or team up with characters they might have never encountered in the MCU proper. It’s not unlike fan fiction, especially when the series gives audiences a crossover they didn’t know they needed. But not every idea introduced in What If is technically a one-off, especially as Marvel’s Multiverse Saga .

Thunderbolts follows a team of operatives recruited by CIA director Valentina Allegra de Fontaine (Julia Louis-Dreyfus), and as Harbour recently told Inverse, their dynamic is one of “provocation.” Thunderbolts is “the opposite of a love triangle,” Harbour said. “This person hates this person, hates this person, hates this person, and is annoyed and wants to get rid of this person.”

It’ll be interesting to see if his Red Guardian can play nice with the Winter Soldier in the Sacred Timeline: Bucky might have escaped from the clutches of H.Y.D.R.A., but he’s still all business. We may see glimmers of the heroes who become friends in Thunderbolts, but getting these super soldiers to trust each other won’t be as easy as it was in What If. Still, if the animated series has taught us anything, it’s that friendship is possible. What If is a clever prelude for Marvel’s upcoming slate — it’s careful not to fudge with canon, but it could be setting the stage for future events all the same.

What If…? streams new episodes daily on Disney+ until December 29.