What If May Have A Fantastic Four Cameo Hiding in Plain Sight
A little Byrdie told us.
What If is, inherently, a series about hypotheticals. Because of that, it’s hard to imagine a way that it can really affect the greater MCU canon. We can watch Loki perform Hamlet or Happy Hogan save Christmas, but that won’t change what happens in the next Avengers movies. However, there is one big exception to this: The Watcher, the narrator of What If, exists outside of time and space, within the fifth dimension. Anything that happens to him can affect the entire multiverse.
In the penultimate episode of What If, we see that in motion as Captain Carter, Kahhori, Storm, and a brand new character investigate the Watcher’s disappearance — and prove that one of the season’s most seemingly unnecessary episodes may in fact change everything.
Spoilers for What If Season 3 Episode 7,“What If... The Watcher Disappeared,” follow!
Byrdie the Duck — the daughter of Darcy Lewis and Howard the Duck — appears in What If Episode 7.
In Episode 4 of What If Season 3, “What If... Howard the Duck Got Hitched,” the love story between Howard and Darcy Lewis is shown at super speed. In fact, we open with the “birth” of their child, an egg, right at the Convergence from Thor: The Dark World. That made the egg a prized possession for essentially everyone in the galaxy, forcing Howard and Darcy to take down a horde to protect their child. Thankfully, the egg hatched just in time, blasting all the foes away. The resulting child was named Byrdie and taken home to safety.
However, that’s not where she stayed. In Episode 7, “What If... The Watcher Disappeared,” Byrdie is shown alongside fellow What If women Captain Carter, Kahhori, and Storm (in her Goddess of Thunder form). This character is completely new to Marvel, with no comic equivalent, and is voiced by Natasha Lyonne, star of Poker Face.
Natasha Lyonne voices a character in What If but will return to the MCU in The Fantastic Four: First Steps.
Back in May 2024, Deadline reported Lyonne had joined the cast of The Fantastic Four: First Steps in an undisclosed role. While playing a different voice and live-action role in the MCU isn’t unheard of — Linda Cardellini played Hawkeye’s wife Laura Barton but also voiced Lylla the otter in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 — the close gap between these two projects and Byrdie’s knowledge of the multiverse suggest this episode may be a prelude to Byrdie playing a bigger role in live-action.
This new character is the perfect example of why What If matters in the greater MCU. Much like how Captain Carter appeared (albeit briefly) in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, this episode gives a greater introduction to this character before her live-action debut. Somehow, one of the silliest episodes of this season, following the MCU’s most unlikely pairing, may become the origin story for a key character within canon.
