Coming off of the success of the season premiere of What If...? featuring Hayley Atwell as Captain Carter, it was clear that the anthology series was going to be something special. Now, the second episode has made its way to Disney+. Prior to its release, Marvel Studios released a teaser for the story.
In this second episode of What If...?, the late Chadwick Boseman reprises his role as T'Challa. Although this is the only fully T'Challa centric episode of the season, Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige indicated that T'Challa will appear in one more episode of season one. What If...? will mark Chadwick Boseman's last appearance as T'Challa in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, making What If...? a special moment for Boseman's fans as well as fans of Black Panther.
In the episode of What If...?, T'Challa is the one that Yondu Udontu takes from earth rather than Peter Quill and he becomes Star Lord leading the Guardians of the Galaxy. Much like they did last week with the Captain America Twitter handle, Marvel has changed the @Guardians Twitter handle to reflect T'Challa as Star Lord from the What If...? episode.
In a tweet released yesterday, Marvel asks the question that is central to the second episode of What If...?: What If... T'Challa Became a Star-Lord? Discover the answer to the question in the next episode of Marvel Studios' #WhatIf...?, streaming tomorrow on Disney Plus.
We see Yondu yelling at crewmembers about abducting the wrong kid, and reminding them how they were supposed to take someone from Missouri instead of Wakanda. The teaser then includes some new looks at the space-faring episode. It is an interesting departure from the reserved leader of Wakanda that we saw in Black Panther and it will be interesting to see how this version of T'Challa interacts with other MCU characters.
Kevin Feige spoke to Variety on the red carpet for Shang Chi and the Legend of the Ten RIngs about Boseman's performance in this episode of What If...?: "We didn't know it would be his final performance obviously. He came in numerous times, was so gung ho about it, was so excited about it... He read the episode that airs 24 hours from now and then came back and said 'I really love this version of T'Challa.' And we had a conversation after that with Ryan about 'How do we get some of this voice,' none of the storyline, but just some of that voice into Panther 2. Now of course it's remarkably sad and bittersweet, but I'm very happy we have it and I'm very happy he did it for us. I'm excited for the fans to see that as well."
The T'Challa as Star Lord episode of What If...? premiered on Disney+ on August 18 and is streaming now and it features one of the last performances of Chadwick Boseman.