What if … from Marvel? maybe an animated series, but there was a scene too horribly violent to stay in the Disney + series. The scene in question was originally intended for What if…? Episode 4, “What if … Doctor Strange lost his heart instead of his hands?” This now classic Marvel Multiverse story explored a different origin story for Doctor Strange, in which the loss of his love Christine Palmer pushes Strange down the dark path to amass all the magical power he can to bring her back – leading to disastrous results. Well, this tragic story originally included a brutal murder as well!

In an interview with GE, What if…? AC showrunner Bradley revealed the deleted scene from “What if … Doctor Strange lost his heart instead of his hands?” has come at the climax when the “Good Strange” part of Strange must face off against its dark counterpart, “Strange Supreme”. In the version of What if? that fans have seen, Strange Supreme absorbs Good Strange during their fight, empowering themselves to restore Christine (and destroy the universe). However, the way Bradley and Team Marvel initially envisioned it, Strange Supreme had to get his hand dirty to complete Good Strange:

“Originally in the script, Regular Strange, his death was much more gruesome,” says Bradley. “He was actually beaten to death by Agamotto’s Eye. Then when the storyboard artist took over, they were like, ‘We’re going to make this a little more visual and fantastic instead of be horribly violent. “Because I got too dark. But this was our chance to be big comic book jerks, show different sides and have fun. And the original. What if…? The comics were known to have tragic endings and twisted endings that I wanted to play with. And we were free to go where we wanted. “

Needless to say, Marvel Cinematic Universe fans, teenagers or younger, would probably have been a bit too traumatized to see a character they love like Doctor Strange beaten to death with an iconic MacGuffin like the Eye of Agamotto. Disney certainly wouldn’t want that smoke. In the current state of things, What if? already gives MCU fans cases of PTSD. After the number of times they’ve had to watch their favorite Marvel heroes die on this show (and die again, and again …), watch them die violently would have been a real cruelty.

What if … from Marvel? is now streaming on Disney +.