What If...? (TV series) in the context of "Ancient One"

Marvel Studios, LLC, formerly known as Marvel Films, is an American film and television production company. Marvel Studios is the creator of the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU), a media franchise and shared universe of films and television series produced by the studio, based on characters that appear in Marvel Comics publications. The studio was founded on December 7, 1993, by Avi Arad as part of Marvel Entertainment Group and has been led by producer Kevin Feige, who has served as its president since 2007. The studio originally licensed the film rights for several Marvel characters before beginning to produce its own films in 2004, and has since regained many of those rights. The Walt Disney Company acquired Marvel Studios' parent company, Marvel Entertainment, in 2009. Marvel Studios was transferred in 2015 to the Walt Disney Studios, which has been a part of the Disney Entertainment division since 2023. Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures has distributed most of the studio's films since The Avengers (2012).

Since 2008, Marvel Studios has released 37 films within the MCU, from Iron Man (2008) to The Fantastic Four: First Steps (2025) and 16 television series since 2021, from WandaVision (2021) to Marvel Zombies (2025). The studio also operates the smaller Marvel Studios Animation division, which developed the television series What If...? (2021–2024) as the first animated property produced solely by the studio. These films and television series all share continuity with each other, along with five short films called Marvel One-Shots produced by the studio that were released from 2011 to 2014 and two television specials called Marvel Studios Special Presentations released in 2021 and 2022. From 2013 until 2020, Marvel Television released 12 television series, which also acknowledge the MCU continuity. These were produced before that company was folded into Marvel Studios in December 2019 and became a production label. Since 2024, Marvel Studios has used "Marvel Television" and "Marvel Animation" banners to release its television and animated projects, respectively.

Dr. Henry Jonathan Pym is a character appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. Created by penciller Jack Kirby, editor-plotter Stan Lee and writer Larry Lieber, Pym debuted in Tales to Astonish #27 (January 1962). He returned several issues later as the original iteration of Ant-Man, a superhero with the power to shrink to the size of an ant. He later assumed other superhero identities, including the size-changing Giant-Man and Goliath; the insect-themed Yellowjacket; and briefly, the Wasp. He is a founding member of the Avengers superhero team, and the creator of the robotic villain Ultron. He is also the ex-husband of Janet van Dyne, the first Wasp, and the father of Nadia van Dyne, his daughter by his first wife, Maria Pym.

Since his earliest appearances in the Silver Age of Comic Books, Pym has been featured in various Marvel-endorsed products including animated films, video games, television series, and feature films. Michael Douglas plays Pym in the Marvel Cinematic Universe films Ant-Man (2015), Ant-Man and the Wasp (2018), Avengers: Endgame (2019), and Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania (2023). Douglas also voiced alternate-timeline versions of Pym in the Disney+ animated series What If...? (2021–2023).

Wong is a character appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. Created by writer Stan Lee and artist Steve Ditko, the character first appeared in Strange Tales #110 (July 1963). Wong was unnamed until Strange Tales #119 (April 1964). He is a supporting character of the superhero Doctor Strange. He stems from a family of monks living in Kamar-Taj.

The character was portrayed by Clyde Kusatsu in the 1978 television film Dr. Strange. Benedict Wong portrays the character in the Marvel Cinematic Universe films Doctor Strange (2016), Avengers: Infinity War (2018), Avengers: Endgame (2019), Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings (2021), Spider-Man: No Way Home (2021), and Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness as well as the Disney+ series She-Hulk: Attorney at Law (both 2022). Additionally, he voices an alternate timeline version in the Disney+ animated series What If...? (2021)