What If...? Created Kahhori With Mohawk and Smithsonian Help

What If...? Season 2 is on a roll, releasing well-received episodes throughout its daily release strategy which began on December 22. However, the series released an episode which has become a standout among its viewers when Season 2's Episode 6 arrived. The addition is titled, "What if... Kahhori Reshaped The World?". For the first time, a Marvel Studios project introduces a new super hero which has never existed in comics or the live-action world through the What If...? series, telling a Mohawk hero's story as she fends off colonizers. 

The new hero is named Kahhori, a young Mohawk woman who is bestowed with the powers of the Space Stone in a scenario where is crashes into Earth, many years ago. Portrayed by Devery Jacobs (who will also appear as a separate character in the upcoming Echo series), Kahhori and her surrounding characters speak the Mohawk language throughout the episode and call upon the Mohawk culture as a part of the inspiring story. To portray the Mohawk history thoughtfully and with care, the team behind What If...? took impressive extra steps with the episode, as revealed during a Q&A hosted by ComicBook.com's Phase Zero host. 

"She's amazing. Special shout out to Ryan Little, who wrote that episode," What If...? executive producer and writer A.C. Bradley said of Kahhori. "And also to the entire Mohawk community, who, like, really kind of backed us up. I remember our first Zooms about that. Again, pandemic. It was, like, April 2020. And it was really fun. We got Disney Diversity on the phone, and we told them the episode. And they went, 'We're gonna call the Smithsonian.' And I was like, 'Is that, like, the bat phone? You're allowed to do that?' They're like, 'Yeah, we're gonna get the Smithsonian.'  They have the Rolodex. They have the Museum of the Native American. They have the Rolodex. Let's get them involved." And so from day one, we were talking to people. We brought them in for everything from design, story, costuming, music. It was really a collaborative effort, and we were so lucky to get all the help. It was really kind of amazing and beautiful."

Bradley's enthusiasm for the episode is matched by her fellow executive producer and its director. I"t's pretty incredible. It was one of the early ideas I think we had, because what bigger what if is there than, like, you know, what if colonialization didn't happen?" Andrews explained. "What if the Europeans didn't come here? And that's kind of, at least for me, what I keyed into. But we needed more, and when talking with the consultants and getting into their belief system and the rest, we were able to totally find an in that was solid and worked. And just as [Bradley] said, and [Little] was instrumental. He was so fantastic. He was super point on this and really working with the consultants a ton to bring this character to life."

The excitement for the well-researched and carefully crafted episode only rose when the What If...? team was at the point where they screened the episode. "When the consultants would see the artwork finally, after giving a few notes and things like that, they were amazed," Andrews explained. "They wrote us a letter saying that they felt for the first time that their people were honestly being represented in media. And that was huge for us to hear, 'cause they were no bones about it. Like, 'No, this is legit.'  And we're showing it to the First Nations, to the various Mohawk tribes that were all around the area, like Montreal and East Coast. They're coming together, and we're showing it to them before this airs and hundreds of members of the First Nations tribal community are showing up and kids, family, because it's all in their language. The whole episode is subtitled, and they're, like, 'That hasn't been done for us before.' And so they are beyond the moon for it, so we're really proud of that."

Jacobs, who will reprise the role of Kahhori beyond the debut episode, shared her excitement on X, formerly known as Twitter, following its release. "Never did I think I'd be able to bring a character like this to life; few roles mean as much as this one," Jacobs said. "After spending the past 3 yrs working alongside an incredible team, we got to premiere this nearly-all Mohawk episode surrounded by family, community & first-language Kanien'kéha speakers...There were so many Kanien'kehá:ka involved in creating this thrilling, inspiring and badass episode."

Did you enjoy Kahhori's episode of What If...?? Share your thoughts in the comment section! What If...? Season 2 is now streaming on Disney+.