WHAT IF…? "What if ... Captain Carter is the first avenger?"

August 13 2021

WHAT HAPPENS IF…? S1E1 "

WHAT IF…?

What if ... Captain Carter was the first avenger? "

“Time, space, reality… it is more than a linear path. It is a prism of infinite possibilities, where a single choice can branch out into infinite realities, creating alternative worlds to those you know ".

These are the words uttered by Uatu the Watcher (Jeffrey Wright) the cosmic being who acts as Rod Sterling- as a host for What If...?, Marvel's animated anthology series. In the case of the debut episode, during the procedure that made Steve Rogers thin (voiced in the episode by josh keaton instead of Chris Evans) in the first American super soldier, Peggy Carter (hayley atwell) chooses to stay in the room rather than stay in the observation booth as seen in Captain America: The First Avenger.

From here things diverge from the "sacred timeline" as HYDRA spy Heinz Kruger, disguised as Fred Clemson, is stopped by Peggy but before Kruger sabotages the experiment by shooting Steve, rendering him unable to undergo the Super Soldier trial. . With power levels dwindling before the project is completely lost according to "button pusher" Howard Stark (Dominic Cooper), Peggy enters the car herself and becomes the first Super Soldier.

WHAT HAPPENS IF...? S1E1 Captain Carter — Colonel Flynn in Marvel One-Shot Agent Carter

“An absolute success,” says Stark. "An absolute failure," retorts SSR chief Colonel Flynn (first seen in Marvel One-Shot: Agent Carter short and once again taken up by Bradley Whitford) who berates Peggy for her insubordination.

We are then taken to a familiar scene in the Castle Rock Tower in Tønsberg, Norway, which fans will recognize as the location of the Tesseract (actually the Space Stone). The head of the supernatural sciences division of the Nazis, HYDRA, Johann Schmidt aka the Red Skull (voiced by Ross Marquend who took over the role from Hugo weaving in Avengers: Infinity War) flees once again with the Tesseract.

Peggy then dons the costume intended for her USO show, now updated thanks to Stark which includes a Vibranium shield with the Union Jack flag. He does a quick job with the HYDRA entourage and retrieves the Tesseract.

Just like in First Avenger, best friend of Steve James "Bucky" Barnes (Sebastian stan) and its 107th Infantry Regiment unit are being taken prisoner by HYDRA behind enemy lines. Fortunately, Peggy manages to free Bucky before the HYDRA begins its experiments, as do the rest of the Howling Commandos, including Timothy Alloysius Cadwaller "Dum Dum" Dugan (Neal mcdonough). And since Howard Stark has access to the Tesseract, he doesn't have to wait for his son to perfect the Arc Reactor technology that allows Howard to build and upgrade his Mark 1 Iron Man armor for Steve Rogers to pilot. Nicknamed "HYDRA Stomper" he flies in and joins Peggy in a "dance" to finish off the rest of the HYDRA tanks.

A montage of Captain Carter and Steve in HYDRA Stomper armor shows their various battles and adventures during the war. This does not agree with the Nazis who discover that Red Skull has no loyalty to the Führer and has his own plans for world domination.

In an attempt to capture Red Skull, Captain Carter and the Howlers organize a raid on a train in another nod to the First Avenger. Unlike the movie, however, it's a trap that leads to Steve's alleged death and the destruction of the HYDRA Stomper.

After Peggy manages to capture their prisoner Arnim Zola (played once again by Toby Jones and mistakenly identified by a character as German, as we learned in Captain America: Winter Soldier, Zola is in fact Swiss) to reveal that the Red Skull intends to unleash an interdimensional creature, launches an attack on the HYDRA base on Castle Krake together with the Howling Commandos and the "button" Howard Stark.

Bucky discovers that Steve is still alive and that the HYDRA Stomper is truly indestructible. The Red Skull uses the Tesseract to open a dimensional door and unleash the "true champion" of HYDRA only to be crushed to death by Cthulhu-like tentacles. It looks like a trip to Vormir isn't the cards for Red Skull in this timeline.

With limited power thanks to some nearby generators, Steve pilots the armor to join Peggy in the battle against the sprawling creature while Howard does his thing to "transpose the polarity and reverse the suction" and send the monster back where it came from. .

Just like Steve Rogers in the "sacred timeline", Peggy is forced to sacrifice herself to push the creature "back to hell". Before entering the dimensional portal, he promises to do a rain check on their prom for Saturday (I assume at the Stork Club).

Captain Carter emerges from the gate only to meet Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) and Clint Barton (Jeremy Renner) and learns that the war ended 70 years ago.

Uatu the Watcher then closes the episode with these words:

“His one choice gave birth to a whole new story and gave the Multiverse a new hero. I observe everything that happens here, but I don't interfere, I can't, I don't want to. Because I am… the Observer ”.

I'm betting Stanley Tucci he was glad his trick in First Avenger it wasn't as drastic as in this animated episode.

- Bucky says Steve who can't drive a car. I guess after being unlocked in the "sacred timeline," Steve finally learned how otherwise he would have Natasha lead Winter Soldier.

- Many comic book fans, myself included, assume the tentacle creature is actually many to be Shuma-Gorath.

Peggy being lost in time to an interdimensional gateway rather than being frozen in ice reminds me of Samantha Wilson, the Captain America of Earth-65 better known as the home dimension of ~~Spider-Gwen~~ Ghost-Spider.