Entertainment
Marvel’s What If episode 1: Captain Carter blasts multiverse wide open as she and Steve Rogers face familiar Hydra foe
Captain Carter has the superhero landing down from the get-go (Picture: Marvel Studios/Disney Plus)
Warning: spoilers ahead for episode 1 of Marvel’s What If…?
With a concept as ambitious as the one behind What If…?, the latest Disney Plus series from Marvel had to start with a bang… and that it did, as Hayley Atwell’s Captain Carter burst onto the scene.
Episode 1 of the animated MCU show imagines what would have happened if Peggy Carter had been injected by the super-soldier serum, rather than Steve Rogers.
It all begins when Peggy makes a crucial decision – to remain on the ground floor where Steve is to be transformed, rather than going upstairs to the viewing room, as she does in the first Captain America film.
After a Hydra operative detonates a bomb and shoots Steve, Peggy realises that their only hope of keeping the super-soldier programme alive is if she takes Steve’s place.
While Peggy is initially not taken seriously by her superior after becoming an enhanced individual, used as a human pin cushion in the hope that her blood can help them recreate the serum, eventually her superhero antics make it clear (to anyone who had doubts) how worthy she is to have become Captain Carter.
Captain Carter leads the Howling Commandos into battle (Picture: Marvel Studios/Disney Plus)
Captain Carter takes charge of the Howling Commandos, with Steve at her side as they face a very familiar foe – the Red Skull.
While the Red Skull has the same mission as before – to use the Tesseract to annihilate and conquer – his use of the Space Stone ends up having extremely different consequences.
How has Captain Carter impacted the multiverse after Red Skull battle?
Pretty much everything Marvel does is for a deeper reason, so it shouldn’t be taken lightly that the first episode of What If…? focuses on Captain Carter.
The Red Skull uses the Tesseract to open an interdimensional portal, unleashing a tentacled monster onto Earth, which he claims is the symbol of Hydra.
The villain doesn’t expect the beast to turn on him, which it does, crushing him to death before Captain Carter uses all of her might to push the monster back through the portal to the other side.
The end of the episode sees Peggy meet Fury and Clint (Picture: Marvel Studios/Disney Plus)
While Peggy manages to do so, she ends up going through the portal with it, only returning back to Earth over 70 years later, when Nick Fury (Samuel L Jackson) and Hawkeye (Clint Barton) use the Tesseract to create another portal.
The narrator of the episode, The Watcher, who is voiced by Jeffrey Wright, explains the significance of Peggy’s decision to stay with Steve ahead of the super-soldier injection, stating: ‘Her one choice gave birth to a whole new history and gave the multiverse a new hero.’
We’d say it’s heavily implied that we haven’t seen the last of Captain Carter yet.
Steve Rogers has his Iron Man moment
While it was shown in the trailer that Captain Carter would wage war alongside an individual in an Iron Man-type suit, it will no doubt have delighted fans to see Steve – who originally became Captain America – don the suit to become the Hydra Stomper instead.
The early iteration of the Iron Man soon, created by Howard Stark (Dominic Cooper) takes after the first suit that Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr) makes in the first Iron Man film when he escapes captivity.
It just goes to show that the apple definitely doesn’t fall far from the tree, as Stark senior ended up having pretty much the same design idea.
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When will we see Captain Carter next?
While we don’t know how the entire series of What If…? will pan out, the fact that Captain Carter has arrived in the present day surely means that she and S.H.I.E.L.D. will be in cahoots before long.
Whether that means that Captain Carter will end up becoming a leader of the Avengers remains to be seen, but as the show’s title goes – what if?
What If…? returns next Wednesday on Disney Plus.
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MORE : Marvel’s What If: Who is The Watcher and could Jeffrey Wright make a live-action MCU appearance?
