"What If... Captain Carter Were The First Avenger?" is the first episode of What If...?.
Plot[]
When Steve Rogers is seriously injured, Peggy Carter becomes the world's first Super Soldier.
Cast[]
- Jeffrey Wright as The Watcher
- Hayley Atwell as Peggy Carter/Captain Carter
- Josh Keaton as Steve Rogers/HYDRA Stomper
- Samuel L. Jackson as Nick Fury
- Jeremy Renner as Clint Barton/Hawkeye
- Stanley Tucci as Abraham Erskine
- Dominic Cooper as Howard Stark
- Bradley Whitford as Colonel John Flynn
- Ross Marquand as Johann Schmidt/Red Skull
- Neal McDonough as Dum Dum Dugan
- Sebastian Stan as Bucky Barnes
- Toby Jones as Arnim Zola
- Darrell Hammond as Roeder
- Isaac Robinson-Smith as Brick
- Andreas Beckett as Additional Voices
- David Cowgill as Additional Voices
- Terri Douglas as Additional Voices
- Matthew Lindquist as Additional Voices
- Arthur Ortiz as Additional Voices
- Helen Sadler as Additional Voices
- Shane Sweet as Additional Voices
- Matthew Wood as Additional Voices
Non-Speaking Cameos/Unconfirmed Voices[]
- Chester Phillips
- Heinz Kruger
- Gabe Jones
- Jacques Dernier
- Jim Morita
- James Montgomery Falsworth
- Tower Keeper
Continuity and References to the Marvel Cinematic Universe[]
- The events of Captain America: The First Avenger are recounted and play out in a different way when Peggy Carter decides to stay rather than head to the Observation Deck.
Trivia[]
- Howard Stark mentions that he spent a weekend with Hedy Lamarr, a movie star who was belatedly recognized as an under-appreciated genius inventor who helped develop frequency-hopping spread spectrum communication, a technology that served as a key forerunner to Blutooth and Wi-Fi technology.
- The ancient illustration of the tesseract spells out "SPACESTONE" in old Norse futhark script.
- Colonel Flynn is played by Bradley Whitford who also played Agent Flynn in Marvel One-Shot: Agent Carter, both characters being dismissive of Peggy Carter's ability.
- Carter's superhero costume, especially the shirt, includes elements of the costume of Marvel's period British World War II superhero, Union Jack, with the national flag making up the chest symbol.
- The main theme from Captain America is reprised several times throughout the episode. The Avengers theme is also very briefly reprised at 1:55.
- One spinoff idea for the episode would've had Steve falling off the HYDRA train instead of Bucky, and end up becoming the MCU's equivalent of Captain Hydra, a high-ranking commander for HYDRA. This would've forced Peggy, Howard, Bucky and Red Skull to work together to defeat Steve. The idea was scrapped due to the story being too similar to the original episode's concept, though it did get A.C Bradley hired as the showrunner.
- The cephalopod monster's name is not revealed, but it bears major similarity to a multidimensional monster from the Marvel Comics, the Shuma-Gorath. It had a multitude of violent tentacles with one big eye in the middle.
- When Bucky nearly falls off the train and gets saved by Captain Carter, he says "you almost pulled off my arm", a clear nod to the alternate universe where he lost his arm after falling off the train.
- The Hydra Castle where the ultimate battle occurs is reminiscent of Castle Neuschwanstein, the inspiration for Disney's representation of Cinderella's Castle.
- Peggy refers to Stark transposing the polarity on the machine to send the monster back. Transposing or reversing the polarity is a common science fiction solution, most notably used in classic Doctor Who episodes.
- Colonel Chester Phillips, a key character played by Tommy Lee Jones in "Captain America: The First Avenger", does appear very briefly in this universe, as he gets shot in the attack when Steve Rogers gets ready to receive the serum.
Gallery[]
Videos[]
“Are You Seeing This?” Official Clip - Marvel Studios’ What If…? - Disney+