What If . . . Captain Carter Were the First Avenger? Review

The first installment of Marvel and Disney+’s new series What If . . .? asks the question “What if Captain Carter were the first Avenger? (Instead of Steve Rogers.)” The answer, as you might have expected, was that Peggy Carter would become a hero swathed in the Union Jack, kicking Nazi ass and sacrificing herself to save the world from untold horrors in another dimension – only to re-emerge 70 years later when Nick Fury wants to form a new team of superheroes. This story – and all the future installments of What If . . .? – will be a “your mileage may vary” exercise for fans of the MCU. If the episode’s protagonist is one you care a lot about – you’ll likely be tickled to watch the story unfold (even if some of the story beats are retreads of MCU films and you know the general through line of the story being told). If you don’t particularly care about the character in the spotlight or the MCU film they find themselves in, I suspect the episode will be a harder sell.

Personally, I’ve never actually watched Captain America: The First Avenger (although I’ve seen enough of Cap from subsequent films – and know who Peggy, Howard, Red Skull, et al. are – to have a working knowledge of the basics of the story this episode was pulling from), so I suspect I missed some Easter Eggs that fans of the Captain American films – or even folks who have watched the source material – would have enjoyed. So, I certainly wasn’t the key fan demographic for this particular story. But, I have to say, I enjoyed it a lot. Despite not having much familiarity with Peggy, I liked seeing her get a chance to shine and stick it to the chauvinistic men of the era. And I really loved seeing that both she and Steve were destined to fall for each other even in a world where he remained “average.” It made the ending all the more bittersweet to see that they were once again pulled apart (although I like to think that she too would have opted to stay back in time and live out a life alongside Steve, assuming her reality ended up fighting against Thanos as well). And the prototype Iron Man suit? Pretty cool.

But loving this look into Peggy’s alternate future brings me to my biggest disappointment with the premiere of What If . . .? (and, I suspect, the series as a whole): You are only allowed to see a sliver of this particular reality and watch the character start out on their journey. We can speculate what is in story for Peggy moving forward, but we don’t know what’s different about this future compared to the Prime MCU storyline we followed for years with Steve as Cap. Will she become the de facto leader of the Avengers? Who will comprise the Avengers in this reality? (We know Hawkeye is there, but is Iron Man? Black Widow?) Did Bucky get souped up after the War? Is there a different Winter Soldier? I found myself with a host of questions at the close of the episode, wishing I had more time in this reality to see just what was different. Sure, this anthology format would allow for deeper dives into storylines that really pique the interest of the audience – either in comic form, or through a longer animated series,* but these small tastes of alternate realities are a bit of a bummer.

*One key thing to note: While Marvel managed to get almost all the original actors to reprise their roles for the series, they didn’t land three key MCU actors whose contracts with Marvel have expired: Chris Evans, Robert Downey Jr., and Scarlett Johansson. So, if a particular episode strikes a chord with audiences, there’s every chance that Marvel won’t be able to pin down an actor to take on a new series without offering up a major pay day (although, with how Marvel is printing money these days, I doubt that will be an issue if they really want to drill down deeper on a story).

It’s the finite nature of these stories – interesting concepts, fun deviations from the stories we know, but ultimately just a small sliver of the real arc that could be told – that makes the show less interesting than it could be. There’s something to be said for finally having MCU stories that have actual endings, especially after each of the three live action MCU TV series to date ultimately turned into launching pads for future MCU films, but I’m not sure how the series will work as anything other than a nice bite sized piece of MCU lore. Will fans be ok watching individual tales that don’t continue beyond a single episode after being conditioned for years to look for connections and eagerly await the next installment of a series? Time will tell on that one. I, for one, will be content to watch each episode simply for the enjoyment factor moving forward. As I’m not sure how much I’ll be able to really dig deep into alternate reality episodes that tell a complete story in a half hour (while still pulling from past MCU films as the general setting and jumping off point), I’ll be signing off from weekly reviews of the series here – although I’ll put something together once the series ends, to look at all the stories we were given and delve into how this new storytelling format works for the MCU as a whole. There’s the potential for some fun, interesting stories here – I just hope this is the right vehicle to tell them.