Marvel Cinematic Universe · What If...?: Season One
What If... Captain Carter Were the First Avenger? — S01E01
TV · 2021 · 33 minutes · Phase Four · alternate
Watched over by the reality-hopping Watcher, this episode explores a timeline where Peggy Carter, not Steve Rogers, is injected with Dr. Erskine's super-soldier serum after Hydra assassinates Erskine before Steve's procedure can be completed. Peggy becomes Captain Carter, fighting Hydra alongside a mech-suited Steve Rogers (the "Hydra Stomper"), while the Tesseract-powered Red Skull and Hydra scientist Arnim Zola pursue their own agenda. The divergence echoes the beats of Steve's original origin story but reshapes the outcome of the war and Steve's own fate.
Follows on from
- Captain America: The First Avengertimeline-branch — Diverges directly from the premise and events of Captain America: The First Avenger — Erskine's assassination and the serum going to Peggy instead of Steve rewrites that film's origin story beat for beat.
Leads to
- What If... the Watcher Broke His Oath? — S01E09crossover — Captain Carter, recruited into the Guardians of the Multiverse, was introduced as the super-soldier of her own variant timeline.