'What If..?': What's Next For Captain Carter?.. And Those She Left Behind.

Marvel's What If..? has just premiered, opening with a memorable episode that asks the question of What if Peggy Carter had received the Super Soldier serum instead of Steve Rogers. The episode, mostly a retelling of Captain America: The First Avenger with a few notable twists, is being highly praised, and fans are already falling in love with this new take on the character of Peggy Carter.

Luckily for them, What If's..? creators have already revealed plans to revisit Captain Carter in the show's second season, currently in its planning stages. So, with confirmation that we will see her again, what storylines from Captain Carter's universe will we see in the future?

An Alternate 'Avengers' Storyline

The final scene of What If's..? opening episode sees Peggy, while holding back the 'champion of Hydra', disappear into the portal opened by the Tesseract. She re-emerges seventy years in the future into a S.H.I.E.L.D lab studying the Tesseract, where she meets Nick Fury and Clint Barton. The scene mirrors the opening sequence of the first Avengers film, in which Loki emerges from the portal, trashes much of the lab, puts Clint under mind-control, and, of course, steals the Tesseract.

Loki's theft of the Tesseract sets the whole film into motion, allowing him to bring the Chitauri Army to Earth. His actions are the main reason the Avengers assemble for the first time. However, in Captain Carter's timeline, this pivotal moment seems to have never occurred.

Do the Avengers still form in Captain Carter's world? We can probably assume they do at some point, and it will be interesting to see the reasons why when Captain Carter's story is revisited. It will also be fun to see how the team interacts with Peggy at the helm. Will we see a different team roster? Would Thor still come to Earth if Loki had not?

Fans have lots of questions, and we hope that one day, they will be answered.

Steve, Bucky, and Howard: Founders of S.H.I.E.L.D?

In the original timeline, as seen in the above Marvel One-Shot, Agent Carter, which was followed by the TV series of the same name, Howard Stark and Peggy Carter are the two major founders of S.H.I.E.L.D, naming the organisation in memory of Steve Rogers after his disappearance. However, in the Captain Carter timeline, it is Peggy who disappears.

Fans are already speculating that in this timeline, Howard will turn to Steve to help get S.H.I.E.L.D up and running. They also believe that Bucky Barnes could be involved, seeing that in this timeline, he is not lost in action and left to become the Winter Soldier. Fans are also excited by the likelihood that in a timeline without the Winter Soldier, Howard would have lived long enough to witness the achievements of his son, Tony. While some of this would likely be discussed in a future Captain Carter-centric episode, it might also be fun to see the alternate founding of S.H.I.E.L.D more directly.

Did HYDRA still rise and infiltrate S.H.I.E.L.D?

Captain America: The Winter Soldier remains one of the most popular movies in the MCU. It also made one of the biggest changes to the MCU's status quo, with the reveal that S.H.I.E.L.D had been secretly infiltrated by HYDRA agents, almost since the former's inception.

Fans are now questioning if this is also the case in Captain Carter's timeline. While the Red Skull and some other HYDRA agents were killed by the monster, Arnim Zola, a key figure in HYDRA's later history, survived. While Peggy's rescue of Bucky on the train means there is no Winter Soldier, a future Captain Carter episode could feature a story revealing Hydra’s infiltration of S.H.I.E.L.D.

However, it is also possible that Hydra failed to take root in this timeline. If so, it could have a number of implications for other MCU characters. Without Hydra, the Maximoff twins would never have been experimented on, and Wanda would never have gotten the power boost she needed to eventually become the Scarlet Witch.

Without Wanda, and Bucky becoming the Winter Soldier, the events that led to the Avengers breaking up in Civil War may never have happened.

A Very Different Infinity War/Endgame

As stated in the episode, Peggy’s decision to become a super soldier resulted in a whole new history, and we have only seen the very beginning of it. However, we can probably assume that Thanos still exists somewhere, searching for the Infinity Stones. This means that Captain Carter and whatever Avengers team she pulls together would likely come into contact with him at some point.

How well this encounter would go would depend on a lot of factors, such as who was on the team. As mentioned earlier, Thor may never have joined the Avengers if Loki had never come to Earth, taking away one of the team’s heavy hitters. However, on the flip side of this point, the heroes may never have lost possession of the Tesseract, and could have found more ways to use it against Thanos, as Howard Stark did with the creation of the Hydra Stomper.

Judging by Clint Barton’s reverent reaction upon recognising her, Captain Carter would be a respected leader, and in the absence of a ‘Civil War’ type event, Thanos and the Black Order would be facing a much more united Avengers team.

They would very likely still lose- Doctor Strange visited billions of timelines before finding the one where the Avengers win- but as her What If..? episode showed us, a team led by Captain Peggy Carter would not go down without a fight, and it would be one hell of a fight to see.

We’ll see Captain Carter at least once more this season, in an episode featuring an alternate Doctor Strange, but we’ll probably have to wait for season two for a full continuation of her story. If the current fan reaction to the character is anything to go by, it will be an eagerly awaited episode.