AVENGERS: DOOMSDAY Rumor Teases a Dark Twist for Hayley Atwell’s Peggy Carter
What if Hayley Atwell is returning to the MCU in Avengers: Doomsday, but Peggy Carter isn’t really Peggy Carter?
That’s the wonderfully strange idea at the center of a new Avengers: Doomsday rumor, and considering everything Marvel has been teasing about the movie, it’s just interesting enough to be worth thinking about.
With Atwell officially returning alongside Chris Evans as Steve Rogers. Marvel Studios confirmed Atwell’s involvement during its Hall H presentation at San Diego Comic-Con 2026, but exactly who she’s playing and how she fits into the story remains a mystery.
The obvious assumption is that Peggy and Steve are headed for some kind of emotional reunion. After everything those two characters have been through, Marvel putting Evans and Atwell back into the same Avengers movie practically invites that expectation.
But what if Marvel is counting on fans making exactly that assumption? A theory shared by James Mack on X proposes a much darker explanation for Atwell’s return: “Only one of the Latverian witches will show her face, guys, and she’s disguised as Peggy Carter.
Okay, now things are getting interesting.
A Latverian witch appeared at Marvel’s booth during SDCC, with the character changing the color of her costume each day. The mysterious figure has fueled speculation that Latverian witches could appear in Avengers: Doomsday as followers or lieutenants serving Doctor Doom.
The theory proposes that one of those witches could take Peggy Carter’s appearance. That would certainly mess with Steve Rogers.
Imagine Evans’ Steve encountering Peggy after whatever multiversal chaos brings him into the events of Doomsday, only to discover that the woman standing in front of him isn’t Peggy at all.
Doctor Doom exploiting Steve’s connection to Peggy would be a pretty brutal way to manipulate him, especially if Steve initially believes he’s been given another impossible chance to see her.
Of course, there are several other possibilities for Atwell’s role. She previously played a Captain Carter variant in 2022’s Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, which made another appearance from the super-soldier version of Peggy an easy prediction.
The multiverse also leaves the door open for another Peggy variant, the original MCU Peggy, or something considerably stranger.
Atwell’s comments at San Diego Comic-Con certainly aren’t making the mystery any easier to solve. Speaking about finally being able to acknowledge her involvement in the film, she said:
“First of all, it’s a relief. I had so many people speculating, rumors circulating, and then as we’re getting closer to this day, people kind of going, ‘Oh, you’re in it; just tell me.’ It feels nice not to have to kind of be noncommittal or lie about it… We’re withholding this information not to be mean but also to create that element of surprise.”
Atwell also suggested that audiences shouldn’t assume they have her character figured out simply because they’ve seen different versions of Peggy Carter before. While describing herself as being “back to square one,” she offered a pretty wild description of what Doomsday has in store.
“All I will say is that it is sort of an existential crisis of a movie, where the whole world is turned on its head, and we don’t even know who we are anymore,” she explained.
That description fits remarkably well with a story involving characters questioning identities, realities, and the people standing in front of them.
It also makes the Latverian witch theory more fun to consider. If Avengers: Doomsday really is going to put its heroes through an identity-shattering multiversal crisis, disguising one of Doom’s followers as Peggy Carter could be an effective way to turn Steve Rogers’ history against him.
Still, this remains firmly in rumor and fan-theory territory. Marvel hasn’t confirmed that Atwell is playing a disguised Latverian witch, nor has the studio revealed exactly what role these witches might have in the movie.
But Marvel has now put Chris Evans and Hayley Atwell into the same Avengers film while Atwell herself is warning fans to expect surprises and an existential crisis where nobody knows who they are anymore.
So maybe expecting a straightforward Steve and Peggy reunion is exactly the trap, and if Steve sees Peggy as one of Doctor Doom’s agents, that could make for one seriously cruel reveal.
Avengers: Doomsday arrives in theaters December 18, 2026.