Captain Carter Will be The Driving Force Behind Marvel's WHAT IF...? Series

While we wait for Marvel’s What If…? animated series to be released, we’ve got some more information to share with you regarding Hayley Atwell’s Captain Carter.

Marvel’s What If…? is an anthology series where The Watcher looks at instances of where the MCU could have gone in a completely different direction. The series will include most of the MCU cast reprising their roles in the series, which will examine the 23 past films in the MCU, but each of the stories will feature one key difference showing how the story would have played out differently.

In one of the episodes, Peggy Carter finds herself taking the Super Soldier Serum in Project Rebirth and officially becomes Captain Carter. As for Steve, he ends up not taking part in the project due to an undisclosed injury. But, Howard Stark creates a suit of armor for him, which is called the Hydra Stomper.

This story has been marketed the most in the series as it will be the episode that launches the series. It also turns out that Captain Carter is the driving force behind the series, and she will also appear in future seasons of the show as well.

Executive producer Brad Winderbaum opened up about Captain Carter in an interview with /Film and explains why her episode will kick off the series:

“We realized, I think, early on in development as we were starting to get [writer] AC [Bradley’s] scripts and starting to look at the arc of the series that there was going to be a character that bubbled up and became more important. Not more important than the rest, but had a strong relationship with The Watcher, who is really our driving force behind the series, and that’s Captain Carter.”

When it comes to this “strong relationship” between Captain Carter and The Watcher, it’s explained that it’s not a direct one, “but the origin of Captain Carter is where this universe diverges from what we know and sets us on this new path.”

Writer A.C. Bradley goes on to explain why the origin of Captain Carter changes the MCU as we know it:

“Going into that episode, we knew we wanted Agent Carter to become the first Avenger. My job was to figure out how do we do this? And while watching the original first Avenger, there is a moment where Dr. Erskine says, ‘Would you rather wait in the booth?’ And she goes, ‘No.’

“And I was like, that’s it. That’s the moment. She goes, ‘No, I’d rather stay in the room.’ Because that’s such a loaded phrase. Even in the 1940s, especially in 2021, that women belong in the room and we belong in the conversation. Because when a woman is part of it, it changes the world. I love the idea that Kevin [Feige], Victoria [Alonso], Louis [D’Esposito], Brad [Winderbaum], they were like, ‘Go for it.’ They let me make her this really strong feminist character. And also showing that just because a woman gets a super soldier serum in 1940-something doesn’t mean she gets to become Captain Carter. She still has to fight for it. And, damn it, she does.”

With Captain Carter being the spark of this new alternate MCU, Winderbaum says that they wanted to make sure to build on her story in every season of the series. He said:

“We realized as we started developing the second season that Captain Carter was going to be the character who we would revisit in every season and continue that adventure. Obviously, we’re telling a story on a giant multiversal canvas, so you never really know who’s going to pop up where and when. It’s very much an anthology, but there’s always opportunity for fun connections to be made.”

If you’ve watched the trailer for the series, you’ve seen Captain Cater interacting with other characters in the MCU including Doctor Strange, Erik Killmonger as Black Panther, Gamora, T’Challa as Star-Lord, and Thor. When teasing how this is possible, Winderbaum added:

“It’s something that evolves over time, but there is definitely like… There’s a reason why you will come to learn that that story, it was the first one the Watcher invited us into, and that does have some importance as the series continues.”

I’m pretty stoked for this series! There’s a lot of cool stuff to look forward to, some new details of which you can read about here.

Marvel's What If...? will make its debut on Disney+ on August 11th, 2021.