Alright Marvel Cinemantic Universe (MCU) fans! It’s time for the release of the next MCU series on Disney Plus. But, if you thought WandaVision and Loki were twisty and even confusing for some casual fans, What If…? Is going to take things to another level. Check out our primer for What If…? for a deeper dive into the setup, but we’ll also set the table below.
What’s this All About?
With the climax of the Loki series officially unleashing the multiverse into the MCU, What If (we’re dopping the …? when we talk about the series from here on.) can now be viewed as more than just a fun thought experiement about what might change in the MCU if characters made different choices at pivotal moments. With the concept of infinite branching universes, every episode of What If could be a look at another universe.
The setup is that the narrator is a character called The Watcher, who observes all of thes different universes and is bringing viewers a look at various alternate realities. So, each episode will look at one of these alternate timelines, where things may be very different.
What If it was Captain Carter?
Episode one brings us right into the action as we see an animated version of the scene where Steve Roger’s is transformed into Captain America. But, a simple choice by Agent Peggy Carter to stay near the platform instead of leaving the room changes everything. Steve is shot by the Hydra agent trying to sabotage the procedure, leaving Peggy as the only viable candidate to take the supersolider serum.
Suddenly, we have a world where Peggy becomes Captain Carter instead of Steve Rogers, who remains the skinny kid he was before taking the serum in the Marvel universe we are familiar with. Captain Carter then goes through some of the same adventures as Captain America, but one change is that she never goes on tour with the USO and forces her way into the action more quickly than Steve did. This allows her to obtain the Teseract before it gets to the Red Skull. This begins a real ripple effect.
What If Steve Rogers was Iron Man?!!
Howard Stark (Tony’s dad) takes the Teseract and uses it to power an Iron Man suit, very reminiscent of the first suite Tony creates in Iron Man (2008), along with the larger one created by his nemesis Obadiah Stane. But, Howard is not his son and has no interest in getting inside the suit. Instead, Steve Rogers becomes the 1940’s version of Iron Man.
In his powerful Iron Man suit, Steve helps Captain Carter rescue Bucky Barnes and the rest of his platoon, before he is experimented on. Another big change! Later the team goes through a similar train attack as we saw in the original Captain America movie. This time, it’s all a trap and while Bucky escapes unscathed, Steve and the Iron Man suit are thought to have been destroyed.
While Some Things Change, Others Remain the Same
We learn that Red Skull used the trap on the train to get his hands on the Teseract which he is using to open an interdimensional doorway to some very dangerous universe to bring through a monster to take over the world for Hydra. Captain Carter, Barnes, Stark, and the rest of the platoon take on a suicide mission to stop Red Skull and save the world.
When they arrive, they discover that Steve and the Iron Man suit have survived, but Red Skull is already opening the portal and some kind of gian tentacled monster (Mamma Hydra?) is coming through. It’s first order of business is to kill Red Skull in the middle of his villain speech. While that is a satisfying moment, it becomes apparent that this monster is a bit of out the team’s league. Eventually Captain Carter recognizes the only solution is for her to physically push the creature back through the portal, which will take her with it. Much like Captain America, she sacrifices herself to save the world.
Also, like Captain America, we then jump to the present, where the portal is reopening and Captian Carter comes back out, assuming she is still in the middle of WWII, But, Nick Fury and Hawkeye standing nearby let her know that she has emerged into a new world, 70 years later.
What’s Next?
That’s the big question. We know based on the trailer that we will see alternate versions of Dr. Strange, The Guardians of the Galaxy, Black Panther, Tony Stark, Thor, and others. It looks like some of the episodes will start crossing over at some point, but there may also be some standalone episodes.
Either way, What If is opening up the MCU to a huge number of stories that may or may not end up impacting the Marvel universe we have all become familiar with.
