S01.E01: What If… Captain Carter Were The First Avenger?

[cambridgeguy]

On 8/12/2021 at 2:08 AM, arc said:

I wonder why Peggy didn’t get a helmet.

What, and flatten that perfect hair?  That's crazy talk - if Natasha and Thor spent most of their time letting their hair run free then so can Peggy. Besides, bad guys never aim for the head.

[The Crazed Spruce]

3 hours ago, Perfect Xero said:

I was a bit unclear how Peggy being the Super Soldier lead to Red Skull's plan being to summon a Lovecraftian monster rather than a super bomber, but it was a pretty fun What If

Because Zola was captured earlier in this timeline, he didn't have the chance to develop the weapons using the tesseract energy that he made in the original, so Red Skull had to take his research in a different direction.

[benteen]

On 8/11/2021 at 8:08 PM, cambridgeguy said:

The more interesting story would have been Howard getting into the chamber.  Peggy is too similar to Steve (plucky underdog, heroic spirit, etc.).  What would have happened to Howard though?  Does he become an insufferable asshole?  Would he be willing to head to the front lines?

I totally agree on this.  If they had wanted to tell a different story, Howard as Captain America would have been it.  How does the rich, brilliant, cocky playboy respond to being Captain America?  Does he grow into the role like his son did with Iron Man or do all of his worst instincts spiral completely out of control?

[Danny Franks]

I really liked the animation style, with the bold outlines and rich, cel shaded colours. It was very reminiscent of comic book art - particularly Phil Noto but with cleaner linework - and had a clear, distinct look that will serve Marvel well. It doesn't look like a Disney cartoon or an anime. 

My abiding problem with What Ifs and Elseworld stories is that they're never quite a full departure. They always have the same characters revolving around one another, like the writers aren't quite brave enough to just throw everything out and do their own thing, so they make certain things inevitable. That's how I felt about Steve as Iron Man here. He was shot, he didn't get the serum, his role should end there and I didn't find it realistic that the army kept him around. He'd either have been sent to a frontline unit or to some desk job out of the way.

But the aesthetics for Captain Carter were fantastic. The powerful build, the Union Flag costume, the 40s hair, it was all really nicely designed. I'd happily see more of this character.

[arc]

1 hour ago, Danny Franks said:

I really liked the animation style, with the bold outlines and rich, cel shaded colours.

The look is good, but there’s far too much “correctness” due to letting the computers make so many decisions. Specifically in the shading and shadows, which are all perfectly correct, but real hand drawn animation would never shade things like that. Both because it’s too much work and because it actively detracts from the “iconic abstraction”* of a cartoony design. The video game “Guilty Gear Xrd” solved that problem by painstakingly editing the 3D models to clean up the shading.

* to use Scott McCloud’s term for it.

[paigow]

8 hours ago, benteen said:

Howard as Captain America would have been it.  How does the rich, brilliant, cocky playboy respond to being Captain America?

He is the American Red Skull... A super horny John Walker... HYDRA & Stark Industries rule the world...

[johntfs]

4 hours ago, Danny Franks said:

I really liked the animation style, with the bold outlines and rich, cel shaded colours. It was very reminiscent of comic book art - particularly Phil Noto but with cleaner linework - and had a clear, distinct look that will serve Marvel well. It doesn't look like a Disney cartoon or an anime. 

My abiding problem with What Ifs and Elseworld stories is that they're never quite a full departure. They always have the same characters revolving around one another, like the writers aren't quite brave enough to just throw everything out and do their own thing, so they make certain things inevitable. That's how I felt about Steve as Iron Man here. He was shot, he didn't get the serum, his role should end there and I didn't find it realistic that the army kept him around. He'd either have been sent to a frontline unit or to some desk job out of the way.

But the aesthetics for Captain Carter were fantastic. The powerful build, the Union Flag costume, the 40s hair, it was all really nicely designed. I'd happily see more of this character.

Well, of course they're not a full departure.  The point of these stories are "What If... this other stuff happened to these characters you're fans of?"  Not "What If these characters you're fans of died or left the story and you watched new characters that you don't know or care about.

There's a genre of historical/fantasy/science-fiction called alternate history.  And it's very much like this.  Harry Turtledove's How Few Remains posits a South victorious in the Civil War and now a second war between North and South (allied with Britain and France).  In that novel's case the turning point was "What if Lee's battle plan for Antietam had not been lost by his courier and recovered by Northern soldiers? (which is what happened in the actual battle)"

People like myself who read those stories want to read about the alternate paths those historical figures might have taken, not have them be replaced by authorial creations occupying the same basic roles.

 

[Danny Franks]

18 minutes ago, johntfs said:

Well, of course they're not a full departure.  The point of these stories are "What If... this other stuff happened to these characters you're fans of?"  Not "What If these characters you're fans of died or left the story and you watched new characters that you don't know or care about.

There's a genre of historical/fantasy/science-fiction called alternate history.  And it's very much like this.  Harry Turtledove's How Few Remains posits a South victorious in the Civil War and now a second war between North and South (allied with Britain and France).  In that novel's case the turning point was "What if Lee's battle plan for Antietam had not been lost by his courier and recovered by Northern soldiers? (which is what happened in the actual battle)"

People like myself who read those stories want to read about the alternate paths those historical figures might have taken, not have them be replaced by authorial creations occupying the same basic roles.

And this one was, "what if something believable happened to change the original story but then something that didn't make sense at all happened, so we can keep another character in the story." Steve just gets a convenient new way of overcoming his physical shortcomings and still gets to be a hero, with a suit that was canonically six decades from being invented.

As I said, they make too much of what happens in comic books appear to be predestined rather than the result of random events, despite the "what if" itself being a random event.

[Zuleikha]

I think 30 minutes is too short for this show to live up to its premise. The origin of Captain Carter is believable, and the premise is intriguing. There was a brief bit with exploring how Peggy being a female combined with 40s-era sexism to sideline the super soldier, which was briefly interesting. But then instead of traveling down that fork and seeing what else may have changed or happened, the writers contrived to get the plot back on track with the main characters subbed out. I think it's because figuring out a coherent, satisfying Captain Carter story that can be told in 30 minutes was just too hard.

It's a shame because I think the premise is more interesting than the episode was able to demonstrate. Peggy is a very different person from Steve, with very different training, experience, and skills. This probably should have been a multi-episode arc so that they could write a specific Captain Carter story. Or they could have copy-and-pasted Peggy into Steve's role in something like a 5 minutes highlights reel and then focused the main story on Peggy defrosting and learning the modern world.
 

[arc]

43 minutes ago, Danny Franks said:

Steve just gets a convenient new way of overcoming his physical shortcomings and still gets to be a hero, with a suit that was canonically six decades from being invented.

The suit was powered by the Tesseract, which canon Howard Stark never got a chance to tinker with. But yes, it was kind of a shame to put skinny Steve out in the field with a big armored suit and take some of Peggy's glory.

It's interesting that back in What If-2011, there's no old (skinny) Steve to be seen. It looked like in 1943 that Steve was the last person standing in the castle, so presumably they recovered the Tesseract and he had more Hydra Stomper adventures. Given how much the episode flipped Peggy and Steve's roles, I guess it would be fair to assume he founded that timeline's SHIELD.

Come to think of it, assuming Howard survived as well, it's crazy the good guys spent nearly seventy years before deciding using the Tesseract to open a portal again when they knew Peggy had been sucked into one.

[paigow]

Nobody could find the Tessaract because the stray cat that Jarvis adopted swallowed it and ran away.

[Mulva]

All I could think of when I saw Wee!Steve and Big!Peggy together was "death by snoo snoo".  

[Cobalt Stargazer]

On 8/11/2021 at 8:16 PM, Spartan Girl said:

A giant squid from another dimension? So many Watchman vibes.

I got the same Lovecraft vibes another poster mentioned. Leave it to Red Skull to summon friggin' Cthulhu.

[tv echo]

Video clip from first episode....

Edited August 16, 2021 by tv echo

[blackwing]

I enjoyed the episode... I always loved the "What If" comic book series (one of the most famous issues was: the X-Men ask, "What If Phoenix Had Not Died?") and its visions of alternate realities.

I'm curious as to why Peggy didn't take the name "Captain Britain", it seems like if Steve became "Captain America" in his reality that Peggy would have become "Captain Britain" in this one.  I am hoping it's because there is already a Captain Britain in the comics and that TPTB are going to introduce him to the MCU and they didn't want to confuse people.  Henry Cavill as Captain Britain?

If this show makes it to Season 2, I wonder if they would ever follow up any episodes with a second episode to continue the story.  I'd love to see Captain Carter leading the Avengers.

On 8/15/2021 at 10:37 AM, Mulva said:

All I could think of when I saw Wee!Steve and Big!Peggy together was "death by snoo snoo".  

Yep, I thought the exact same thing.  I mean, good for them for staying together, but she towers over him by a foot now and probably outweighs him by 100 pounds.  But I guess as long as they are/were happy...

[paigow]

O.G. Steve Rogers was smaller than most women, not just roided Carter. Howard Stark would have arranged hundreds of women for his best bro Iron Man.

[johntfs]

On 8/13/2021 at 4:33 PM, Danny Franks said:

And this one was, "what if something believable happened to change the original story but then something that didn't make sense at all happened, so we can keep another character in the story." Steve just gets a convenient new way of overcoming his physical shortcomings and still gets to be a hero, with a suit that was canonically six decades from being invented.

As I said, they make too much of what happens in comic books appear to be predestined rather than the result of random events, despite the "what if" itself being a random event.

In the actual real world that we live in, Leonardo DiVinci designed airplanes and helicopters centuries before they could be built.  I have no problem believing that Howard Stark had already designed something like the Iron Man suit.  The problem was that there was no way to power it with 1940s technology.  But with the Tesseract it would work.

And figure Steve got to stay because Steve volunteered to test the thing for Stark.  And the brass agreed because if it worked, great.  If it killed Steve they were out a 90 pound asthmatic who couldn't fight instead of a soldier who could.

[festivus]

On 8/15/2021 at 10:37 AM, Mulva said:

All I could think of when I saw Wee!Steve and Big!Peggy together was "death by snoo snoo".  

I laughed so hard at this.

This one was just okay for me. Too much like the original. 

[tv echo]

FYI,,,

What If…?: Episode 1 Multiverse Report
BY CHRISTINE DINH  August 19, 2021
https://www.marvel.com/articles/tv-shows/what-if-episode-1-multiverse-report-captain-carter?linkId=128326283 

Main Title (From "What If…Captain Carter Were The First Avenger?"/Audio Only)
MarvelMusicVEVO   Aug 20, 2021

 

[Dandesun]

On 8/15/2021 at 2:49 PM, Cobalt Stargazer said:

I got the same Lovecraft vibes another poster mentioned. Leave it to Red Skull to summon friggin' Cthulhu.

I mean, not only would Red Skull do something that ridiculously stupid (and fitting given how racist Lovecraft was even for the time) but of course he wouldn't conceive of the possibility that Cthulhu would immediately crush him upon getting through the wormhole.

Stupid Hydra.

[Ailianna]

I watched Captain America: The First Avenger last night and then decided to watch this episode again, to compare. Ironically, the changes I think were all in the beginning. The Watcher tried to claim that Peggy's decision to stay on the floor was the change. But ALL the spectators, who were originally upstairs before she went up or down, stay down. The Nazi infiltrator set off his bomb before the experiment was done, though in the movie he waited to see all the steps and what was involved before setting off the bomb. Basically the entire scene was different in set up, and I don't get how her choice moved all these other things, especially the things that were different before she made the choice. The irony is that after that it goes very much back to script, until the tentacles.

This is still very much my least favorite of the four so far and I'm glad the others were not drawn on this mold. And nothing about this makes me feel happy that Captain Carter will be in every future season, nor do think she has any "connection" with The Watcher. She doesn't even know he exists. I think they are blinded by liking the concept so much they just want to keep playing with it.

[Llywela]

2 hours ago, Ailianna said:

I watched Captain America: The First Avenger last night and then decided to watch this episode again, to compare. Ironically, the changes I think were all in the beginning. The Watcher tried to claim that Peggy's decision to stay on the floor was the change. But ALL the spectators, who were originally upstairs before she went up or down, stay down. The Nazi infiltrator set off his bomb before the experiment was done, though in the movie he waited to see all the steps and what was involved before setting off the bomb. Basically the entire scene was different in set up, and I don't get how her choice moved all these other things, especially the things that were different before she made the choice. The irony is that after that it goes very much back to script, until the tentacles.

I think the implication was meant to be that it was a knock-on effect. Peggy decided to stay downstairs, and because of that everyone else also decided to stay downstairs, because she'd set that precedent, and because of that the Nazi infiltrator decided to let rip earlier. Or something.

[Ailianna]

3 hours ago, Llywela said:

I think the implication was meant to be that it was a knock-on effect. Peggy decided to stay downstairs, and because of that everyone else also decided to stay downstairs, because she'd set that precedent, and because of that the Nazi infiltrator decided to let rip earlier. Or something.

Except in the movie, everyone was already up in the viewing area before Erskine asked her if she was going up. It just doesn't match at all. And there is no reason for the Hydra agent to change his plan at all. It doesn't even make sense for him to act, blowing his cover and access, unless he sees that the serum actually does something.

[Cobalt Stargazer]

On 9/6/2021 at 3:42 PM, Ailianna said:

And there is no reason for the Hydra agent to change his plan at all. It doesn't even make sense for him to act, blowing his cover and access, unless he sees that the serum actually does something.

It's been a  minute since I watched the first Captain America movie, but wasn't Red Skull/Schmidt also working on a version of the serum, or did he already have it completed and used himself as a test subject? Maybe the Hydra agent wanted to make sure SHIELD never got their hands on it, even for only one person. Even if it did nothing, there was the chance that it would. I don't think even the SHIELD people knew if it would work, much less anyone who was working against them.

[Ailianna]

It's pretty clear in the movie, as he leans forward and watches intently, that he's seeing what happens. And Red Skull was an earlier Erskine formula too, but with some obvious side effects. Watching them essentially back to back made it clear to me that, like Strange being in love, a LOT of things were already different before the  "big" choice.

[Angeleyes]

I came across this article about this episode and thought it was an interesting read. I love hearing other people’s perspectives on how they perceive a character and how it resonates with their own experiences. 
 

The Incredible Queerness of Peggy and Steve in Marvel’s What If?

Edited September 15, 2021 by Angeleyes