Captain Carter Ruined Peggy's Story In The MCU

The MCU helped to popularize the character Agent Peggy Carter, but Disney+’s What If…? rebooting her as Captain Carter ruined her story. Marvel’s movies introduced audiences to some of the best comic book characters they never knew about and reimagined them in ways that made them unique, relatable, and beloved. As the Multiverse Saga continues, the MCU is at another pivotal point as it reflects on who its heroes were, who they are, and where they go from here.

First introduced in Agent Carter, Atwell became a fan favorite. Despite receiving multiple conclusions for her adventures with various degrees of satisfaction from audiences, the MCU still found ways to bring Peggy back. However, one of the oddest and most questionable came in the first episode of Marvel’s animated series, What If…?, where in an alternate timeline Peggy Carter was infused with the super soldier serum instead of Captain America, becoming “Captain Carter.”

Peggy Carter Never Needed The Serum In The MCU

After Peggy Carter supposedly received a happy ending after Avengers: Endgame and Captain Carter leaped into live-action for Iron Man said in The Avengers: “Everything special about you came out of a bottle.”

Peggy Carter was always capable, cunning, and charming without a flag-branded shield. After her many MCU adventures as an agent, in which she saved the world without superpowers, Peggy proved that she never needed to be Captain Carter. Additionally, with so much of Agent Carter’s story about Peggy reinforcing her self-worth; by giving her Captain America’s iconography, rather than audiences acknowledging the British spy for her own merits, Marvel robbed Carter of her unique identity and gave her someone else’s.

MCU’s Captain Carter was a Wasted Opportunity

Hayley Atwell as Captain Carter in Doctor Strange in the Multivverse of Madness

Agent Carter was unique among the MCU, a noir period piece set in Marvel’s golden age rather than a standard superhero series. Carter’s stories of intrigue, espionage, and self-worth were as powerful as they were action-packed, allowing her to explore the MCU from the shadows and in ways Captain America never could. What If…?’s premiere episode served its purpose as a superhero origin story for Captain Carter but felt very derivative of Captain America: The First Avenger when compared. If anything, What If…? raised the question of what stories the MCU has told or can tell with Captain Carter that they couldn’t already with characters like Bucky, John Walker, Isaiah and Eli Bradley, or any of their Captain Americas.

Captain Carter’s introduction represented a common scenario that made her transformation feel more like an MCU trope than a character arc and comparatively unimaginative in the infinite possibilities of the multiverse. Marvel’s Phase 4 had characters like Shuri, Riri Williams, Sam Wilson, and Yelena Belova challenged to carry the legacies of previously established Marvel heroes. Audiences saw Jane Foster treated similarly to Captain Carter in MCU's Phase 4 had potential, but Disney didn’t understand what made her story worth telling and that she never had to follow in Captain America’s footsteps but rather forge a path of her own.

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