Season 1, Episode 1 What If: Captain Carter was ...The First Avenger? (Discussion)

[BlackFox]

The sequence with CC and Steve taking down a squadron of flying Messerschmitt bf 109s and 110s was the highlight for me, stunning seuquence.

 

[BaelaTargaryen]

Another thing that really bothered me was Red Skull and Hyrda in TFA had the Tesseract BEFORE Steve took the serum. Peggy taking the serum doesn't change that. So like....half the plot of this episode hinges on more than 1 alternate choice being made. Which I am fine with alternate worlds and such, but it being 1 choice changes the entire world doesn't really work when you make changes to events prior to that choice being made.

Hydra in What If? had the Tesseract before Steve took the serum too. Peggy stole the Tesseract from them after she took the serum and it was used to power Hydra Stomper. When Hydra captured Steve, they got the Tesseract back.

 

[Spider-Fan]

Hydra in What If? had the Tesseract before Steve took the serum too. Peggy stole the Tesseract from them after she took the serum and it was used to power Hydra Stomper. When Hydra captured Steve, they got the Tesseract back.

But that wasn't how they showed the progression of events. Also, in this it looks like Red Skull wantedt to unleash the monster from the beginning. Before Carter took the serum. That wasn't his goal in TFA, so that also would not have been affected the way it was shown.

 

[Iceman]

I enjoyed that. Really like the intro and outro with the Watcher. The animation is fine, was expecting a little worse given some of the previous Marvel stuff.

 

[Zarex]

This may have been a "What If"ed version of Red Skull as well since his mask resembled Ross Marquand moreso than Hugo Weaving.

Overstuffing was a common issue with the 70s era "What If" comic books as well, but since they were recreating so much of the first Cap film in this one a two parter may have better fit this material.

Overall I thought it was pretty good, but a step or three below MODOK. It was a treat for hardcore MCU fans, but I don't see it appealing to casual viewers.

 

[Iceman]

The sequence with CC and Steve taking down a squadron of flying Messerschmitt bf 109s and 110s was the highlight for me, stunning seuquence.

Yes, really enjoyed that. For some reason I wasn’t really expecting the action to be great in this but it’s been decent.

 

[Spider-Fan]

The action looks much better in action than dialogue or slower scenes. The faces look really off to me during dialogue heavy scenes.

 

[The Caped Knight]

After watching this a couple of times, I went back and rewatched Captain America: The First Avenger and its made me appreciate the film even more. Steve Rogers really impacted the era with his debut as Captain America changing the tide of war as well as being a symbol to rely behind.

Captain Carter was used more like a secret weapon rather than a government puppet.

 

[MaceB]

I generally enjoyed the first episode. Folks say that it was rushed, and I'm sure that it was... but I sort of viewed it as a companion to TFA. I didn't feel like I had to follow the plot as much, because I've already seen the movie, and I was able to fill in the blanks.

The highlight for me: Peggy and Steve's relationship. I liked Captain Peggy and skinny Steve. Twas cute.

 

[Iceman]

This may have been a "What If"ed version of Red Skull as well since his mask resembled Ross Marquand moreso than Hugo Weaving.

Overstuffing was a common issue with the 70s era "What If" comic books as well, but since they were recreating so much of the first Cap film in this one a two parter may have better fit this material.

Overall I thought it was pretty good, but a step or three below MODOK. It was a treat for hardcore MCU fans, but I don't see it appealing to casual viewers.

Good point. I think this would have done better as a 2-parter.

 

[Iceman]

I generally enjoyed the first episode. Folks say that it was rushed, and I'm sure that it was... but I sort of viewed it as a companion to TFA. I didn't feel like I had to follow the plot as much, because I've already seen the movie, and I was able to fill in the blanks.

The highlight for me was the same as the movie: Petty and Steve's relationship. I liked Captain Peggy and skinny Steve. Twas cute.

I saw it like that too. Yeah, was fun to see a different dynamic in that relationship. I’d like to see more of Captain Carter somewhere else.

 

[Dark Raven]

The episode was good overall but was a little bit of a retread of Captain America: The First Avenger. Although Steve was shot, couldn't they have still put him in the SSS chamber? Perhaps he would've gained healing abilities.

The scenes with Captain Carter and the Hydra Stomper flying around together reminded me of Stargirl and S.T.R.I.P.E.

How were different people able to pick up the Tesseract? Shouldn't it have killed them as they held onto it?

Would've been cool if they managed to get some actors from Agent Carter.

In fact, perhaps Disney + could revive the Agent Carter TV series but as a reboot with Peggy Carter from a different universe as Captain Carter. Although they're going to have to use technology like Movie Reshape to make her look taller and bigger.

 

[The Caped Knight]

 

[bubbadoom]

The episode was good overall but was a little bit of a retread of Captain America: The First Avenger.

Isn't that the point of this series - to take an existing story and retell it with one or two small changes to see how that impacts the MCU...

 

[TeeKay]

The action looks much better in action than dialogue or slower scenes. The faces look really off to me during dialogue heavy scenes.

Agreed. It's gonna take me a long time to get used to the animation.

 

[Drizzle]

This may have been a "What If"ed version of Red Skull as well since his mask resembled Ross Marquand moreso than Hugo Weaving.

I'm assuming there's a likeness thing regarding some of the characters. Schmidt looked nothing like Weaving in this, and as far as future episodes go, Black Widow looks nothing like Scarlett Johansson and Peter Parker doesn't look like Tom Holland. If anything, he looks more like Andrew Garfield, oddly enough.

 

[Dark Raven]

With Schmidt wanting to summon the "true champion of HYDRA" from beyond the stars really made me think of Hive/Alveus for a second lol (though obviously Marvel Studios wouldn't do that).


They said they weren't allowed to introduce any new characters. I think Shuma-Gorath may be the exception if they already planned him out for Multiverse of Madness (especially if Captain Carter will show up there or something). Otherwise it'd have to be a generic monster I think.


Yeah this confused me too.

Also in TFA the order of events is
- Steve takes place in the machine
- Erskine asks Peggy if she'd be more comfortable in the booth
- Peggy goes into the booth, sitting next to Chester Philips while Heinz Kruger takes place behind her. Everyone but the scientists are in the booth watching.
- Steve injected with most of the serum and is transformed
- Once they see the experiment is successful Peggy, Philips, Kruger and everyone else come down from the booth to see Steve up close
- Kruger blows up a bomb he left up in the booth as a distraction, takes the last serum remaining after Steve had been injected with the rest and shoots Erskine
- Steve chases him to retrieve the serum, but the vile breaks in the fight after Steve takes him from the submarine

In this it is
- Steve and Peggy walk up to Erskine together
- Erskine asks Peggy if she'd be more comfortable in the booth
- She says no and stays below.
- Now Chester Philips, Flynn (who we never saw in TFA) and Heinz Kruger all stay on the floor with the machine rather than going into the booth
- Steve takes place in the machine
- Kruger blows up his bomb not up in the booth as a distraction but on the lab floor where multiple people get hurt by the explosion
- He shoots Philips and Steve and takes the Serum
- Peggy shoots Kruger, puts the vile of serum he took back in the machine and goes through the transformation.
- I don't think we ever see Erskine die, but since we don't see him later I assume he died in the explosion?

So why was Flynn here if he wasn't before? Why did everyone besides Peggy also not go up into the booth this time? Why did Kruger decide to activate his explosive before Steve went through the transformation instead of waiting to see if it works? In TFA there was a vile left over for Kruger to take after Steve's transformation, so logically after Peggy's there should be a vile left they could use to replicate the serum? All that plus Schmidt only getting the Tesseract after, rather than already having it and having started making weapons with it before Steve got transformed really makes it seem like much more than one simple change (the decision to go up to the booth or not).

If everything changed because Peggy decided not to stay in the booth, then they should've had a line that Dr Tucci said "Well why don't we all stay out here on the floor and see it close up?" Otherwise if Peggy had originally gone behind the booth but everyone stayed outside it would've made no difference to the course of events.

 

[pr0xyt0xin]

Did not love this. It was... decent at best. Mostly meh. The one great thing was the animation itself.

That being said I never really wanted animated movies in the MCU. I mean... There's a lot of great marvel cartoons, but to me they don't really belong in the universe they've developed. And this one specifically is woefully ill-conceived.

This to me is like a fun side story but would weaken the MCU as a whole if I were to think of it canonically. From a storytelling perspective, it was pretty abysmal. Beyond Carter herself, I wouldn't have even known a single character's name if I hadn't seen the movie it was remixing.

If I was ranking Captain Carter amongst the films in the MCU id give it a 6 or 7. Which is among the lowest of the low.

 

[pr0xyt0xin]

Infinity War also doesn't rush the plot into 30 minutes. So while a bunch of characters, they get developed in the movie. Many anyway. Cast that large, some being less fleshed out is acceptable. Also the scenes are also largely stronger in IW when they opt to do character work. Here, it is a mostly generic script rushed into a small window. So nothing breathes. You can't just live on good will. Especially when your episode has like....4 core characters and none are explored in very interesting ways because they had to rush everything.

Infinite possibilities dont matter if there is no time for a decent story

Agreed.

 

[Dark Raven]

This to me is like a fun side story but would weaken the MCU as a whole if I were to think of it canonically. From a storytelling perspective, it was pretty abysmal. Beyond Carter herself, I wouldn't have even known a single character's name if I hadn't seen the movie it was remixing.

If I was ranking Captain Carter amongst the films in the MCU id give it a 6 or 7. Which is among the lowest of the low.

So you wouldn't have known skinny Steve Rogers or Red Skull or Dum Dum Duggan or Nick Fury? Hard to mistake Red Skull for anyone else.

 

[P Supreme]

This was the definition of meh! So they just going to tell alternate versions of the movies in 30 mins in all these ? Were not getting punisher getting the venom suit or Hulk actually killing wolverine ? If not then im one and done with this

 

[Venom 1988]

This was the definition of meh! So they just going to tell alternate versions of the movies in 30 mins in all these ? Were not getting punisher getting the venom suit or Hulk actually killing wolverine ? If not then im one and done with this

Er no. They advertised from day one this was alternate versions of the movies.

 

[Gladius Nova]

It was just “ok”, but my standards are high after End Game. Hope Marvel doesn’t get too “corny” and lose focus

 

[KRYPTON INC.]

I was hoping for more out of this particular What If...? if only because Atwell as Peggy has been really good from the start.


But I agree... This was pretty decentish at best and I don't blame the animation. It really was JUST a rushed version of TFA subbing out Peggy for Steve with not much deviation outside of how they chose to end the story... Which ends in the same ballpark as TFA anyway.

The story was not all that interesting, point blank. And with a 30 minute runtime rehashing a movie we all know, it had to be at least interesting and unique in some way and it for the most part wasn't, though I did get a kick out of them keeping Steve in the equation with a proto-Iron Man armor built by Howard.

 

[Bren]

I loved the animation. Story was okay. Captain Carter and Iron Steve were awesome.