What If? #1: Captain Carter Were The First Episode?

 Welcome to the Multiverse, Ticketholders!

The first episode of Marvel Studios' What If? debuted on Disney+ this week, and your resident Ticketmaster is back on the case to serve as your official Watcher for what I heard will be a ten-week animated excursion into some of the innumerable possible scenarios that would have taken place, had a character in your favorite MCU property decided to do something...Variant.

Remember to comment and hit those social media buttons at the end of this post, and if you haven't watched the first episode of What If?, visit the app at the link above to get a subscription to my non-sponsoring overlords so you can catch up with the series. SPOILERS are incoming on your left, and I could do this all day, so let's assemble after the image.

I realize from my coverage of Loki over the last few months that I've been getting a lot of facts wrong, whether by making my posts heavy on summary, or just by trying to shove regularly-scheduled content out through my fingers at the crack of tomorrow, or, more likely, trying to do both at the same time.

So I'm going to try a new approach and see if I can keep to its format from week to week. Here's the breakdown:

Premise & Cast: What If...Agent Carter participated in Project Rebirth instead of Steve Rogers? Or, as the official episode title so awkwardly puts it: "What If Captain Carter Were the First Avenger?" Clearly, there is some verb disagreement on display, but it's World War II in this episode, so Grammar Nazis like myself aren't the kind of Nazis worth worrying about at the moment. The scenario is introduced in a somewhat Twilight Zone-like fashion, narrated by Uatu the Watcher (the voice of the always enjoyable Jeffrey Wright, who is soon to appear in the James Bond film No Time To Die, and as Commissioner James Gordon in The Batman next year). Beginning with Peggy Carter (voiced by her live-action self, Hayley Atwell) and a skinny Steve Rogers (voiced by The Spectacular Spider-Man, Josh Keaton, in place of Chris Evans) meeting up with Professor Erskine (Stanley Tucci, also reprising his live-action role in voice form) and John Flynn (Bradley Whitford, voicing his character from the Agent Carter short film, and serving as a stand-in for Tommy Lee Jones' Chester Phillips, though Phillips does appear as a non-speaking--and then non-breathing--character here) at the Project Rebirth site where Steve became Captain America: The First Avenger. Rather than go up to the observation deck, Agent Carter elects to remain on the floor, closer to Steve. I like how, at this point, The Watcher notes Peggy's change in decision as a Nexus Event (though not by that nomenclature), as if to say,

By choosing to be on the floor of the laboratory, Peggy is able to see the Hydra spy detonate his bomb and grab one of the vials of Super Soldier serum before she shoots him. Unfortunately (as you can see in the above meme), Steve is shot by the spy in the exchange, rendering him unfit for the procedure. Howard Stark (Dominic Cooper, providing another live-to-voice returning performance) opts out for George Jetson reasons, leaving Peggy to take Steve's place and salvage Project Rebirth, becoming "Captain Carter" (also, a version of Captain Britain, a male hero from the comics). Most of what follows is a gender-flip on key events from Captain America, including the rescue of Bucky and the Howling Commandos (with Neal McDonough and Sebastian Stan voicing their film roles), Hydra recovering the Tesseract from Tønsberg (the Norse town where the Asgardian refugees are shown living in Endgame after the events of Thor: Ragnarok, which is a nod to where the Sylvie Lushton version of the Enchantress came from in the comics--except it was Broxton, Oklahoma, not Tønsberg, Norway, in the comics), the train heist where Cap loses Bucky, and small elements of the final showdown. Toby Jones and Ross Marquand (the latter of whom was a recast for Hugo Weaving after he dropped out of the franchise) reprise their roles as Arnim Zola and Red Skull, respectively. It's interesting (albeit safe) to see how the events of Captain America would be affected by the sexist trappings that informed much of Agent Carter's character dynamic (the episode's handling of gender roles will be addressed later), and I was impressed by how much of the original cast was on board to make this episode happen. The nuance of having mostly physical actors try to perform through voice only, is something that escaped me, as I am not trained to notice such things. Apparently, some line deliveries worked, and some didn't (I suppose Sebastian Stan was the most obviously awkward, rendered even more so by how few lines he had in the episode), but nothing was really so bad that I took notice of it or felt put off by it. However (as you may know if you follow my subject matter on Just the Ticket and its various offshoots), I am practically buried by animated content at any given moment, so let's talk about the animation next.

The Animation: In terms of lighting and character models, I was nostalgia-struck by how the episode evoked the look and feel of Max Fleischer's old Superman shorts from the 1940s--stop doing math; I'm only thirty-seven--which fits the era perfectly. But the animation itself is a mixed bag of impactful symbolism, cinematic action setpieces, Toy Story run cycles, and several nightmares' worth of facial expressions that I can only describe as Disney. Yes, "nightmare fuel" is also incredibly apt. But when the eye-searing, soul-twisting, body-shuddering feel of watching what are supposed to be an approximation of human eyebrows and a mouth break free of their natural axis points like they were animated in Adobe Flash and haphazardly slapped onto a faceless 3D model in post-production wears off, a conflicted, undefinable something remains that says, "Disney made this." I've got a challenge for you: when you get to a dialogue scene, and one of those "OMG! WTF was that?" faces shows up, run it back and try superimposing one of the CG Disney Princesses' faces over it in your mind. I think you'll get what I mean. Which leads me to what I like to call "the Woody run." You might have noticed live-action Cap in the original movie or the Hulk in one of the first two Avengers films running like a certain cotton-stuffed cowboy from Toy Story, and at one point in this episode, it makes a return. Who wants their enjoyment of an action-packed superhero thing to get derailed by "LOL badass runs like Woody"? I mean, that does bring its own sense of enjoyment (hence the LOL), but it's the wrong sense of enjoyment to get from an MCU property, unless the world actually survives another millennium of humanity and MST3K becomes a reality. But, as we are daily reminded, 2020 was last year. So, yeah; no more Woody run, okay Marvel?

That aside, the action scenes themselves benefit greatly from the "3D-Fleischer" animation style, the establishing shots look amazing, and if Marvel can get their character models' facial features rigged correctly for future episodes (as promotional material seems to suggest that this is not a one-off stylistic choice, but the presentation medium for the series as a whole), I could get used to seeing more of it.

What Changed: Aside from the obvious change from Captain America to Captain Carter, things diverge from The First Avenger by quite a bit. With Phillips being fatally wounded at the lab, John Flynn becomes the new head of the SSR (the Strategic Scientific Reserve, precursor to S.H.I.E.L.D., not to be confused with the USSR--the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics--or the Nazi SS--the SchutzStaffel, which means "protection squad" in English--what a difference a letter makes between friend and foe...), leaving acting dynamo Bradley Whitford with dialogue that amounts to "I'm a 1940's Alpha Male, and I say you can't be strong, witty, or awesome because you're a woman!" After Howard Stark makes some referential jabs at Sacred Steve's campy publicity stunts, the newly promoted, costumed, and shielded Captain Carter proceeds to be a strong, witty, awesome woman (which, if you remember your Falcon & the Winter Soldier quotes, is just Peggy Carter Peggy Cartering to the extra-maximum levels of her Peggy Carterity, and then going Plus Ultra on top of that, but I'm taking massive liberties with the whole "it makes you more you" thing because whether she's Agent, Captain, or just Peggy, she's the best). But I think she gets done dirty when she recovers the Tesseract from Hydra and gives it to Howard, who completely devalues the whole Captain Carter concept of the story by using the hypercube as a power source to give Steve Rogers an Iron Man suit. Forget that one of the most powerful artifacts in its Universe is being used as a battery. Forget that "Hydra-Stomper" is a stupid name for anything not sold on QVC. Forget that it's a brilliant callback to Cap and Tony's "Take away [X] and what are you?" argument in the first Avengers. Forget that it gives Rogers and Carter a way to deepen their relationship and leads to some of the better action sequences in the episode. It felt like a forced addition for the sake of fanservice, and Marvel once again (Karli Morgenthau, the Power Broker, Taskmaster, Black Widow, and Sylvie come to mind) failing to give its compelling female characters the spotlight and development that they deserve. Hopefully, She-Hulk, Kate Bishop, and Ms. Marvel will get better treatment when their series come out. It might not have fit Steve Rogers as a character, but it would have been truer to the What If? comics if he had been allowed to stew in Captain Carter's successes, and grown into a twistedly romantic, jealousy-driven villain, perhaps stealing a vial of serum for himself like John Walker did, or kidnapping Howard Stark and forcing him to build a "Captain Crusher" suit. Or perhaps he gets desperate and has Hydra turn him into a Winter Soldier. But those are What Ifs for another day. Speaking of the Winter Soldier, let's talk about what changed with the train heist. Captain Carter rescues Bucky from falling off the train, to which he replies, "you almost ripped my arm off!" They referenced the thing! Yay! No Winter Soldier (that we know of yet)! Yay! But

and "Hydra-Stomper" (guaranteed to eliminate hard water stains in seconds, or your money back for only three easy payments of $19.95 plus postage and handling. Call now and we'll double your order to two Hydra-Stompers for the price of one. We'll even throw in a free Iron Man Mark One so you can say goodbye to those pesky wallpaper wrinkles once and for all. Operators are standing by. Offer not available in Sokovia, Wakanda, Madripoor, Westview, the TVA, or actual reality. Once again, that number is 1-888-555-5555. That's 1-888-JLKL-JKL. We have Cats!)--. Wait, WHAT THE FUDAMN WAS I TALKING ABOUT? Oh, right; the train. Bucky isn't the Winter Soldier, it's a trap set by Hydra, Steve's suit takes the full force of the explosion while everyone else gets away safely, and it's time for a showdown with Schmidt (my new favorite gameshow?). But rather than steampunk their way to potential victory with physically improbable flying machines and "disintegration" lasers (which are about as lethal as a TVA pruning wand when you consider hindsight, and all of the people who were sent who-knows-where by those Infinity Stone-powered energy weapons), Zola and Red Skull decide to leave a fully functioning, enemy mech suit and its pilot within reach of a temporary power source while they use the Tesseract to summon a giant, toothy tentacle monster with no concept of friend or foe, from a random dimension they know nothing about, so they can...what? Domesticate it and conquer the world? This is clearly a reference to Hive, the main villain of Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D. Season Three, an ancient Inhuman whom the founding members of Hydra worshipped as a god. But many believe it to also be Shuma Gorath (that green, shapeshifting, tentacled eyeball thing from the Marvel vs. Capcom games, if you're a gamer but not a comics person). Regardless of the creature's origin, the fact remains that greedy, evil morons get what greedy, evil morons deserve. What follows is a reversal of the "you owe me a dance" exchange from The First Avenger, as Captain Carter does the most badass thing she could possibly do. Armed only with a sword and shield, she pushes the monster back through the portal by herself, falling through it shortly after. And in the most bonkers time-lapse since Batman waited through all of history, she emerges from the portal in present day, amid an explosion of severed tentacles (which hints that she may have solo-killed an ancient, multiversal god with a sword, so, yeah...), only to be greeted by Nick Fury and Hawkeye. And yes, Samuel L. Mothraphokkin' Jackson and Jeremy "Least Favorite Avenger and Bourne Character" Renner are doing the voices. So, yeah.

Verdict: I will now join Uatu as a Watcher of this series. Not only that, but Captain Carter needs more screen time! The voice cast is mostly authentic to live action, and when experience didn't line up with need in that department, I barely noticed it. The story was a bit safe and pandering (especially considering the MCU's treatment of gender roles and the comics' tendency toward What If having the darkest, least desirable ending possible to keep retcons and multiverses to a minimum), but did have implications by its end that were both ludicrously amazing and subtly sad, and the nods to the films were well used. The animation, while not used to its Super Soldier serum best, hit the right feel for the episode's time and subject matter, and I look forward to dialogue scenes that don't give me nightmares.

Implications: In Captain Carter's seventy year absence, Steve might have died in battle or of old age. He might have been transported somewhere in a Tesseract accident. Carter's brief conversation with Fury and Hawkeye is just light enough on information that when she says, "we won the war," it could be ambiguous as to which "we" Fury and Hawkeye belong to. It's possible that, with the female image of the time, Captain Carter never became the in absentia symbol of patriotism that Captain America did, Steve's will broke under the weight of her loss, the war effort faltered, the Axis Powers won, and S.H.I.E.L.D. is now a division of Hydra. Maybe Steve survived, and became the Winter Soldier like I suggested above. Maybe the Winter Soldier program is now Hydra's answer to the Red Room, and Bucky is one, too. Or they got Zola'd into repurposed Hydra-Smasher armors. The possibilities are endless when you ponder the question: What If...?

I cannot interfere. I must not interfere. It is up to you to click those social media buttons and comment down below to keep the Ticketverse going until at least next week!

Ticketmaster the Watcher,

out.