What If...?: What if… Captain Carter Fought the Hydra Stomper?

December 26, 2023 2:05 PM - Season 2, Episode 5

The Watcher does not normally do sequels but...

...we nonetheless revisit the universe of What If... Captain Carter Were The First Avenger? and the post-credits scene from What If... The Watcher Broke His Oath?

After the long-lost Hydra Stomper is recovered, Captain Carter’s mission to save her old flame, Steve Rogers, sets her on a collision course with new enemies.

The intro scene flashes us back to what the Avengers line-up looked like in this world's Battle of New York. We then get back to the story of how Steve Rogers wound up being an erstaz Winter Soldier in this timeline, run by the Red Room rather than Hydra proper. A fake-out assassination of Secretary Barnes reveals an actual plot to catch Peggy and reverse engineer her to make ultimate Widows. Steve seems to sacrifice himself in the end to destroy the Red Room Giant Flying Compound. We almost get to a melancholy resolution when multiversal shenanigans appear.

posted by Karmakaze (7 comments total)

This was a really good sequel to the previous CC episode, in no small part because it combined some of Captain America: The Winter Soldier (still my favorite MCU movie) with the Black Widow movie. (Also very interesting that Melina Vostokoff ends up replacing Dreykov in the Red Room; along with Irani Rael in S2E1, you have someone who was good in the mainstream MCU who's not so good in this timeline.) Hydra seems to have not survived to the present day, or at least not nearly to the degree that it did in the mainstream MCU, but the Red Room may have taken its place.
posted by Halloween Jack at 9:06 AM on December 27, 2023

Mod note: Two comments deleted. Let's avoid spoilers.
posted by loup (staff) at 9:57 AM on December 27, 2023

Widow mentions having hunted down Dreykov in the episode (death by corkscrew to the neck). Maybe the reduction of Hydra gave her more bandwidth to do that sort of thing. They name drop Stark and Banner in a way that doesn’t confirm or rule out whether there is a Hulk in this timeline. He’s not present in the opening fight at least. I am pretty sure the Iron Man we saw was Tony given that Peggy calls Stark Sr Howard. It’s also likely that the Wasp we saw was Hope though again there’s insufficient data to guess how Janet and Hank’s fates changed in such a way that it was possible to recruit a vanDyne/Pym for the Battle of New York.

Peggy also got a musical. Surely it is the fate of Captains.
posted by Karmakaze at 1:47 PM on December 27, 2023

LOL "there was a musical."

Steve and Peggy are still hot. He makes that beard work.
posted by jenfullmoon at 7:33 PM on December 29, 2023

Gotta say Lake Bell does a really good ScarJo voice.
posted by suelac at 9:08 PM on December 30, 2023 [2 favorites]

I kept hearing Lake Bell as Poison Ivy, though, because of the Harley Quinn show.

I was amused at the Hydra Stomper (very loud, bulky, smoky) filling in for the Winter Soldier (stealthy).
posted by Pronoiac at 11:17 PM on January 14

This one was THE BEST. I want six seasons and a movie.
posted by merriment at 5:17 PM on January 19