Has What If…? Sated Our Need for More Peggy Carter? Or Further Stoked It?
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I find myself of two minds when watching Disney+’s What If…? animated anthology center marvelous tales around Peggy Carter, as it has now done across two seasons.
On the one hand, most any fan of Hayley Atwell’s live-action embodiment of the MI6 agent/SSR member is like, “More Peggy Carter? Yes, please!”
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After all, Atwell to date has only had a few opportunities to meaningfully play Peggy on screens big and small. The English actress’ MCU run began with 2011’s Captain America: The First Avenger (opposite Chris Evans), was followed by her own Marvel’s Agent Carter ABC series in 2015, and most recently included a… um, controversial… sequence in 2022’s Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness. With a few Marvel film cameos here and there.
But on the other hand, when watching What If…?‘s alternate version of Peggy — one who took the Super Soldier Serum herself, wields the Captain Carter mantle and shield, and who has been thrust into time- and reality-hopping adventures, culminating in a Season 2 finale team-up against a most sinister foe — a part of you has to wonder…
Where was this interest in Peggy’s evolution when TV’s Agent Carter got unceremoniously cancelled after two seasons?
Don’t get me wrong, seeing Peggy Carter realize an alternate potential in What If…? has been tremendous amounts fun, and it’s always a treat to hear Atwell give a voice to the sassy super. And, yes, What If…? as an animated series can explore big and bold themes/scenarios for Peggy that would have been pricey live-action propositions.
I suppose I am still reconciling that fact that the MCU did Peggy (and her fans) pretty dirty with Multiverse of Madness, which for a hot second dangled before us the delightful visual of a live-action Captain Carter (albeit one from Earth-838), before… well, you know.
Couple that gut punch of a rug pull with the fact that Atwell’s Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One character this summer proved herself very much Ethan Hunt’s brilliant and brave equal, and we are left to wonder what live-action Peggy Carter potential has thus far been left unrealized.
Where do you stand, coming out of What If…?‘s Captain Carter-heavy Season 2? Has it been fully satisfying to get copious amounts of an animated Atwell doing superheroic things? Or do you hope/need to see her, somehow, play live-action Peggy once again?
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