What If…?: Peggy Carter Were The First Avenger?

I’m a little weird with my tastes in animation. I’m not a big fan of many current animation styles, including Pixar. Yet, I loved the two-dimensional, barely animated shows I grew up with like Space Ghost, The Herculoids, Spider-Man, etc. I have to say I was wonderfully surprised with the great animation of What If…?.

The story and the voice acting were also top notch as was the original score. The series–which is officially part of the MCU–introduces us to The Watcher (who, in his animated form looks much like the comic’s Eternity) who keeps watch over all of reality but is sworn to never, ever interfere.
The first episode, “What If Peggy Carter Were The First Avenger?” hinges on one moment of choice. The moment when Peggy Carter chooses to stay in the room with Steve Rogers and the scientific team of Project: Rebirth instead of watching from an observation room as she did in our reality. This one small choice leads to her and not Steve who is transformed into a super soldier.

A majority of the original actors return to voice their animated selves including Haley Atwell (Peggy), Dominic Cooper (Howard Stark), Sebastian Stan (Bucky Barnes), Stanley Tucci (Dr. Erskine), Neal McDonough (Dum Dum Dugan), Toby Jones (Arnim Zola), Samuel L Jackson (Nick Fury) and Jeremy Renner (Clint Barton). Steve Rogers and The Red Skull are voiced by different actors. Special kudos to Ross Marquand (Aaron from The Walking Dead) for his spot on imitation of Hugo Weaving’s Red Skull!

I’m not going to get into the details of the story except to say calling Peggy “Captain Carter” instead of “Captain Britain” or even “Union Jack” because this is what her costume is more in line with leads me to think there may be future plans to use these two characters which would be awesome. If not, then, well, the name Captain Carter is kinda silly.

The producers are already working on a second season of What If…? which I think is fantastic if the first episode is any example of what we will be getting. Ande this is in spite of my aversion to alternate reality stories. I liked this show a lot, far more than The Falcon and The Winter Soldier and Loki. So as of right now it’s my second favorite MCU series after WandaVision.