YMMV / What If…? S1E1 "What If… Captain Carter Were the First Avenger?"

• Alternative Character Interpretation: Is Peggy's Adaptation Personality Change the result of the serum bringing out the best in her? Gaining confidence from being able to flip armored trucks with ease? Or is it simply how she would have responded had she been given more opportunities earlier in her career, before she was embittered by sexism she faced on a daily basis with the SSR? Or is it a mixture of all three?
• Complete Monster: The Red Skull faced by Captain Carter is just as evil as his Sacred Timeline counterpart. In this timeline, the Skull seeks global domination not by means of the Tesseract, but by a dimensional portal through which he intends to summon an Eldritch Abomination, risking the annihilation of the entire planet just so he can stand on top and willing to see everything burn should he fail. Along the way, Red Skull indulges in familiar cruelties like gunning down old men and murdering his own allies, thoroughly proving that he has no loyalty to even the Reich.
• I Knew It!: A common fan-theory is that the Arc Reactor is reverse-engineered Tesseract technology, hence why Howard and Tony use it as clean energy. In this timeline, Howard uses the Tesseract as a power source for the HYDRA Stomper armor, and when deprived of it, the armor quickly runs out of power.
• It's the Same, Now It Sucks!: The biggest complaint thrown against this episode is that, especially compared to later episodes, it is a relatively straight retelling of The First Avenger with Peggy in the place of Steve. This results in many potential What Ifs not being explored to its fullest extent, such as Peggy having an identical group of Howling Commandos and Bucky still being her second-in-command despite him being a much more Steve-centric character. Many people put it down to Early-Installment Weirdness, as this episode was among the first to be conceived. And others attribute it to being a relatively familiar hand-hold into the idea of alternate continuities for the general audience.
• Salvaged Story:
  • Many fans of Hayley Atwell's Peggy Carter were not happy that Agent Carter was cancelled, and neither were they when her character arc from that series was seemingly undone by Steve Rogers deciding to travel back in time to be with her in Avengers: Endgame (depending on which creator involved you ask), with some even seeing it as Peggy becoming little more than a prize for Steve to win at the end of the Infinity Saga. This series gives us an alternate timeline where Peggy takes the super soldier serum instead of Steve, thus showcasing her independence and fighting abilities once again without the fear of being overshadowed or deemphasized.
  • For those who disliked HYDRA's upgraded uniforms and use of fictional vehicles and weapons in the film, well, they're in luck as well. The WWII incarnation of HYDRA throughout the episode use authentic German weapons and vehicles that are accurate for the time period and are modeled correctly.
• Strawman Has a Point: John Flynn is framed as being dismissive and sexist towards Peggy for her choice to receive the super soldier serum. While his sexism is overt and impossible to deny, he also points out that "every last drop of that Dr. Erskine serum went into [her]." Though the lab was losing power, they still had the serum, and with it the possibility to duplicate it and try to figure out how to utilize it without Erskine. Regardless of who received the serum in that moment, there's a rational argument to be made that the better choice would have been to scrap the attempt and study the serum rather than use it to only get a single super-soldier.

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