Caution: spoilers ahead for What If...?'s season 1 finale

An awesome detail in the What If...? season 1 finale reveals how closely Captain Carter is following Captain America's MCU arc. The most recent Marvel TV series to hit Disney+, What If...? explores a catalog of alternate MCU scenarios, beginning with Peggy Carter transforming into a World War II super soldier in place of Steve Rogers. What If...? episode 1 took Peggy through the events of Captain America: The First Avenger, but rather than ending up as the world's most patriotic ice cube, Captain Carter is accidentally sent to the future whilst fighting an inter-dimensional beast summoned by Red Skull.

The What If...? season 1 finale catches up with Peggy aboard the Lemurian Star, playing out the opening sequence of Steve Rogers' 2014 sequel, Captain America: The Winter Soldier. Just like Steve in the main MCU timeline, Peggy boards the ship alongside Black Widow and Crossbones to do battle with Batroc. She's then summoned to another dimension by The Watcher and made to fight an all-powerful android with a chest full of Infinity Stones and a hatred of all organic life, but that's another story. Peggy leading the Lemurian Star mission strongly suggests that Captain Carter is fulfilling the Captain America role of her universe, but a smaller detail makes those parallels even more prominent.

Related: What If...? Season 1 Ending: MCU Multiverse Future & Season 2 Setup

In Captain America: The First Avenger, Chris Evans' superhero statesman wore typically all-American garb. Even after dropping the glorified showgirl act, Rogers' costume remained distinctly patriotic, with a big silver star in the center and a red-white striped stomach. In The Avengers, SHIELD whipped up an updated outfit with the same design, but Captain America: The Winter Soldier radically altered Steve's threads, debuting an all-blue stealth ensemble adorned only with a subtle silver star-and-stripe chest motif. In What If...?, Peggy Carter makes a near-identical cosmetic evolution. In the What If...? season 1 premiere, her entire torso is taken up by the Union Jack flag, but by the finale, she's moved onto the same understated blue-and-silver as MCU Steve Rogers.

Peggy Carter Captain America costume comparison

Captain America's costume change was significant, as it foreshadowed the more rebellious path the Russo brothers had planned for Chris Evans' character. Though Joss Whedon brought the traditional colors back for Avengers: Age of Ultron, Steve Rogers' Captain America: The Winter Soldier outfit was the uniform of a more serious soldier, the less flagrant American overtones setting up how Steve would soon become an enemy of his own state. The visual metaphor goes even further in Avengers: Infinity War, where the star is barely visible. Captain Carter's similar evolution suggests she's traveling the exact same path as Captain America - destined to fight against the government that created her.

With this in mind, what could Captain Carter's MCU journey look like, both before and after What If's season 1 finale? Landing in the future, Peggy first encountered Nick Fury and Hawkeye, while the Lemurian Star mission reveals Peggy is "BFFs" with Black Widow. It's probably safe to assume, therefore, that Captain Carter became a surprise recruit to Fury's Avengers program, and helped defend Earth during the Battle of New York. The Arnim Zola of Peggy's universe survived, meaning Captain Carter will probably experience the same Hydra takeover seen in Captain America: The Winter Soldier. However, the What If...? season 1 post-credits sequence teases the Hydra Stomper taking the Winter Soldier's place, suggesting Steve Rogers is her opponent instead of Bucky Barnes.

Avengers: Age of Ultron would be an interesting chapter, considering Captain Carter has already helped defeat a much deadlier version of the android. Knowing where it'll lead, Peggy would surely prevent Tony Stark from creating Ultron in the first place. At this point, Peggy should go to war against her country over the Sokovia Accords, but without Ultron, there wouldn't be any Sokovia Accords to bicker over. If Peggy's costume change is foreshadowing the same morally ambiguous path taken by MCU Captain America, she'll need to pick a different fight with the United States government, and this may be a scenario worthy of further exploration in What If...? season 2.

More: Every MCU Easter Egg In What If? Episode 9

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