Warning: Contains SPOILERS for Marvel's What If...? episode 1.

Captain Carter has a bright future ahead of her after her debut in Marvel's What If...?, and amusingly enough it was teased by a Spider-Gwen comic. The MCU's Multiverse has opened up a new vista for Marvel Studios. It's an opportunity to tell stories that are separate from the main continuity of the MCU, and give storytellers the chance to reimagine the Marvel Universe.

Marvel's What If...? episode 1 demonstrated the potential of this format, revealing an alternate timeline in which Peggy Carter became a super-soldier instead of Steve Rogers. Dubbing herself "Captain Carter," she became a champion for the Allies and successfully led the battle against Hydra, before being transported through a portal to the present day. According to a voice-over from the Watcher, the "Voice of God" in What If...?, she is destined to be a hero for the Multiverse.

Related: Every Captain America & MCU Easter Egg In What If? Episode 1

Curiously enough, Captain Carter's story has striking parallels to an alternate-dimension version of Captain America in Jason Latour and Robbi Rodriguez's Spider-Gwen #2, published in 2015. In Spider-Gwen's timeline, Captain America was Samantha T. Wilson, an African American who became involved with Project Rebirth. Her origin is remarkably similar to Captain Carter's, in that her Project Rebirth was disrupted by a Nazi infiltrator; she fought her way to the Vita-Ray Chamber and underwent the super-soldier procedure. The parallels between Captain Carter and the hero from Spider-Gwen's reality become even more striking, in that she was plunged into an interdimensional gateway but found herself trapped on the space-time highway between parallel dimensions. She found her way home 75 years later.

Captain Carter Time Travel What If

What If...?'s form of time travel - the portal that transported Captain Carter through time - doesn't really fit with the MCU itself, but it does match up rather well with the one recounted in Spider-Gwen #2. What's more, the episode did subtly hint time had passed for Peggy Carter - because she emerged wielding her sword with tentacles around her, as though she'd been battling the creature from the portal. It's as though the Tesseract had plunged her into the space-time highway between different dimensions, and she had been battling there before emerging in her own timeline 70 years later.

This means Marvel could tell any number of stories featuring Captain Carter - not just ones set in her own timeline, but ones in other dimensions. The precedent is set by the comparison between Captain Carter and the Captain America of Spider-Gwen's world, and it means this hero has enormous potential in the future of Marvel's What If...?.

More: Marvel Reveals Kang Didn't Understand The MCU Timeline Properly

Marvel's What If...? releases new episodes Wednesdays on Disney+.

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