Warning: contains spoilers for Captain Carter #1!
Marvel’s Captain Carter is a variant of Captain America, but Peggy Carter is a British citizen. Despite her country of origin, Marvel continues to forget that Peggy Carter is in fact British; this was exemplified in Marvel’s What If…? TV show on Disney+ back in 2021. With the release of Captain Carter #1, this officially changes as Peggy is finally asserting herself in the comics, something she wasn’t given the proper change to do in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
Released in 2021, Marvel’s What If…? TV show was the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s first foray into the world of animation. The all-powerful and otherworldly Watcher guides viewers from alternate reality to alternate reality, introducing the audience to the concept of the Marvel Multiverse (this would later be explored further in Spider-Man: No Way Home and the upcoming Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness). The first episode depicted an alternate universe in which Peggy Carter received the super-soldier serum instead of Steve Rogers, turning her into Captain Carter.
Yet, during her exploits, Captain Carter is still commanded by American superiors during the majority of the episode. While it’s true that the Americans and the British were close allies during World War II, they did have separate chains of command. She constantly answers to American commanders and pals around with Howard Stark instead of any British colleagues. That changes with the release of Captain Carter #1, which shows Peggy Carter’s decidedly British roots.
In the comic, one of Carter’s first lines is also an action of maintaining her own agency. “Am I still a British citizen?” she asks the astounded assembled audience after pounding a table with her fist. Carter returns home to a London she barely recognizes, yet it is still London. She meets with the Prime Minster, who offers Carter a return to superheroics because, in his mind, Carter is one of the few British superheroes in a field that’s almost exclusively dominated by Americans. It is Carter’s desire to blend in rather than stand out that solidifies her British roots; she won’t succumb to the American cultural phenomenon of attempting to place oneself above others.
Captain Carter’s current comic confidently centers around a hero who is quintessentially British. She spends the vast majority of the narrative in London and doesn’t put herself under the command of any Americans. Captain America’s best new variant proves that Marvel is willing to learn from their mistakes, and Captain Carter is their best example.
