What If…? Showed Captain America’s Best MCU Future (In The Past)

Warning: This article contains spoilers for What If…? episode one.

Marvel’s What If…? showed Captain America’s best future, but it unexpectedly happens in the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s past. Marvel’s new animated Disney+ show is all about exploring alternate timelines within the MCU. Now that the Loki finale destroyed the Sacred Timeline, any reality or alternative character is possible, and it’s all a canon part of the MCU’s Multiverse. MCU actors even returned to voice the animated characters, giving legitimacy to the anthology show’s stories. Hayley Atwell (Peggy Carter), Sebastian Stan (Bucky Barnes), Dominic Cooper (Howard Stark), Michael B. Jordan (Erik Killmonger), Mark Ruffalo (Hulk), Chris Hemsworth (Thor), and Tom Hiddleston (Loki) are among the returning cast.

In the What If…? premiere, the events of Captain America: The First Avenger change in the MCU. Instead of Steve Rogers (voiced by Josh Keaton) taking the Super Soldier Serum, Peggy Carter does the transformation. The character becomes Captain Carter, and Rogers is left skinny and weak. Carter ultimately helps bring down HYDRA, defeating Red Skull’s (Ross Marquand) otherworldly monster, which was summoned from beyond the stars. Carter fights a Shuma-Gorath-like beast back through a portal and disappears for about 70 years from the MCU.

Though Captain Carter takes the serum, Rogers isn’t any less of a hero. Rogers’ failed attempt at becoming a super-soldier leaves him injured and weak as Carter goes off to fight the war. However, showing his character, Rogers is determined to help and eventually takes on the HYDRA Stomper, a metal suit created by Howard Stark. In The First Avenger, Rogers gets frozen in ice for 70 years, and What If…? shows the life he missed out on.

What If…? reveals that Rogers never needed the Super Soldier Serum. The HYDRA Stomper suit makes the character an early version of Iron Man, as he rushes into battle and repeatedly puts himself in harm’s way. But as Captain Carter says in the episode, the suit is nothing without the man inside. Ahead of his transformation into Captain America in The First Avenger, Rogers is an example of how the dog’s size in the fight doesn’t matter. It’s about the size of the fight in the dog. And the Multiverse timeline in What If…? finally shows the character succeeding and being a hero despite never receiving his powers.

The series also reveals an exciting MCU future stolen from Cap. With Carter disappearing through a portal at the end of the What If…? premiere, Rogers is left with the suit, his best friend, Bucky, and the Howling Commandos, an elite military squad. The episode sets up a possible future where Rogers, Bucky, and the Commandos continue to fight against HYDRA, despite not having Captain Carter by their side. And with Howard Stark continuing to improve the HYDRA Stomper suit, MCU fans would get a taste of an alternate timeline where Iron Man was around during the time of World War II. It’s a timeline What If…? could even explore in the future, and it would show why, no matter his physical abilities, Rogers will always be Captain America.

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