History Recap / WhatIfS1E1WhatIfCaptainCarterWereTheFirstAvenger

%%*AdaptationalEarlyAppearance:

* HelmetsAreHardlyHeroic: Unlike Sacred Timeline Steve/Captain America, SuperSoldier Peggy never wears a helmet (it probably wouldn't be practical with her haurstyle anyway).
* HeroesPreferSwords: In the final battle, Captain Carter grabs a broadsword from the castle wall to fight the Kraken. When she resurfaces in the present in place of Loki, Nick Fury demands her to "put down the sword", before Hawkeye informs him that he is talking to Captain Carter, hero of [=WW2=].

* HelmetsAreHardlyHeroic: Unlike Sacred Timeline Steve/Captain America, SuperSoldier Peggy never wears a helmet.

!! Provides examples of:

** Despite two of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s three founders being out of the picture by war's end, S.H.I.E.L.D. is still founded and is led in the present day by [[Characters/MCUSHIELDLeadership Nick Fury]], who is recruiting the Avengers Initiative for [[Characters/{{MCUSHIELD}} S.H.I.E.L.D.]].

* YearOutsideHourInside: Peggy spends 70 years in the dimension the portal sent her to, yet her reaction indicates she experienced almost no passage of time from her perspective.

** HYDRA goes rogue from the rest of Nazi Germany much later in this timeline, perhaps due to the organization lacking Dr. Zola and his advanced weapons designs.

* SuspiciouslySimilarSubstitute: Colonel Flynn replaces Colonel Phillips ([[DeathByAdaptation who is killed by the covert HYDRA agent]]), and Flynn is just as skeptical of Peggy as a SuperSoldier as Phillips was of Steve. Though in the end Flynn proves tp be ''very different'' from Phillips, and not in a good way.

* MiniMecha: Owing to the more limited technology of the time period, the Hydra Stomper is one of these rather than a suit of PoweredArmor. It bears a strong resemblance to the [[Film/IronMan1 Iron Monger]].

** Captain Carter deflecting a tank shell with the shield is near-identical in angle to how [[Film/WonderWoman2017 Diana of Themyscira]] deflects a mortar shell in No Man's Land during UsefulNotes/WorldWarI.

* StationsOfTheCanon: This episode is mostly a beat for beat retelling of ''Captain America'' with Carter in Steve Rogers' place.

* SuspiciouslySimilarSubstitute:
** Colonel Flynn replaces Colonel Phillips ([[DeathByAdaptation who is killed by the covert HYDRA agent]]), and Flynn is just as skeptical of Peggy as a SuperSoldier as Phillips was of Steve. Though in the end Flynn proves tp be ''very different'' from Phillips, and not in a good way.

* StupidJetpackHitler: Averted. Thanks to acquiring the Tesseract much later (it gets stolen right after they first acquire it), HYDRA ultimately ends up sticking with conventional World War 2 German weapons and vehicles for the rest of the war.

* AdaptationalNiceGuy: Downplayed. In the Sacred Timeline, Schmidt was planning on bombing Berlin as one of his targets. Here, he's simply content with letting Nazi Germany collapse on its own and have HYDRA continue in its wake. What's more, he's never shown executing any of his subordinates for their failures, never once forces any of them to shout "Hail HYDRA" (his men do so willingly when Schmidt reveals his plans for HYDRA to replace Nazi Germany after it collapses by itself), isn't shown ordering Tonsberg to be leveled and doesn't personally shoot the Norwegian Churchkeeper (his men do the deed instead, and execute the old man via firing squad), and is never mentioned or shown to be forcing any of them to ingest {{Cyanide Pill}}s over being captured. That said, he's still a power-hungry tyrant and warmonger who's willing to kill millions just for a chance to conquer Europe and the world.

* YouAreTooLate: Red Skull says these exact words to Captain Carter… right before [[HoistByHisOwnPetard getting crushed by the Kraken]].

* AdaptationalNiceGuy: Downplayed. In the Sacred Timeline, Schmidt was planning on bombing Berlin as one of his targets. Here, he's simply content with letting Nazi Germany collapse on its own and have HYDRA continue in its wake. What's more, he's never shown executing any of his subordinates for their failures, never once forces any of them to shout "Hail HYDRA" (his men do so willingly when Schmidt reveals his plans to let Nazi Germany collapse by itself), isn't shown ordering Tonsberg to be leveled and doesn't personally shoot the Norwegian Churchkeeper (his men do the deed instead, and execute the old man via firing squad), and is never mentioned or shown to be forcing any of them to ingest {{Cyanide Pill}}s over being captured. That said, he's still a power-hungry tyrant and warmonger who's willing to kill millions just for a chance to conquer Europe and the world.

* AdaptationalNiceGuy: Downplayed. In the Sacred Timeline, Schmidt was planning on bombing Berlin as one of his targets. Here, he's simply content with letting Nazi Germany collapse on its own and have HYDRA continue in its wake. What's more, he's never shown executing any of his subordinates for their failures, never forces them to shout "Hail HYDRA" (his men do so willingly when Schmidt reveals his plans to let Nazi Germany collapse by itself), isn't shown ordering Tonsberg to be leveled and doesn't personally shoot the Norwegian Churchkeeper (his men do the deed instead, and execute the old man via firing squad), and is never mentioned or shown to be forcing any of them to ingest {{Cyanide Pill}}s over being captured. That said, he's still a power-hungry tyrant and warmonger who's willing to kill millions just for a chance to conquer Europe and the world.

* AdaptationalNiceGuy: Downplayed. In the Sacred Timeline, Schmidt was planning on bombing Berlin as one of his targets. Here, he's simply content with letting Nazi Germany collapse on its own and have HYDRA continue in its wake. What's more, he's never shown executing any of his subordinates for their failures, nor is he mentioned or shown to be forcing any of them to ingest {{Cyanide Pill}}s over being captured. That said, he's still a power-hungry tyrant who's willing to kill millions just for a chance to conquer Europe and the world.

* AdaptationalNiceGuy: Downplayed. In the Sacred Timeline, Schmidt was planning on bombing Berlin as one of his targets. Here, he's simply content with letting Nazi Germany collapse and have HYDRA continue in its wake. What's more, he's never shown executing any of his subordinates for their failures, nor is he mentioned or shown to be forcing any of them to ingest {{Cyanide Pill}}s over being captured. That said, he's still a power-hungry tyrant who's willing to kill millions just for a chance to conquer Europe and the world.

* SuspiciouslySimilarSubstitute: Colonel Flynn replaces Colonel Phillips ([[DeathByAdaptation who is killed by the covert HYDRA agent]]), and Flynn is just as skeptical of Peggy as a SuperSoldier as Phillips was of Steve. Though in the end Flynn proves tp be ''very different'' from Phillips, and not in a good way.

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!! "What If... Captain Carter Were The First Avenger?" contains examples of:

* SeriesContinuityError: Events in the episode are possible for wildly different events that can't be chalked up to the point of divergence mentioned by Uatu. In the Sacred Timeline, HYDRA found the Tesseract long before the super-soldier experiment took place, while in this episode it happens 15 months afterwards. John Flynn is also shown to be present while the experiment is being conducted here, whereas he isn't seen or mentioned until the war's end in the Sacred Timeline.

* LiteralMetaphor: During the OnPatrolMontage, Col. Flynn mentions while speaking to the president about Peggy being "a real knockout".

** Zola's "OhCrap" moment from the normal online version was substituted in the Disney+ version with Captain Carter asking her shield where it had been all her life.