We are here again. Finally!
Marvel’s highly anticipated animated anthology series released its first episode today titled – “What If… Captain Carter Were The First Avenger?” As the only web series from Marvel’s Phase 4 which won’t have any continuity with any other projects from the Marvel Cinematic Universe (apparently), we expect the show to take full advantage of that fact and create alternate timelines – which may or may not be appear in the upcoming MCU film, ‘Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness’; making this sentence nonsensical. However, that won’t stop Marvel from cramming as many Easter Eggs as possible. So check out 7 noticeable Easter Eggs, references and call backs in What If…? Episode 1:
The Marvel Logo
We got a Green and Gold Marvel Logo for the ‘Loki’ series, a Dark Red and Purple Marvel Logo during the ‘WandaVision’ TV Series, a Bluish Purple Marvel Logo during Black Panther… you get the point. Marvel has been changing up the colour scheme of their logo for some time now, especially to match the colours of the lead(s) superhero of that project. So, as one would imagine, for ‘What If…?’ – we got an animated/ drawn version of the Marvel logo this time around. Still a cool callback.
The Watcher
Many of us knew the watcher was going to be involved in the series, either through the trailer or if you know about the ‘What If…?’ anthology comic book series. Uatu The Watcher is one of the most powerful beings within the MCU, who is content to watch the entire Universe from afar and never interferes – just like he mentions at the beginning of this series. But the watcher has been known to interfere during important cosmic events in the comics, so we have no reason to believe that The Watcher will sit idly by during other important events not to his liking.
A ‘Captain America Recap’?
Marvel managed to cram more than half of ‘Captain America: The First Avenger’ into a 30 minute action-packed episode. As a result, the entire episode never lost its pace and managed to keep us engaged all the way. Of course, that’s also because we only get to a few crucial scenes from the original film where Steve Rogers is replaced by Peggy Carter. We expect this to be the case for all upcoming episodes of this series – working as a Marvel Pre-Phase-4 call back.
An ‘Iron Man’ Plot Hole Discovered & Solved?
We get a look at Steve Rogers in a prototype Iron-Man suit, which is powered by the Tesseract, designed by Howard Stark. This might have solved a possible plot hole which was missed by many fans of the first ‘Iron Man’ movie – how did Tony make the designs for the Iron Man suit in the cave so fast? There is no way he could have known each and every detail required to build a basic version of the suit without having made (or seen in this case) a prior “skeleton” plan at least – which we guess his father did (and he got a look at it).
Shuma-Gorath
There seems to be a new villain appearing in each Marvel Phase 4 series and ‘What If…?’ has given us a big one in the form of a huge tentacle monster. If our Marvel lore is correct, that Tentacle monster is actually Shuma-Gorath, a multi-dimensional being which actually ruled Earth for many years, millions of years ago. Shuma-Gorath belongs to a race called “The Great Old Ones” or “The Many-Angled Ones”; many creatures consider them Gods which predate the Universe. Yikes!
Sword of Might
The Sword of Might was one of the two major equipment Captain Britain and his alternate versions carried, in the Marvel comics. Although, we do not know how the sword ended up in the Hydra base in this episode, it is a dead-ringer for the weapon that Captain Britain carried, alongside his shield. The Sword is supposed to have magical powers, which could explain why it was interesting to Hydra.
Captain Carter In Limbo? Or Quantum Zone?
Captain America got stuck in limbo once, in the Spider-man animated series. Granted, the super soldier was fighting the Red Skull at the time, not a God like Captain Britain in this episode but it looks like a call-back to that Spider-man episode. Another possibility is that Captain America was fighting Shuma-Gorath in the Quantum Zone for a few hours (possibly days), but she ended up time traveling all the way into the future, after she beat the primordial being. This is likely the case since we know Steve Rogers can age, so can she. Then again, time in Limbo is not linear either. Or she could have been trapped somewhere else entirely.
Check out the first episode of Marvel’s ‘What If…?’ on Disney+ Hotstar.