Well, it looks like the big Marvel multiverse mash-up that most fans weren’t expecting until “Avengers: Secret Wars” is happening one movie earlier than expected. Hayley Atwell (“Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning”), who played Agent Peggy Carter and the multiverse version of Captain Carter—first seen in the animated “What…If?” series—will be reprising her live-action role in “Avengers: Doomsday.”
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Atwell first played the live-action version of the character in a small cameo in “Doctor Strange And The Multiverse of Madness” which featured Elizabeth Olsen’s Wanda Maximoff facing off against different variant characters from the Marvel Universe (Lashana Lynch playing a different version of Captain Marvel, etc.).
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In the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Peggy Carter is a WWII British intelligence officer and love interest of Captain America as portrayed in “Captain America: The First Avenger.” Over the course of the modern-day MCU, 60 years after WWII, she is seen over the years as a top-level S.H.I.E.L.D. agent who finally passes away from old age in “Captain America: Civil War.”
But in the multiverse, as seen in the aforementioned “What…If?” serious, which is clearly canonical in live-action, Peggy Carter, in this alternate timeline, becomes Captain Carter instead of Steve Rodgers.
Chris Evans is already expected to return to Marvel for ‘Doomsday,’ though it’s unclear if he’ll appear as Captain America again or another character as he did in “Deadpool & Wolverine” as the Fantastic Four’s Human Torch (rumors say he may play Nomad, a darker version of Captain American who forsakes his country in the comics, not unlike the version of Cap portrayed in ‘Infinity Wars’).
Robert Downey Jr. is also returning to Marvel for this multiverse film, going to play the role of Doctor Doom, the big villain and namesake of this fourth “Avengers” movie.
Initially, fans speculated that a big multiversal hurrah with all the characters would not take place until 2027’s “Avengers: Secret Wars,” but it appears much of that epic, stadium-size team-up and battle will begin in ‘Doomsday’ and carry through for the big finale.
Atwell has appeared as Peggy Carter or Captain Carter in seven different Marvel films. She also starred as the character in the ABC television series “Agent Carter” (2015–2016) and in three seasons of the animated “What…If?” which concludes its third and final season later this month.
Atwell is probably the first of many cameos reprisals and or animated “What… If?” characters that will likely appear in these next two ‘Avengers’ films (the Native American character Kaori is another one that fans are clamoring to see in live-action).
“Avengers: Doomsday” is expected to start filming sometime in the spring and then will bow in theaters on May 1, 2026. ‘Secret Wars’ will appear around the same time the following year in 2027.
Deadline first reported the news.
