Captain Carter #1-5

Oh Captain, My—Wait a minute, whose captain?

Captain Carter #1-5, by Jamie McKelvie, Marika Cresta, and Erick Arciniega (Marvel Comics)

A side-effect of being an old git who doesn’t read a lot of modern comics is that you’re jaded about the lack of continuity, and liable to be sideswiped by not knowing what you’re supposed to remember as ‘having happened’. So, I swear, I was halfway into the first issue of Captain Carter before I realised that it wasn’t set in current Marvel ‘reality’, whatever that is (and in a world where Quicksilver and the Scarlet Witch now aren’t mutants and may not even be related, for one example, things are pretty fast and loose on a day-to-day basis). Instead, it’s an official What If? without the tagline—or, as crumbly old folks like myself call them, an ‘Imaginary Story’. Not that it tells you that on the cover or in the book or anything, tsk…

So I rewound and started again, and, to my bemusement, found the series to be a cracking read once I’d shed my initial bewilderment. The simple premise is that Peggy Carter, rather than Steve Rogers, became the Super-Soldier and legend of World War II. It’s doubtless inspired by a similarly-themed episode in the far-better-than-expected What If….? animated TV show, but it does diverge from that insofar as Peggy, like Steve in ‘real’ continuity, got flash-frozen and awoke, not in the early sixties, but in 2022, to a world overwhelmingly strange and complex compared to her memories.

At 104 years old—though of course looking in her mid-twenties—she struggles to get her head around the twenty-first century. She notes both its benefits (the role of women is considerably less circumscribed, and the food is vastly better!) and its drawbacks (the enemies have become a lot more skilful at hiding their true agendas with the upgraded technology).

It’s all a bit traditional from writer Jamie McKelvie, whom I’ve associated with more edgy media-savvy stuff such as Phonogram or The Wicked + The Divine, where he was the artist. But don’t think I’m denigrating it; in this case, traditional is perfectly appropriate for our central character, and McKelvie skilfully brings Peggy Carter to life. She is portrayed as decent without being stuffy or standoffish, and a bastion of old-school integrity in a world where such notions are quaint and antediluvian. McKelvie’s accomplishment is that he imbues her with those qualities and still makes her relatable in this cynical age. One warms to her.

Our heroine has no time for that ‘Fight like a man!’ nonsense, thank you very much…

Mind you, the nostalgic and traditional aspects don’t prevent McKelvie from excoriating current and recent political trends—among his well-chosen targets are Brexit and the egregious conduct of the Border Force, as well as general hypocrisy in high places.

There are other familiar faces, in unfamiliar guises—Tony Stark, not Iron Man in this world but instead a cyborg, after an unspecified accident which doesn’t seem to have dampened his party spirit one iota; Elizabeth Braddock, not Psylocke, but an agent of STRIKE (the British version of SHIELD), who becomes Peggy’s ally when the ‘National Treasure’ is suddenly, owing to political machinations, declared an ‘Enemy of the People’; and Jacqueline Falsworth, who in this continuity was never the wartime heroine Spitfire, but instead treads a darker path.

Clever, insightful, and redolent with the almost-mythical values of a seemingly-simple time, Captain Carter skilfully combines the historic and the modern, and is enhanced by the admirable storytelling clarity of illustrator Marika Cresta and colourist Erick Arciniega. Cresta mercifully resists the modern trend to sacrifice narrative for splashy effects.

Switching back into Moany Old Git mode, though, it’s also a little annoying how the comic itself gives no clue that #5 was, in fact, the final issue. I personally would have looked forward to more, and there are enough sequel hooks laid down that, despite the eminently satisfactory conclusion, there may be further exploits of this hero from the past in our future. Pick up the collected edition, and help the series’ viability along a little; I don’t think you’ll regret it.