Why Is Marvel Comics Ignoring ‘Captain Carter’?

It’s a familiar trend now. Whenever Marvel Studios has a new release, their sister company releases a bunch of comics to complement it. So why was What If…? and its flagship character — Captain Carter — the exception?

We all have seen it. For some characters, it’s a new volume of their series and a handful of one-shots, a limited series and trades of classic adventures. For others it’s special storylines in an ongoing series, or a limited series sharing the same name. For The Marvels, there was two Captain Marvel series, a Ms. Marvel series, a trade of last year’s Photon series and a handful of one-shots. For Loki, there was a focus on the character in Thor and a titular limited series. Even Echo — out in two weeks — at least has the recent Daredevil & Echo limited series.

However, for the just-concluded What If…? season 2, there was nothing. No series of What If…? specials, nothing with the Guardians of the Multiverse, and most notably, no focus on the most interesting character to come out of the series: the super soldier Captain Carter. And it’s not like they wanted to burn it off and forget about the series; a season 3 is on the way and producers have promised more Captain Carter. This alternate Peggy Carter has become one of the most interesting parts of the Marvel Cinematic Multiverse. Outside of What If…?, she made a major appearance in Doctor Strange In The Multiverse of Madness and she’s been the focal point of the majority of the merchandise related to the series.

However, in the publishing arm, Peggy received a titular limited series that ran last year, and some appearances in the climax of Jason Aaron’s run on Avengers. Beyond that, she’s completely faded into the background. And it’s not like her status as an alternate reality character has hurt her chances — both Miles Morales and Gwen Stacy have stayed in publication pretty much continuously since their breakout roles in Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse.

Even Spider-Man India, Kang, and other equally popular but less prominent characters have gotten spotlights for smaller roles in multimedia adaptations. Hell, Spider-Punk had significantly less screen time, but has made significantly more appearances in comics in the last two years. Naturally, that isn’t to say they don’t deserve it, but comparatively, it seems Carter would have at least as much a spotlight, if not more.

So what makes Captain Carter different? Is it a lack of interest? Her prominent role in What If…? definitely points in the other direction. Maybe it’s just a creative matter of finding the right team for the story, or the right team finding a story for her. Regardless, there’s something there; meat on the bone if you will.

Any way you shake it though, Peg’s heroic alter-ego seems here to stay. Hopefully the comics will catch up to that soon.