Multiverse Of Madness: Hayley Atwell's Cameo Doesn't Serve Captain Carter's Character

Hayley Atwell may have joined the "Mission Impossible" series with "Dead Reckoning Part One," but she'll always have the hearts of Marvel Cinematic Universe fans as both Peggy and Captain Carter. A legendary ally and love interest of the First Avenger, Steve Rogers, aka Captain America (Chris Evans), Atwell returned to the MCU as the shield-chucking variant of her character in an alternate reality in "Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness." The tragedy, of course, is that her dialogue in the film is as long as this paragraph when she and the rest of the Illuminati go up against Wanda Maximoff (Elizabeth Olsen) and get their collective lunches handed to them. While it was certainly a fun table-turning moment for audiences, it's one that still doesn't really sit well with Atwell, who feels the cameo homes in on a massive contradiction.

Speaking to Josh Horowitz on the podcast "Happy Sad Confused," she recalled, "She's like, 'I could do this all day,' and then followed by she's immediately cut in half by a frisbee. And then the audience being like, 'She can't do it all day.'" It was a detail that not even Atwell could argue with when it came down to it. "'Apparently, you can't, so yeah, egg on your face.' And I'm like, 'Oh. That doesn't really serve Peggy very well,'" she conceded. Her time with the rank of captain wasn't all for naught, though — Atwell did have some fond memories as the Super Soldier serum-induced Peggy Carter, albeit in animated form.

Regarding the Disney+ anthology series "What If...?" Hayley Atwell believes the alternate superhero stories give a much better take on the Captain than her live-action outing does, telling Josh Horowitz, "I felt like I had much more to do in the 'What If...?' animation series," on which she made two appearances.

Currently, there's no confirmation of whether a variant of the Captain will return to the MCU, given her demise at the waving hands of Wanda. After all, there could be an episode of "What If...?" highlighting the creation of the Illuminati before its members get absolutely eviscerated.

For now, though, in Atwell's eyes, what the character gets on the animated series is still better than her time on-screen when she finally got to wear the Union Jack and have a shield to match. "It felt like a frustrating moment in 'Strange.'" Well, it was certainly brief, whichever way you slice it. Oh, sorry, too soon?