The father of Peggy Carter’s children has been confirmed, and all we can say is, we need a movie featuring them right now.
Avengers: Endgame screenwriters Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely have gone on record confirming that Steve Rogers is, indeed, the daddy of Peggy’s two kids. This raises…well, several questions, but first, a little background.
Marvel Cinematic Universe aficionados are well aware that Peggy Carter, onetime agent and eventual director of S.H.I.E.L.D., is the long lost love of Captain America’s life. At the conclusion of 2011’s Captain America: The First Avenger, he failed to meet up with her for a promised dance due to an unforeseen plunge into an icy ocean, and an even-more-unforeseen 70-year hibernation. This haunted Rogers for years, and he was only given a slight semblance of closure when he visited a now-elderly Carter in her hospital room in 2014’s Captain America: The Winter Soldier, in which it was revealed that Carter had married, and had two children.
Carter’s death during the events of 2016’s Captain America: Civil War shook Rogers to the core, and it seemed as if he were destined to forever live in the shadow of what could have been. But amazingly, Avengers: Endgame, in which the team time-traveled to various points in the MCU’s history to collect the Infinity Stones in a bid to reverse the effects of Thanos’ infamous finger snap, gave Rogers the opportunity for a do-over.
After the defeat of Thanos and his armies, Rogers was tasked with journeying back to the points in time from which the stones were taken, in order to ensure the timeline’s integrity. He did so, but in a shocking twist, he then chose to remain in the past, finally getting his dance with his beloved Peggy and living out the peaceful existence he so richly deserved.
So, what’s the deal with Peggy’s two kids? Markus and McFeely cleared it up in their sitdown with THR, and what they had to say will bend your brain in more ways than one.
First up, McFeely confirmed that the little tykes were fathered by Rogers when he explained:
“It was always our intention that he was the father of those two children. There are time travel loopholes for that.”
Now, pay close attention to his phrasing: It was always their intention that Rogers was the father of Peggy’s children, and again, these are the guys who wrote Captain America: The Winter Soldier. Talk about a long game; did they somehow have an idea that time travel would come into play in the MCU years down the road? How could they have possibly known that? It’s mind-blowing to think of the conversations that must have taken place between these two as they crafted Winter Soldier’s narrative, and even more so to think that apparently, some of their wildest imaginings for where the Infinity Saga could one day go apparently came to fruition.
Markus then chipped in with an offhand remark that just might mess with your head even more. He revealed:
“It does introduce the idea that there are two children who have somewhat super soldier DNA.”
While this revelation might cement Steve Rogers’ legacy as a super-dad amongst the likes of Clint Barton A.K.A. Hawkeye and the late, great Tony Stark, it’s not the first time Cap’s fathered a couple kids. In the 2008 animated movie Next Avengers: Heroes of Tomorrow, Steve’s son, James Rogers, joins forces with the other Avengers’ kids to do battle against Ultron.
Not only that, but the What If comics propose an alternate reality where Rogers hooks up with Rogue on the patchwork planet Battleworld, founds a colony there, and fathers a daughter named Sarah.
If you’ll excuse us, we’ve got to go write a detailed pitch for a TV series chronicling the adventures of Peggy Carter and Captain America’s super soldier children. Here’s something we still haven’t quite worked out, though: the existence of Carter’s children was established years before the Avengers’ time traveling shenanigans. If Rogers weren’t destined to go back in time and stay there, would those kids have had a different father? Or would Carter never have had any children at all?
Try not to think about it too hard; we wouldn’t want you breaking your brain on our account.
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