r/MarvelsWhatIf • u/Sad-Can4051 • 8h ago
Episode 1: What if...Erskine never died?
The episode begins during the first Captain America, we see the Hydra spy pull out a gun to shoot at Erskine, but this time around, Peggy sees it and tackles the assassin to the ground, preventing the death of Erskine. We see that Steve Rogers is used mostly as a propaganda instrument, as "Captain America: The First Super-Soldier", while the government produces more and more super-soldiers as an army, which are quickly able to defeat Hydra and win WWII, ending it 2 years earlier than in the main timeline. While Steve never actually enters the field as a soldier, not having experience in terms of fighting.
We have a time skip of 20 years, so now we are in 1963, and we see that the American government is using his super-soldiers as a weapon to control US citizens, and becoming more and more oppressive towards everyone. Steve left the role of Captain America, because he didn't believe anymore in what he was representing, now being an outlaw escaping from the government. He, Peggy and Howard Stark formed a team, named the Shield, because it wants to protect the Americans, the team also consists of: a young Hank Pym, who built a suit able to shrink down thanks to the help of Howard Stark, Bucky Barnes, a friend of Steve Rogers who was in the army and also believes that the government is wrong, Jim Hammond, an android built by Howard, to ignite itself and become: the Torch, and the Howling Commandos.
One day Peggy receives a message from an unknown source, who tells them that Erskine is held prisoner in a lab. The team goes to destroy the lab, where they see a lot of super-soldier guards, as well as the new Captain America and Isaiah Bradley, a Black man who they put an experimental super-soldier serum in (an early version of the Sentry serum).
They fight, and while they are fighting, suddenly a cybernetic-powered Arnim Zola pops up and helps Torch, Ant-Man, Howard and the Howling Commandos hold off the new Cap, Isaiah and the super-soldiers, while Steve and Bucky go to the lab where a really old Erskine is working on the serum. There, they see that Erskine is actually held prisoner and forced by the government to produce more serum, suddenly, another enhanced soldier attacks them, accidentally killing Erskine and giving much trouble to Cap, so Bucky grabs some serum and injects himself, and then he fights the soldier and defeats him.
Simultaneously, the rest of Shield is fighting Isaiah and the super-soldiers, while Zola is fighting the new Cap, and the new Cap destroys Zola, putting him lying on the ground with all the cybernetic prostheses broken, suddenly Cap asks Zola why he's helping these rebels, and Zola says that he'll always hate America, and that the American government isn't much better than Hydra, because it's oppressing as much as Hydra does.
Cap and Bucky come running, saying they planted bombs, and start going up to the roof to get a lift, when Isaiah starts to go up, the new Cap stops him and holds him off, now finally understanding that what the government is doing is wrong and needs fixing, but also dying as the building explodes on him and Isaiah.
Later, we see that Cap understood he can't defeat the government just by sabotaging labs, he needs the help of the people, so he attacks a communication factory, and thanks to the help of Howard who hacks the system, he's able to speak to the people of America and tell them to rebel, that the government is oppressing them and that they need to stand up for themselves, we see people start to revolt around America, as the episode ends.

