WARNING: The following contains spoilers for What If...? Season 1, Episode 1, 'What If... Captain Carter Were The First Avenger,' streaming now on Disney+.
The first episode of Marvel's What If...? featured Peggy Carter becoming a super soldier instead of Steve Rogers. The newly-empowered Captain Carter took on the sinister organization of Hydra, led by the Red Skull. The villain's ultimate plan was to acquire the Tesseract so that he could use it to open a portal and bring a giant monster called "the Champion of Hydra" to Earth. Red Skull was killed by the creature, and Captain Carter forced it back through the portal before being dragged through herself.
The idea of Hydra wanting to open a portal and bring a creature that they worship to Earth is not entirely new to the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Season 3 of Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. featured Hydra's attempts to open a portal to a distant planet, where their founder, an Inhuman named Hive, had been banished. The members of Hydra showed an intense fanaticism to Hive, and it was revealed that the organization had been formed centuries ago as a cult that worshipped it.
Hive shares several similarities with the Champion of Hydra, a character that is seen but never expanded upon in great detail in What If...?'s first episode. All that is known about the creature is that it is a massive, extraterrestrial beast worshipped by the Red Skull. Only its tentacles and its mouth are shown onscreen, with most of its body remaining trapped on the other side of the portal.
This raises the question: could the Champion of Hydra be a variant of Hive? The two seem to be incredibly similar, both in their squid-like appearances and in their being worshipped and brought to Earth by Hydra. Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. set up some fairly elaborate lore surrounding the formation and influence of Hydra, and nothing stated or done in What If...?'s premiere specifically contradicted any of that. The Champion of Hydra has never been mentioned by anyone in the MCU up until this point, so it's fair to assume that the reason for that might be because the Champion of Hydra's variant in the main timeline is Hive.
There are a few holes in this theory, with one of the biggest being the creature's size. The Champion of Hydra is shown to be a massive monster, while Hive is depicted as being around the same size as a human being, although his size is dependent on his host. Perhaps in the universe in which Captain Carter's episode takes place, Hive lost its sanity, grew to a massive size and became bestial during its exile.
Admittedly, the theory is somewhat unlikely, mostly due to the fact that Marvel Studios seemingly doesn't regard Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. as canon anymore. While the show started out closely tied to the MCU, it eventually began to diverge and engage in its own epic storylines, to the point where Thanos' snap didn't even seem to happen in Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s universe. It's unlikely that Marvel was intending What If...?'s Champion of Hydra to be a shout out to the series, but it still is neat to see similar elements carrying over from the show to the MCU.
The first episode of A.C. Bradley's What If...? is currently available to stream on Disney+. New episodes will continue to debut on Wednesdays.
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