What If? Season 2, episode 9, wrapped up with a fierce battle between Captain Peggy Carter, our newly introduced Avenger, Kahhori, and the main antagonist of the multiverse war. This episode is once again a continuation of the previous episode, which ended with Peggy drinking at a bar while Dr. Strange Supreme approached her. Episode 9 opened with Peggy Carter conversing with Dr. Strange, who sought her help on something he was working on. To achieve that, Dr. Strange Supreme needed Carter to kill a villain from an alternate universe, so Peggy agreed to help him. Peggy demanded to portal back to her home universe in exchange for help, but after she accompanied Dr. Strange to his destination, she recognized who the real villain of this universe was.
Spoilers Ahead
Why Did Strange Supreme Want To Kill Kahhori?
Strange Supreme brought Carter to a different realm, which resembled the forest we have seen in Avengers: Age of Ultron, where Hawkeye met Quicksilver. In similar fashion, Peggy met a supernatural force running at the speed of light all around the forest. The captain stopped the force and found that it was Kahhori, who was locked in this realm by Dr. Strange Supreme. Kahhori tried to explain to Carter that she wasn’t the real villain, but Strange Supreme was. Carter initially struggled to believe her words, but as Strange himself approached them and, without any explanation, continued attacking Kahhori, Carter had to intervene.
Dr. Strange Supreme was assembling all the greatest warriors and killers from multiple universes and capturing them in a crystal ball so that he could finally resurrect a universe to bring his love of his life, Christine, to life. Strange explained that Christine deserved to live, and for that, he agreed to go to great lengths, but Carter strongly opposed the idea. Carter had also lost her lover and witnessed Rogers perishing in every universe she had been in, but she’s still strongly against the idea of destroying everything to bring that one person to life. Carter realized that it was Strange who’s the greatest threat to the multiverse of Avengers, so in order to stop him, she broke all the crystal balls, setting all the prisoners free. Among all the prisoners who were set free, we got to see several variants of Thor fighting each other: Xu Wenwu, Loki, Rocket, and many more Avengers, who kept each other busy.
Meanwhile, Carter and Kahhori managed to escape, but they were confronted by the Scarlet Witch from the universe of zombies (previously seen in What If? Season 1). Zombie Scarlet Witch was controlling all the other zombies, who were about to kill Carter, but suddenly Hela intervened and managed to mind-control all the zombies. However, Kahhori and the Captain didn’t waste much time fighting Hela and went to find the Forge, which was the ultimate weapon of Dr. Strange to destroy all the killers of the universe. On their way, they were confronted by Thanos, who perished after Kilmonger snapped his fingers. We saw Kilmonger had all the infinity stones stuck on his armor, so Kahhori, with the help of her magical power, removed Kilmonger from his armor and sent him back to the battlefield. Captain Carter took up the infinity stones and placed them on her armor.
How Did Carter Defeat Strange Supreme?
After fighting all those villains, Carter and Kahhori finally confronted Dr. Strange Supreme, who unleashed one after another magical power upon them, but Carter managed to outdo him with the help of her infinity. In this particular fighting scene between Carter and Strange, we saw many easter eggs from Infinity War, like Dr. Strange creating numerous duplicates of himself or turning Carter’s duplicates into butterflies, which we have already seen him doing with Thanos in Infinity War.
After a while, Strange tried to mind-control Carter to defeat her. Carter woke up in her universe in the timeline during WWII, where she found herself alongside Steve Rogers. However, after spotting a butterfly, Carter realized that it was a fabricated reality by Strange, who was trying to control her. Carter attacked Strange, and a massive fight ensued between the two of them. In the meantime, Strange had unleashed all the warriors from the multiverse to throw them into the Forge, but Carter and Kahhori managed to hold them. However, Hela, Thor, and many other Avengers who also believed Strange’s demise was necessary threw their weapons to Carter, who picked them up and became even more prepared than she was before to fight Supreme.
With Kahhori’s power, the might of the weapons, and the power of infinity stones combined, both Kahhori and Carter launched an attack on Strange, who turned into a huge demon, suggesting that Strange Supreme was controlled by his evil demon more than his genuine self. After a lengthy battle, when Strange realized it was impossible for him to fight against such massive power, he decided to quit. Taking his demon along, Strange Supreme put an end to the fight by jumping right into the forge to kill himself.
What Happened To Carter?
Carter woke up once again and found herself with the Watcher, looking at these multiple universes. The Watcher assured Carter that she didn’t need to worry about Kahhori, as he had already sent her to her home universe. Taking Carter along, Watcher went to this newly resurrected universe by Strange, in which we saw Christine Palmer was alive and well. However, it broke Carter’s heart to find out that Strange, who fought desperately to bring Christine to life, had to die to make it happen.
In the concluding scenes of What If? Season 2 episode 9, we saw the Watcher and Carter standing near the Loki Tree and looking at the branching realities and timelines. Probably in the upcoming season of What If? or probably in a live-action Avengers film, we hope to see Carter and Watcher meet Loki to move the story forward. We hope to see Captain Peggy Carter come alive on screen in a live-action Avengers film and continue her journey to take her part in the multiverse war. Hopefully, from now on, Kahori will be added to the live-action Avengers films as well, and we can see her alive on screen in the upcoming installments.
