I think that if the original Red Skull could have a god as pet, he would have done it in the first Captain America movie, for me, he was in search of the tesseract (in the series) for the squib (I’m not sure of the term, I’m french) and he probably read about it somewhere, and he probably told about it to Zola.

Cool first ep, the voice acting was little off in some places, but that's probably because these actors are used to live action acting. Ngl, I was kinda hoping the HYDRA champion Red Skull kept mentioning was Hive, but that doesn't seem to be the case. Also, I think they missed an opportunity to make Steve Rogers the Winter Soldier, that would've been really cool, overall tho I liked it.

@Jehphg What Hive reference? I think the tentacle monster looked more like Shuma-Gorath than Hive

I have it figured on how this isn't a divergence from the main MCU we know but a similar MCU reality who followed the same path overall (with a few differences) that coexisted in the Sacred Timeline.

That is the only solution I have :v

As a long time comic book reader my advice when it comes to What Ifs and why there were differences from the previous work which shouldn't have changed like that from the premise (i.e. Red Skull in Norway, Kruger not waiting for the experiment to complete before detonating the bomb etc):

Just go with it. Happens all of the time, now you're seeing it for the first time in animation form.

On the pacing, again that's a feature in What Ifs, cramming multiple issues into one is much like cramming a 2+ hour movie into a 30 minute animation.

As for the show, I enjoyed it but I never had a huge amount of love for What Ifs so it hasn't hit me in the heart yet. However the production & performances were a huge leap in quality for Marvel Animation.

Imo I thought the episode was bad.

Did Steve really need to die? smh

This is a What If story people, anything can happen. At least they should have subverted our expectations. We all know some had to go.

Marvel could’ve capitalised on that.

I would have preferred if Steve had died for real in the train explosion/avalanche. It would have been a great way to show that these stories can go in all kinds of unconventional directions, like how the Red Skull was built up as the big bad and then went out like a bitch once the giant squid monster showed up.

By the way, there's no way that monster is Hive. Even if they were taking Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. into account, he struggled to stay alive during the centuries he spent on Maveth and he was always of human stature and never close to being a massive, unstoppable behemoth.

Overall, I thought the episode was solid. The animation style was interesting and the voiceovers were quite good. Josh Keaton really surprised me, as I would have just assumed that was Chris Evans had I not known that it wasn't going into the show. Fun fact, the Nazi General that the Red Skull kills was voiced by SNL alum Darrell Hammond, who you may know for his impressions of Bill Clinton and Sean Connery.

Really underwhelming. I'm starting to think that Marvel Studios should've just stick with the movies and let Marvel TV do their thing.

The pacing felt rushed, some scenes could've lasted longer. They didn't even explain what that monster was.

They treat these new universes as something completely new, The Watcher literally says "nothing will be the same", but honestly, this could've been in the main timeline and everything would've still been the same.

When Steve blew up I thought they would either kill him or make him some kind of Winter Soldier... but no. Kinda disappointing.

How on Earth did Peggy keep herself young? Huh?

Overall the most fun I had with the episode were 2 jokes I made to myself about how "Winter Soldier Steve" would be named the Summer Sergeant, and how an alternate version of myself is watching a What If...? episode about Steve becoming a super-soldier.

I am truly missing the old TV era, not gonna lie. My family and I tend to watch the Disney+ shows, but they will pass on What If...?, we are watching Daredevil instead.