The Winter Soldier might be continuously held up as one of the MCU’s finest, and Civil War remains all-important thanks to its introductions of Spider-Man and Black Panther, but the first entry in the Steve Rogers trilogy is often sadly overlooked these days. That’s a shame as Captain America: The First Avenger remains a thoroughly entertaining watch, with a timeless pulpy feel. Its entire conclusion, with Steve and Peggy Carter’s tearful farewell and then Captain Rogers’ subsequent awakening in the 21st century, also remains one of the franchise’s most effective endings.
It’s so textured that there’s one niggling question that’s still keeping fans up at night all these years later. If you’ll recall, the film ends with Steve waking up in a hospital room, apparently still in WW2, where he’s greeted by a woman (Amanda Righetti) in a period-appropriate uniform. However, a poor choice of baseball game recording tips Steve off to the truth and he escapes from S.H.I.E.L.D.’s fake set, with the woman revealed to be one of the spy organization’s agents.
Considering that Steve encounters Samuel L. Jackson’s Nick Fury just a few moments later, it’s curious that this S.H.I.E.L.D. agent — who was given such an important task in hoodwinking Rogers — is not someone we’ve ever met again. A winning theory posted on the r/MarvelStudios subreddit, though, ponders if she was originally meant to be Scarlett Johansson’s Black Widow at some part of the process, with rumors in the past even pointing to some kind of schedule conflict preventing this from happening.
As those in the comments mention, at the time it was also wondered if she could be Sharon Carter, due to her certain resemblance to Peggy, but obviously, this was disproven when Emily VanCamp was cast in The Winter Soldier. 12 years and four phases on, the identity and importance of this S.H.I.E.L.D. agent remain a mystery, although it’s not hard to imagine that originally she was supposed to be a significant character in the MCU.
Published: Oct 2, 2023 06:45 am