#shieldra founders

[amarriageoftrueminds]

How long did Steve actually know Peggy?

(with pictures!)

[ post with just the images here ]

Short Answer: 

626 days total / 20 months, 15 days, and only spoke on 8 separate days.

Long Answer:

Steve got his last 4F / first 1A on 14th of June, 1943.

When Steve arrived at Camp Lehigh, Peggy introduced herself and the SSR.

Directly afterwards, Col. Phillips introduced himself and explained that they would be there for a week only before choosing someone to be given serum:

If they had any common sense, they would’ve said Steve was at Basic Training for a while before being drafted into Project Rebirth.

This being Marvel, however... 

[ full 7K meta under cut ] 

What If...?, Marvel’s Instagram, and Marvel Studios' The Marvel Cinematic Universe: An Official Timeline book gave the ‘official’ date of Steve’s serum as June 22, 1943.

.

This means: 

Steve was enlisted June 14th 1943,

shipped out to Camp Lehigh June 15th 1943,

was there for just a week (til June 21st 1943),

Had a conversation with Erskine about why he was chosen on evening of June 21st.

and was back in Brooklyn and receiving serum on June 22nd 1943.

Poor lad barely had any time to pack and unpack! 😲

Sidenote:

The first date shown in the movie is March 1942:

When Red Skull acquired the Tesseract. 

This implies (but does not conclusively prove) that Dr Erskine must have been captured by the Allies before March 1942, because: 

when he has his conversation with Steve, he merely said Red Skull believed “that there is a great power hidden in the earth, left here by the gods.” IE. he wasn’t aware that Red Skull had successfully seized that power (the Tesseract).

Stark is flummoxed by Tesseract-related tech when he sees it, which he  surely wouldn’t be if Erskine had known about Red Skull having the Tesseract because Erskine could’ve just told him.

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Anyway, back to the present and Steve was already in the local newspapers by Wednesday, 23rd June 1943:

Anyway, he and Peggy only spoke for 1-2 days during that time: June 22nd, the day he received serum, and (what was probably) June 23rd, the day after.

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IMO it seems like it’s just the day after because: 

everyone who was at the blown-up Brooklyn base is there 👆 (wherever ‘there’ is) as if no time has passed at all...

...but we know that time must have passed, because Senator Brandt shows Steve a paper dated the 23rd [see above.] 👆 So enough time has passed for the newspapers to hear about Steve, for a journalist to write about it, print it, and for the Senator to get a hold of a copy. 

Enough time has passed for the SSR to get the saboteur’s Hydra sub out of the water at the Brooklyn Navy Yard in order for Howard Stark to be flummoxed by it, as he is in this scene. (And he is still in the pit with it; he hasn’t had long enough to look at it already. Ergo, not much time has passed.) 

You could say that it’s a later date, and Brandt just happens to have a newspaper from the 23rd. Except...

...Phillips mentions having talked to the president that morning... which makes more sense as something he would do immediately after the whole Hydra-saboteur bomb kerfuffle, not later. That’s not a phone call he could put off for days. That’s a call you make straight away. 

Although that doesn’t automatically mean that that-morning’s phone call is the first or only phone call Phillips has made to the President, since the Hydra-saboteur-kerfuffle, meaning this could be a date later than June 23rd. 

But the fact that:

everyone who was at the bomb site is still there,

Howard is still in the pit looking at the Hydra sub and admitting he’s clueless about it, as if that is new information he’s announcing,

they’re taking Steve’s blood, also not something to delay on,

and Brandt is asking basic questions about Hydra. If more than a day had passed, he would already know the answers to these questions, even if he had been distracted by the Press.

Suggesting it is very soon after. 

The lack of delay in Phillips’s actions also supports this idea. Earlier on in the movie he moaned to Erskine about having had to talk to senators multiple times before he could get the ball rolling on Project Rebirth. But now he’s cheerful and decisive. Which to me suggests he’s had one decisive phone call with the President, where they exchanged all the information they needed, and that’s it. (He doesn’t say “I spoke to the President again this morning,” for example.) 

Brandt asks Phillips what he’s going to do about Hydra. Phillips smirks and answers that the SSR is being re-tasked to go after them. As if he anticipated the question and got the President to sign off on that just prior; close enough to this moment that Phillips is only acting on those orders just now. 

"This morning" implies that this scene is taking place later on in the day of June 23rd 1943; after the morning, so that Phillips isn’t saying he called the president just now, for example. 

There’s strong sunlight coming in from the window behind Steve 👆, so I’d say we can place this scene at afternoon, June 23rd.

And we can infer that it isn’t evening yet, because Phillips refers to flying out “tonight,” as if if the night of June 23rd has not yet arrived.

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(Another maddening possibility: it’s all happening on the same day, a day that Phillips just happened to have spoken to the President on the phone in the morning already, but either the prop makers got the date wrong on the newspaper or the official Marvel instagram got the date of Steve’s serum wrong. 🤦‍♀️)

.

So, timeline: 

June 22nd, 1943: serum, bomb/saboteur, Erskine’s death.

(possibly but not definitively) June 23rd, 1943: morning, newspapers reporting on Steve are printed (Senator Brandt sees them), the Hydra sub is shipped to dry dock for Howard to look at, and the President tells Phillips via the phone that the SSR is being retasked “as of today.” 

afternoon, Steve has his blood drawn, Phillips relays the President’s orders to him, Brandt, Peggy and Stark. Steve objects. Brandt recruits Steve for the USO. 

night, Phillips, Peggy and Howard fly out. 

.

Unless it’s all the same day, in which case the events go:

June 22nd or 23rd: 

morning, Phillips talks to the President who officially re-tasks the SSR, Steve gets serum, blown up, Erskine killed.

afternoon, the Hydra sub put in dry dock for Howard to examine, newspapers rushed out an edition about Steve, Brandt recruited Steve for the USO using said paper.

night, Peggy, Phillips and Howard flew out to London.

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So Peggy was flown out to London that night, being (probably but not conclusively) the night of either June 22nd or June 23rd, 1943.

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And then Steve was on tour with the USO for 4 months (from July 1943).

Probably starting mid/late July / early August, to give them enough time to find 20+ chorus girls, create and fit costumes, build sets, book venues, choreograph and plan a show, and do some rehearsals... though apparently not enough for Steve to have learned his lines. 🤦‍♀️ 

During this period, as the USO shows grow ever more elaborate (up to 40 showgirls, bigger sets, a fake Hitler, a military band, and harley davidson motorcycles) Steve also films multiple propaganda reels, signs autographs, takes photos with the public (and Senator Brandt), appears in his own comics, sneaks into the cinema to watch himself on screen, and travels to Buffalo, Milwaukee, Philadelphia, Chicago, and New York! 😵

Senator Brandt’s smooth patter in recruiting Steve for the USO, how he acts during it, and the fact that there was a cameraman there to take photos of Steve just before he got serum, to me suggests that Brandt was planning to do this USO show with whoever the serum worked on. 

So it’s possible a lot of the show logistics and planning were already underway before Steve was even chosen for serum. That would mean the USO show kicked off much sooner after Steve got serum (which might account for why he’s so nervous on stage...)

And it would explain how they were able to cram so much activity into four short months.

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Meanwhile, in October 1943, in Azzano, Italy...

And then Steve goes to Italy, five miles from the front

on the 3rd of November, 1943:

We can see that Steve and Peggy were not in contact in between these times / while he was on USO Tour, because: 

no reference to any such contact is ever shown or implied (and Kevin Feige said Steve was sleeping with someone else while on tour).

Steve looks surprised to see her when she shows up. He hasn’t invited her to come -- which he could, by letter -- and asks her what she’s doing there. 

She’s cagey about why she’s there/what she’s been up to; so she’s not someone who even can carry on a correspondence, given the classified nature of her work. 

If they had somehow been corresponding anyway, she would already have told Steve by now that she can’t talk about her being there/why. So he wouldn’t need to ask.

As well as Steve not knowing basic things about her, she also still doesn’t know basic things about Steve, that a casual correspondent of four months would know by now [see below].

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We know the rescue of the 107 was on the night of November 3rd, 1943. 

Because Phillips cites that date when he’s typing up Steve’s official KIA letter:

The sequence before Steve’s rescue of the 107 also implies that Bucky et al were only captured very recently at Azzano, because:

the rest of the 107 are still there (haven’t been deployed elsewhere),

wounded are still being brought in, 

Col. Phillips is still engaged in writing up condolence letters about the lost soldiers when Steve barges into his tent.

(Why is the head of the SSR in Italy, writing condolence letters about the 107 when he specifically said he and his agents were flying out to London, where his HQ is? Here’s a clue from wikipedia: “Alsos personnel followed close behind the front lines in Italy, France, and Germany, occasionally crossing into enemy-held territory to secure valuable resources before they could be destroyed or scientists escape or fall into rival hands.”

However, those personnel would not include the head honcho (Phillips), the entire Army’s number one weapons contractor (Stark), or a desk jockey whose opinion is neither sought nor valued (Peggy). 

And the rest of the movie shows them back in London (and therefore not featuring in field footage of the Commandos), while Steve & Co. destroy Hydra weapons factories (not sweep them for intell.) 

And they stay in London, until the entire army hits a very important base at the very end of the movie. And even then, Stark isn’t shown attending!

So maybe he was just in Italy for the chorus girls...? 🤷‍♀️

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Steve and the Howlies had to have to covered 35 miles as the crow flies (30 miles behind enemy lines + 5 miles to the Army base), with wounded soldiers, and through what Phillips describes as “some of the most heavily fortified territory in Europe” which was also mountainous. They would’ve had to seek a flat route to get the jeeps through. And this with no resources -- like food, medicine, specialised clothing, etc. 

Covering 5 miles a day under those extremely difficult and dangerous circumstances, it takes them a week to get back to Camp. 

(Sidenote, I looked up a modern estimate of hikers on the Swiss Alps, and it said they’d traverse a 105 mile trail over 7-10 days. Viz. potentially 10.5 miles a day!)

Making the day of Steve’s return 👆 at least, November 10th, 1943.

Marvel Studios' The Marvel Cinematic Universe: An Official Timeline confirms this:

.

Afterwards, it seems they went straight to London. 

(No contact with Peggy in transit is shown or implied).

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Sidenote: although no other locations and no other interaction is shown in November, between the 107 returning and Steve being in London, it seems as if some time has passed. 

And once again, we can tell that because of Senator Brandt and newspapers.

There has been enough time for more than one newspaper (The Daily Mail, and Stars and Stripes), to publish stories about Steve. 👆

For Senator Brandt to announce that he’ll be giving Steve a medal for valour, and for that news to have travelled back to the UK.

And, at the very least, enough time has elapsed since the 10th of November for the Senator to believe that Steve could feasibly travel back to America in time to receive his medal in person. 

(Which he declines to do. LOLOL.)

So, say: 

11th: newspapers report (Steve & Co travelling back to London). 

12th: news reaches America / Brandt decides / announces the medal.

13th: Brandt expecting Steve to fly from Europe to America (which would’ve taken over 17 hours, then.) Doesn’t necessarily have to be the very next day, but based on past behaviour Brandt expects action to be taken the very same day as the press reporting on Steve! So...

14th: for the actual medal ceremony? (so that Steve isn’t travelling for 17 hours and then immediately appearing in public) Which seems like it’s happening simultaneously with Steve being in London; I don’t think he’d delay on relating his intell about Hydra.

(And that last day would also account for how the news has travelled back to the UK from the US in order to appear in The Daily Mail.)

We know that this day Steve is in London is supposed to be the day he’s receiving his medal, in person, because of this CATFA deleted scene: 

So IMO we’re looking at this date being 14th November, 1943 at a very strict minimum. 

NB: All this pre-supposes that it takes 4 days to move the Howlies from the Continent back to London, which it feasibly might if they had Stark and his plane, still in Italy. Stark’s deleted-scene surprise at seeing Steve in London suggests either he was not the pilot / his was not the plane responsible for flying Steve to London, or that he was / his was the plane but he expected Steve to move straight on back to the US. We know the SSR had at least one plane in the US Army base in Italy, because someone was flying multiple reconnaissance flights, trying to spot the 107 -- the last of which returned Nov 10th.

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In London, Steve and Peggy are shown talking on 2 separate days, total:

1) In the London HQ, relaying the intell about Hydra weapons-parts factories, gathered from the Krausberg weapons-parts factory and from Bucky, when Steve tells Phillips he has got his own team together. 

And in the pub, on the evening of that same night, when Steve goes to Assemble the Howling Commandos for the first time. 

(No time passing between these conversations is implied or stated, not via montage or any other means. It’s a straight cut. And assembling his team is not something Steve could delay on, after telling his CO he already had one. In fact it’s kinda nuts Steve didn’t think to do this before telling Phillips he had a team already. What would he have done if they’d just said no?? 😂)

2) in the London HQ, the morning of the day after (8am) when Peggy shoots at him.

(Won’t dignify either of those scenes with triggery screencaps!)

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So Steve and the Howlies are officially a team from let’s say 14th November, 1943. 

(We know there must’ve been a bit of a time delay before the Howlies were deployed, to give Stark time to build Steve the version of the Cap suit he requested -- since Bucky was the one who suggested him keeping it, I’ll bet Bucky had some input on that -- as well as supplying him with those Harley Davidsons WLA ‘Liberators.’ 

Could be the Howlies weren’t out on the Continent, kickin’ Nazi ass, ‘til December ‘43 or January '44.)

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For the next 15.5 months there is no direct contact shown between Steve and Peggy, while Steve is on the continent and she is in London.

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At first glance it looks like we can deduce roughly the dates of when Bucky died and Steve returned to London.

Because after capturing him Phillips tells Zola he sent a telegram about him*

*a prop which is not shown directly on screen

...on the morning of February 3rd, 1945: 

Soon followed by a tight 24-hour turnaround for them to go and attack the Valkyrie base in Austria, which we know from this 👇  piece of dialogue between Col. Phillips and Gabe Jones: 

But.

We don’t know: 

1) that the date on the telegram is accurate. This prop is not directly shown in the movie. And, in the scene, Phillips hints at this telegram being intercepted by Hydra and this being bad news for Zola (because it says he is working for SSR. The Foreshadowing is INSANE). So Phillips might have lied on that telegram -- back-dated it to make it look to Schmidt like Zola had betrayed him and been working for the SSR since before the Howlies ‘captured’ him.  Making the day of his interrogation... later than the Feb 3rd on the telegram.

2) that Zola Therefore told Phillips ‘you have 24 hours’ on February 3rd.  The telegram date could be false. Even if it wasn’t, Zola could’ve said this to Phillips on a subsequent day. He could’ve just told him when the date Red Skull was planning to do something was, and not necessarily 24 hours before that date.

Meaning we can’t tell by the telegram what date the HQ briefing about the Valkyrie mission, and therefore what date the Valkyrie mission (and Steve’s ‘death’) is, for certain. You could interpret it either way. 

Steve might have ‘died’ on February 4th, 1945 or on some other date in February /  early March, so long as it was 24 hours after Zola told Phillips he only had 24 hours to act, whenever that was. 😵

However, together, Agents of Shield 2.01: Shadows, and Marvel Studios' The Marvel Cinematic Universe: An Official Timeline tie in book, put Steve’s only possible death date as: 

Thursday, the 1st of March, 1945. 

(Since Morita and Dum-dum capture Werner Reinhardt on 2nd of March, 1945, and Reinhardt remarks that Red Skull is dead. That leaves the 1st as physically the only date in March, before this point, that the Valkyrie mission could possibly have been.)

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And we know (from CATWS canon) that Steve’s death was only reported (as a disappearance) on 

Monday, 5th March, 1945: 

So I think we can definitively say that MCU intends for Steve to have ‘died’ on Thursday, 1st March, 1945. 😥

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And the KGB opened a file on Bucky on Friday the 23rd of March, 1945.

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It is not categorically stated that the mission where Bucky ‘died’ happened immediately before these late-February scenes in London.👆 

He could, theoretically, have died in late 1944, as his exhibit in the Smithsonian in CATWS claims:

However, that exhibit makes multiple other errors... 

(Such as: listing two different dates of birth on the same display, saying Bucky enlisted shortly after Pearl Harbour (when nothing in CATFA shows this), and his dog-tag number suggests he was instead drafted; saying he shipped out to Italy and was captured ‘that fall’ of 1942, when that year was definitely shown as 1943, and the Marvel Timeline tie-in book also shows Azzano as happening in October ‘43, etc.) 

...So I think we can safely rule this out 👆 as a prop-maker’s mistake! 

Plus, Steve’s grief in the pub feels very raw, very immediate, which to me suggest a very-recent bereavement, not something he’s had a couple weeks or months to weep over already. Steve’s a pretty stoic guy. 

The only canon suggestion of time passing between Bucky’s ‘death’ and the pub scene is Steve having already had a chance to get back to London and write a report about it, in order to mention said report to Peggy and feasibly expect her to have read it. 

As a soldier with a CO to answer to, that report is not something Steve could not delay on delivering. If Steve drinking in the pub is afternoon/evening, say this was the day he delivered his report (probably in the morning, this being the military). 

That’s enough time to reasonably expect Peggy to have read the report, and for Steve to be drinking after delivering it, but still neatly groomed in his immaculate uniform, having just gone off-duty (not, eg. dressed down as if this is another, later day, a day off). 

On the surface of it, it looks like we can’t say for certain that Steve’s drinking day is the day before Phillips interrogates Zola. Because it’s framed as if the stoicism he exhibits at the end of that sequence is the signal that he is now galvanised to act ASAP, ie. the very next day. One scene leading to / causing another.

Bucky’s ‘death’ date might have been any number of days before.  

Except for one thing: Zola is a hugely valuable acquisition. 

I don’t think Steve et al would’ve captured and brought Zola back to London, at extraordinary personal cost, only for Phillips to waste days before interrogating him. I think Phillips would’ve been in to interrogate Zola immediately. 

That to me is the closest to ‘proof’ that Steve is back in London, delivering his report and then drinking in the pub, either on or as close to the day of Zola’s interrogation as physically possible. 

(IMO this can’t all be happening on the same day. I don’t think Steve is the kind of guy to deliver a report in the morning, go off and try to get shit-faced while still on duty / in uniform, and then go back to HQ for mission-briefing, with a risk of still being inebriated. Not under normal circumstances, let alone when the mission is so important!  Steve appears to know already that he can’t get drunk... but that doesn’t stop him from trying. I don’t think he’d do that if he knew he was expected back to plan the very-personally-important Bucky avenging mission on the same day. CATFA writers may disagree and say this all happened on the same day, but that idea’s kinda wild to me!)

So when was that interrogation date? 

I think we can deduce that it also must’ve been as-close-as-possible to the Valkyrie mission briefing date. 

The fact that Gabe is asking how long they have means that that intell was fresh information to the Howlies on the HQ mission briefing date (which was 28th of February = 24 hours before 1st March.) 

Now, if Phillips knew about 1st March being significant in advance of 28th February:

it would be incredibly stupid of him to not tell anyone until only 24 hours before.

he would’ve told the Howlies already / Gabe wouldn’t need to ask.

But if Zola only revealed the date of the Valkyrie Mission Day very close to the mission briefing date... that would explain why Phillips didn’t mention it sooner. Another point: A lot of what Phillips says in the mission briefing sounds like a summary and continuation of what we see Zola telling him in the interrogation scene. As if there has been no further interrogation / no more intell to relate since that interrogation, a point in favour of it being the only time he has interrogated Zola (meaning it must be happening on 27th of February).

This scene comes before Steve is shown drinking, alone. (Implying Steve is drinking in the later pm, since it’s dinner time for Zola, just before.)

Assuming Phillips’ telegram about Zola is false (which is neater, and it being a lie is mentioned in the scene, and although we have the prop the prop is not directly shown on-screen in the movie).

Sunday, 25th February. Bucky probably 'died?’

Monday, 26th February. Howlies flying back to London, with Zola?? And since Phillips wouldn’t wait days to deal with Zola:

Tuesday, 27th of February. Morning, Steve delivers his report.  Phillips reads the report, and sends a falsely-dated telegram about Zola to Washington via SHAEF HQ. Evening, Phillips interrogates Zola, tells him about the telegram, and Zola tells him about 1st March / Valkyrie Day. (This is during ‘dinner’ time.) Steve goes drinking, alone.

Wednesday, 28th February 1945, Valkyrie Mission briefing.

Thursday, 1st March 1945, Valkyrie Mission day.

NB: This pre-supposes that it only takes a day to move from the Continent back to London, which it would if they had a plane like Stark’s ready to pick them up any time -- which they well might, given how important it is to get Zola back to London, and get the Howlies out to take down the Valkyrie base.

If they didn’t have such a plane, of course, it would take them longer. However, nothing in the movie (such as, eg. a travel-montage) does show it taking longer. It seems to imply a very short timeline.

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Sidenote: 

Steve never does anything Peggy says or does, always does the exact opposite -- which is the moral, heroic, selfless thing -- and also never asks what she thinks he should do.

This is partly a symptom of poor / misogynist writing, whereby Token ‘Strong Female Character’ Love Interest is relegated to a Sexy Lamp with post-it note stuck to it + behaving like a generic male bully in a female skin + idiot hetero-norms that make any straight couple automatic foils, who must bicker miserably and be on the opposite sides of every argument in order to generate ‘Chemistry.’ 🙄 

Ergo, Steve never does what Peggy says, because as his foil what she says it always the opposite of what he says. 

Making it, defacto, the [unethical, cowardly, self-serving, tactically unsound] thing to Steve’s [moral, heroic, selfless, also tactically correct] thing.

. (disclaimer: any other aspects of Peggy being unpleasant must be put down to Atwell’s performance choices.) .

Her show erroneously claims that Steve relied heavily upon her for “courage, strategy, and moral guidance." 

Passing over the outrageous, insulting, and demonstrably-untrue suggestion that Steve needed external courage, or ethical guidance, from a moral roomba...

(Metas on why this is untrue, and would actually make the plot impossible if it were true! 

HERE, HERE, and HERE .👈)

...This would mean Steve is -- somehow -- relying upon a person whom he doesn’t even speak to for 467 of the 473 days when strategic input was even relevant to his life. 🤦‍♀️

The numbers don’t lie. 

Steve cannot have been relying upon Peggy for anything when they weren’t even in contact. That’s not physically possible. 🤷‍♀️

This simultaneously puts the lie to the idea of Peggy following the Howlies around Europe to collate intell in the places they hit.

A) because the Howlies aren’t shown sweeping these factories for information. They’re shown reducing them to fiery rubble, which you don’t do if you’re looking for documents. They’re not looking for documents; they’re looking for Zola.

B) even if the Howlies weren’t destroying the factories and were sweeping them for ABC (atomic, biological, chemical) intell, Peggy isn’t the kind of specialist who would even know what to look for.  She’s an intelligence liaison, not a scientist. Not even a linguist. That’s not her area of expertise at all. Whereas the Howlies themselves are... surprisingly well qualified? They’ve worked in a Hydra weapons factory, so they know what’s important. Monty’s a Major. Gabe is a fluent German-speaker. Frenchie handles explosives. Dum-dum can drive tanks. Morita looks like a radio expert; shown operating captured Hydra radios more than once. Bucky’s a sniper. Steve’s a tank with a perfect photographic memory. They really don’t need an eighth wheel telling them how to blow up Hydra factories (how would she know?) That’s already their forte. 

C) even if Peggy was a technical expert, her opinion is repeatedly denigrated by Phillips who says she was a chancey (ie. ill-qualified) hire. He wouldn’t send someone to judge important documents who is ill-qualified to do so and whose opinion therefore doesn’t carry any weight with him. 

D) The only time she’s shown taking part in a mission, it’s actually more of a full blown Army Operation, where even the old man Phillips goes along in person. This is an unusual occurrence, i.e. not something she normally does. Just like I can’t claim that Col. Phillips fought alongside the Howlies, in person, throughout the war, because that is not what is shown, I cannot claim that Peggy did, either. Because that is also not what is shown. (And also why she didn’t join Steve on the mission to rescue the 107. That’s just not her job!)

So when Peggy asks Steve if he was about to... (do something important) mid-Valkyrie mission, and he goes ‘right!’ and carries on.

That’s the closest Steve ever comes to agreeing with her or doing what she says. (Another nonsense claim from her show.)

It’s OOC for Steve, who has proven mostly indifferent to her increasingly unsubtle advances thus far (until she turned violent, whereupon he (or someone else) put her photo in his compass... which is just sad, tbh. 😥)

Whereas, her interrupting the mission at a crucial point to make it about herself (to make Steve kiss her the same way Lorraine also sexually assaulted him) is consistent with her characterisation elsewhere in CATFA (eg. interrupting Steve’s 107 rescue to make him include her in it, when she was irrelevant.)

Even then, it’s something Steve was going to do anyway, regardless of whether she told him to or not. So her input is not a deciding factor in the plot (still a Sexy Lamp). Her net moral/strategic impact on Steve is still zero.

(Another point in the ‘they didn’t spend any time together’ column.)

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Conclusion...

Steve and Peggy knew OF each other for 626 days 

or 20 months, 15 days / 20.5 months.

(From mid-June 1943 to the beginning of March, 1945.)

They spoke on 2 days max in June, 1943 (the 22nd and probably 23rd, the day of his serum and day after) despite being in the same place for a week prior and sharing a prior car ride!

They spoke on 4 days in November 1943.

Nov 3rd, in Italy, pre-107 rescue, 

Nov 10th, in Italy, post-107 rescue, 

Nov 14th(?) In London, the day Steve relayed Hydra intell and told Col. Phillips he was assembling his own team, while Brandt was expecting him to be in America receiving his medal for valour; probably the same day the Howlies were founded.

Nov 15th(?) 8am, in London, when Peggy shot him.

They spoke on 2 days in February & March, 1945: 

in the pub in London (Tuesday, 27th February?)

the day of the Valkyrie raid (Thursday, 1st March.)

(While they are shown in the same place on another intervening day, at London HQ during mission planning, and it’s possible or even plausible that they did interact, they’re not actually shown speaking to each other on that day.) 

Totalling: a maximum of 8 days.

(could be as low as 6.)

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And 6 months later, Peggy, Stark and Phillips founded SHIELD and had already recruited Zola into it in order for it to be front page news by 

Tuesday, 14th August, 1945:

(Thus putting the lie to the ridiculous idea that they didn’t know they’d recruited Nazis or what they were up to, btw. 👆)

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So of the 20.5 total months they knew each other, Steve and Peggy were only shown being in the same place and in contact during (but not for the entirety of) 4 months -- Jun and Nov ‘43, and Feb and March ‘45. 

For 19.5 of the 20.5 months they knew of each other they were not even in the same place: 

4 months while Steve was on one side of the Atlantic, during the late June-October USO Tour, she was in Europe. 

And 15.5 months / 473 days when he was on the continent doing Hydra weapons-parts factory raids (from mid-Nov 1943 - Mar 1945) and she was in London. 

And this is deliberate by the film-makers, to depict theirs as a thwarted relationship-that-never-was, a Casablanca style ‘we never dated’ situation.

Not a romance, but what could’ve been a romance, had circumstances been different. 

Them not being together is literally the point. 

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They show zero direct or indirect contact between the two during those 15.5 months, and multiple things imply that there was none. 

For example: 

She doesn’t know that Steve has a friend in the 107 (a correspondent would). 

Steve is surprised to see her. 

Steve tells her about what he’s been up to, as if it’ll be new information to her. 

(Sidenote: as per She Hulk, Bruce Banner is under the impression Steve slept with some woman during this time. SIGH.) 

Despite Agent Carter show’s attempts to retcon her history (stolen valour) with Bucky’s war record (nonsensically, since he is a soldier and she’s supposed to be a spy), the film and script are clear that she isn’t in Europe with the Howlies. 

(She complains about having every door shut in her face, professionally, and Phillips says she was only at a desk job because he “took a chance with” hiring her. So she’s complaining about not being in the field.)

Steve wouldn’t be carrying a photo of someone he sees for work all the time. The compass is physical evidence that she wasn’t there. 

(Sidenote: He wouldn’t be dating anyone Period, since he specifically said he didn’t want to do that. And Peggy also said she wouldn’t date until after the war is over. But anyway! And, logically, if she's supposed to be a spy she also wouldn’t have her face broadcast in cinemas, making any cover useless, as Steve would know. But anyway! It just highlights how they’re not really doing their jobs of writing her as a spy properly.)

Steve wouldn’t need to take a photo out of an SSR personnel file (which is what it looks like) if he saw her regularly in person for work or if they had been corresponding by letter. 

(This simultaneously rules out the possibility that she went out with the Howlies and then went back to London.)

Likewise, Peggy wouldn’t need to steal a photo of Steve out of a personnel file if they had been in regular contact, either in person or by letter. 

Steve and the Howlies are shown in direct contact with each other, easily implying a long-standing relationship without having to go to a lot of film-making effort, via montage... but she is not.

Whereas she is shown in the montage, but not being in direct contact. If the film-makers had wanted to show direct contact between them during this montage, they very easily could have. But they didn’t. If she had been there with the Howlies, and it was the film-makers intention to imply that, she would be in the footage with the Howlies, not sitting in a cinema in London watching footage of a mere photo of herself in the newsreels.

By February 1945 she still isn’t on first-name terms with Bucky, Steve’s second in command. 

Steve’s time in London was so minimal that when he goes drinking to grieve Bucky, Peggy is able to find him in the Whip & Fiddle, even though it’s in ruins. So either they were in London for such a short period that the pool of places he could potentially be is only one (1), AND/OR that pub is emotionally significant because of Bucky, the person he’s grieving (not her). 

We are never shown the Howlies returning to that pub at all until after Steve is also ‘dead’ (ie. no proof they’ve been in London long enough that it’s a place they’ve gone multiple times.) They treat it as a special, 'one-off Solemn Event’ sort of a place to go. Not a regular haunt. 

And Steve is still surprised to see her there, meaning he didn’t tell her he was going there; so the reason she finds him can’t be because Steve told her where he was going. (Could be that one of the Howlies told her.)

She still has to ask Steve whether he respected “your friend” Bucky (when even Col. Phillips knows to refer to Bucky as Steve’s oldest friend, by this point). 

Steve tells her he can’t get drunk and has to ask whether she knows that already or not. Yet another example of something a close confidante or correspondent of 15+ months would know, that Steve would assume she already knew, if they had been in continuing contact. 

(It’s unlikely that Steve himself didn’t know, before this moment. Soldiers who founded their unit in a pub haven’t done any drinking for 15.5 months? Not likely!)

His clever acting choice lends an air of despair and futility to the scene, too -- Steve trying to drink away his sorrows, even though he knows it won’t work. He can’t undo the past, he can’t bring Bucky back. (Had CEvans’s tone been different, it would’ve connoted something else.)

If he was in contact with Peggy, and this is canonically the very kind of thing he would complain about to her (and canonically also the very kind of thing she would tell him more about), then he would’ve complained about it, eg. via letter, too. But he didn’t, because he doesn’t know whether or not she knows. So they weren’t in contact.

.

It is shown that the updated intelligence of what Steve and the Howlies are accomplishing in Europe during 1944 is being relayed back to HQ in London, because Peggy and other personnel are shown taking Hydra base flags off their maps, as Steve and the Howlies take them out. 

(As a consequence of Steve et al taking them out, it’s implied.)

However... it is not shown that Steve directly relayed that information to Peggy.

Peggy herself says that Phillips is in charge of devising strategy, not herself, and Steve soon disregards any strategy suggestions she makes -- in fact, he gives her orders, not the other way around, because he’s a captain. 

So if Steve was telling anyone what the Howlies are up to in Europe, it would be his superior officer Phillips. Not an agent like Peggy, of no military rank. 

(This is supported by the scene where Steve, having returned from rescuing the 107, goes straight to Phillips to report his successful mission. Not to Peggy, despite her being right there.)

Plus, the Howlie shown handling communications isn’t Steve... 

...it’s Morita. 👆 (And guess who interrupts and shoves him out of his seat?) 

So if the Howlies were in contact at all during the 15.5 months of Howling Commando Hydra weapons-factory raids:

1) it would’ve been very difficult / limited, and all shop talk.  2) it must’ve so unimportant that no trace of it shows in the film. 3) it probably wouldn’t have been Steve on the radio, anyway. 4) there were only six prospective Hydra weapons factories mentioned as targets for Steve and the Howlies, so only six more occasions when they even might’ve officially interacted: 

Roughly: 

And while there are more Hydra bases indicated as existing on the maps/via flags removed from the maps... 

...None of these 👆 are explicitly linked to Steve and the Howlies, there’s no indication that the existence of these was discovered or relayed (or that they specifically were destroyed) by Steve and Co. 

And it’s made out to be a Big Deal that they find out where the Seventh base is, (the base Bucky told Steve they were shipping weapons parts to). Because that’s where Red Skull is. 

.

T I M E L I N E :

1943

JUNE: Mon 14th, Bucky gets his orders, Steve gets a 4F, visits the Stark Expo, meets Erskine, enlists and gets a 1A. Tues 15th, Bucky ships out, Steve arrives at Camp Lehigh. Mon 21st, Steve is chosen for serum. He and Erskine discuss it in the evening. Tues 22nd, Steve receives serum, Erskine is killed, Steve stops the Hydra saboteur, and is photographed by a NYE journalist. Wed 23rd morning, Phillips speaks to the President and the SSR is immediately re-tasked,  Steve appears on the front page of The New York Examiner, the Hydra sub is moved to dry dock. afternoon, Steve has his blood drawn, Stark examines the Hydra sub, Phillips relays the President’s orders, Brandt recruits Steve into the USO when he objects to Phillips's orders. night, Phillips, Stark, and Peggy, fly out to London.

.

JULY-OCT: Steve in the USO, travelling across America.

OCT/NOV: Bucky and the Howlies are captured by Hydra at Azzano.

.

NOVEMBER: 3rd, afternoon, Steve does USO show in Italy, 5 miles behind enemy lines. evening, Steve rescues 107.

10th, Steve returns to base with 400 soldiers of the 107, having safely travelled 35 miles including 30 miles of mountainous heavily fortified enemy terrain, with wounded in tow.

? 11th-14th, Steve's rescue is reported in Stars and Stripes, Senator Brandt decides to give him a medal for valour, news gets back to UK and appears in The Daily Mail. Brandt expects Steve to come back to the US to receive his medal in person. Steve declines. 

? 14th, London, HQ, Steve relays Hydra intell to Phillips and Peggy, night, Steve recruits Bucky & the Howlies, takes Bucky's input on the suit.

? 15th, London, HQ, 8am, Steve gets sexually assaulted, Steve gets physically assaulted (Peggy shoots at him), Steve picks the shield, Steve relays Cap uniform ideas to Stark. .

1944

Howlies deployed in Europe, taking out 6 Hydra weapons factories shown in Italy, Greece, France, Czech Rep. and Poland. (Avengers 1 deleted scene also shows Steve taking part in the planning of D-Day, which would’ve put him and the Howlies in France from 6 June 1944 - August, if they took part. And I thought there was a reference to Steve taking part in the Battle of the Bulge too, somewhere, so that would be Dec-Jan ‘44-45.) .

1945

FEBRUARY: (possible) Sun 25th, Bucky ‘KIA.’  (possible) Mon 26th, Howlies & Zola travelling back to London.

(possible) Tues 27th, London am, Steve writes/delivers a report about Bucky, goes drinking to grieve.  Phillips (reads Steve’s report? knows about Bucky) sends a misleading telegram about Zola, back-dated February 3rd, to Washington via SHAEF. pm, Phillips interrogates Zola and finds out 1st March is Valkyrie Day.

Wed 28th, London, HQ, Valkyrie Mission briefing.

MARCH:  Thurs 1st, Atlantic. Steve and Red Skull 'KIA.' Last contact with Peggy. Fri 2nd, Moria and Dum-dum capture Werner Reinhardt. Mon 5th, Steve reported "disappeared" in newspaper. Fri 23rd, KGB opens file on Bucky.

APRIL: Surviving Howlies are mopping up remaining Hydra personnel in Europe? MAY. Tues 8th, V-E Day. London. The Howlies reunite at the Whip & Fiddle, for the first time since they were founded there, to drink a toast in remembrance of Steve.

AUGUST: Tues 14th, Stark, Phillips and Carter have founded SHIELD and recruited Zola and more, which is reported on front page news.

.

TL;DR: They knew of each other for 626 days total, (from 15th June 1943 - 1st March 1945), 20.5 months; 19.5 of which they weren’t in the same place, and only spoke on 8 separate days.

#timeline #historically accurate stucky tag #long post #antipeggy #antisteggy #steve rogers #p*ggy meta #steve meta #mcu critical #shieldra founders #steggy is hydra trash party #catfa #catfa meta #meta #mcu meta #cynthia glass #antiendgame #endgame steve is a skrull #mcu #dat's me #this meta is: #7K #CATFA timeline spans: 14th June 1943 -- 1st March 1945 #someone was picking my brain about this so I thought I'd put all the meta thoughts I had in one place to address the question 👆 #steve was only in the european theatre of war for 1 year 3 months and 27 days (or 15 months and 27 days) 😥 #funfact: #if steve only knew bucky from 6th of january 1928 (while still aged 9) #then he would've known bucky literally 10 times longer than he knew her 🤷‍♀️ #(not including the present-day) #my meta

[amarriageoftrueminds]

what do you think of Peggy pouring Steve's blood into the sea?

👉(In ref to) 👈

I think it's funny she thinks she did something momentous when it wasn't even her that got the blood -- it was Edwin Jarvis, actual person of integrity -- when she had left it in unscrupulous Stark's hands.

It's also, infuriatingly and typically, entitled and creepy of her to act as if she has any rights or say over what happens to Steve's remains! (There's a space for 'next of kin' on Steve's dog tags. Her name isn't on it.)

It's also very characteristic of her, the way she (as I've commented before) paints herself as the mouthpiece of a powerful dead man, in order to exaggerate her own importance by proxy, and presumes to speak for him (when he conveniently cannot speak for himself). And presumes she knows what Steve would want, when they never agreed on anything and he never did anything she said.

(What he wanted was all Nazis dead or captured. She did the opposite of that.)

It's a damning admission of culpability, too.

Because Steve voluntarily gave his blood to the organisation that was fighting Nazis.

Whereas Peggy, working for that same organisation, now thinks Steve wouldn't approve of them having his blood.

And yet she:

didn't let that move her to actually do anything (LOL when does she ever) or to stop Stark taking Steve's blood away, and:

she nevertheless continues to work for the org that she's admitting Steve would not sanction, and does so for the rest of her life.

And in the future, when Steve expresses his doubts about that same organisation... she laughs at him, distracts him from that train of thought by telling him he's being melodramatic, that he should move on (don't look too closely into the past "we" mucked up Steve LOL ur so dramatic) and doesn't warn him about the dangerous, evil people she hired, who are still at liberty to try and kill him.

And it boils my blood that she calls him her darling when this woman abused Steve so badly, abused his person, abused his good name to prop up her own hollow non-career, and betrayed everything he believed in, betrayed his sacrifice.

And quite apart from all that, they weren't even dating, so he wasn't "her" anything, anyway!

Except for maybe her victim. 🤔

#antipeggy #antisteggy #cynthia glass #p*ggy meta #mcu critical #steggy is hydra trash party #meta #mcu meta #SHIELDra founders #toAyourQ #dat's me #hey nonny #yet each man queues the thing he loves #my meta

[amarriageoftrueminds]

Besides Abraham Erskine's unexpected death, I know that Howard Stark is an unextremely unlikable character, but even I think Peggy had something to do with his and Maria's deaths. AND the people who are most suspicious about Hydra are also assassinated or almost assassinated (Daniel Sousa, Nick Fury). Meanwhile, Peggy gets away scott free. Ummm... Peggy is DEFINITELY meant to be Madame Hydra. If we only got the Serpent Society movie instead of Civil War 😐 She really killed a lot of people just to accomplish her goals..

My headcanon about Howard and Maria is that Hydra was undergoing an internal power-struggle surrounding the dissolution of the Soviet Union (as if it was previously one org with two separate branches about to become one big global org). And Stark had successfully replicated superserum and put Zola's mind on tape (the real brain of the outfit) ...perhaps meaning he had outlived his own usefulness to Hydra.

So someone ordered the Starks got rid of to open up room at the top in 1991 -- either Peggy or SHIELD's Head of Defense, Mitchell Carson (shown alongside her and Stark in 1989, in Ant Man, when Howard clearly disliked him... so she must have hired him!) .

(Side headcanon: Maria Stark was a chemist who actually replicated the serum for SHIELDra, but in typical Stark style Howard took all the credit.)

By this time, they said in AOS that Pierce was Undersecretary of the World Security Council and doing SHIELDra things (transparently as a way to try and make Peggy sound non-culpable.)

But instead AOS showed Peggy was definitely leading SHIELDra the same year SS Officer and torturer Werner Reinhardt got released, and apparently did nothing to stop that. 🤦‍♀️

(So Stark's dead by 1992.

Peggy gets to retire in suspicious peace. Which is funny cuz her own show said "a boring life is a privilege." 🤔

By 1995 there was a SHIELDra "cognitive research facility" called the North Institute in Ohio, with Winter Soldier mind-control tech research there.

Which we know cuz Nat's "family" stole it for use mind-controlling Black Widows.

And meanwhile, Nick Fury was still a lowly SHIELD agent under new SHIELD Director Keller, bumping into Skrulls and such).

But yeah Peggy's soo Margaret Thatcher coded and Atwell has aaall the arrogance to pull off a villain. It would've been perfect!

#antihoward #antipeggy #SHIELDra founders #toAyourQ #dat's me #hey nonny #antisteggy #cynthia glass #p*ggy meta #mcu critical #steggy is hydra trash party #meta #mcu meta #headcanon #tws mind control #history of shieldra #my meta

[amarriageoftrueminds]

You mentioned in a recent post the theory that Howard stark knew the winter soldiers identity. I’ve thought about that possibility before as well. I wondered if you have further “evidence” for this besides how easily he recognized Bucky during the car crash? I feel like there’s more that I can’t think of

(👉post ref'd here👈)

I've never done any meta on that (maybe there is more evidence but I'm not really au fais w/ HS's canon appearances so I can't say. Maybe someone who's thought about this more deeply could jump in in the notes?)

A couple of points on this:

1)

Someone did point out the other day that Stark and Peggy had access to Zola's mind (his brain/computer) from the 1970s. And he knew Bucky's identity, making it possible and even likely for them to know as of then, at least, if they didn't already.

It's hard to believe either would do anything about it if they did know, before. As per AC show, Peggy knew about similar things happening to little girls, from the 1940s on, and didn't do anything about it (the Red Room). Instead she hired the scientist they found at the Red Room. 🤦‍♀️ (Bad Spying 101.)

So why would she and Stark go out of their way to help the man whose very existence is such a threat to the myth that they have built around themselves and continue to dine out off? (ie. that they are Good Noble Antifa people who knew Captain America, personally. 😌)

The Soldier's treatment on their watch (the proof of Hydra's continued existence; their complicity and incompetence) and Bucky's personal history with Steve would put the lie to their claims, and torpedo what they really value; their image.

They wouldn't help Bucky if they did know.

2)

The last of Steve's blood was destroyed in the AC show, so how else did Howard get new samples (in order to recreate the serum himself and/or work with someone else who already did that, viz his buddy 'Arnie' Zola) unless they were provided to him by Zola?

Where did Howard think this (fresh blood, many decades later) came from?

(Bucky and Isaiah are the only possible living sources for samples.)

3)

But: Hydra sent the Winter Soldier to kill Howard... without his muzzle on.

Why would they stop hiding his identity, suddenly, and never do that on any other occasion, unless they already knew it was a moot point? (i.e. because Howard already knew who he was, so there was no point concealing it?)

I mean, they had him muzzled to go kill Fury and complete strangers, who wouldn't even have recognised his face, so why unmask for Howard?

4)

Why did Howard not sound surprised to see 'Sergeant Barnes' (whom he easily identified when even Steve himself couldn't) but merely... resigned?

Why would Howard be unsurprised (viz. expecting) that Sergeant Barnes specifically would be coming to kill him, after he had acquired Winter Soldier serum samples from... Somebody?

5)

How did Howard recognise the Winter Soldier as Bucky, in the dark, while disorientated from a head wound, with blood in his eyes, and Bucky's long hair in his face, and him looking drastically different from how he used to look...

and when Howard is never actually shown meeting Bucky?

6)

Bucky's arm is made by Hydra out of vibranium.

(We know it is, because T'Challa reacts with shock and horror when he sees it up close; he is visibly taken aback.)

How did Hydra get that vibranium?

Are we supposed to believe that zealously-isolationist Wakanda would willingly hand over its most precious commodity to an American intelligence agency? (What if apparently tried to claim this. Utter Imperialist nonsense.)

Isn't the unlikelihood of this like a major plot point in both Black Panther (and rumoured to be relevant to future MCU film plots?)

The only person outside Wakanda shown having access to vibranium, during the period when Bucky's arm was created, is Howard Stark. (And post Howard Stark, the only people with vibranium outside Wakanda are outright villains.)

It's the most valuable metal on the planet. Is Howard, who has some, likely to let someone else take that much vibranium off him without even being shown what it's going to be used for?

Also, the only person shown making mecha designs during that period, is not a Stark -- it's Arnim Zola.

But then What If had (guess who?) Howard Stark doing mecha designs during WW2. Which would make him even more likely to be the original designer of Bucky's arm. 🤦‍♀️

#antihoward #antipeggy #shieldra founders #antisteggy #cynthia glass #antihowardstark #p*ggy meta #mcu critical #steggy is hydra trash party #meta #mcu meta #dat's me #hey nonny #toAyourQ #what-the-bluebirds-sing-at-you #my meta

[amarriageoftrueminds]

I'm convinced that miss Brexit herself knew about Bucky being TWS and probably saw him in that chair, looked him in the eye, and said nothing. And knowing what I know about her, she probably had a sick thrill seeing the person Steve wanted more than her beaten down and brutalised. It makes me furious.

*EDIT*

What If...? season 2 confirmed she did know, and would have no problem using Bucky as Hydra did.

.

Original answer:

She may be stupid and oblivious...

(see, eg: not being able to spot a real spy outside a secret lab, not being able to spot that a real spy is living next door until they're kissing her on the mouth, needing to have how many sides a cube has explained to her, needing Jarvis to explain that she shouldn't throw a large heavy object out of a window while she's handcuffed to it, not understanding how interrogation / lying works in her short film, etc. etc.)

...But she's far too nosy not to find out for decades!

Especially not when Howard already knows (meta here and here), and Zola's working in the same place as her, under her employ (which she insisted nobody else but she had control over, in her Ant Man cameo... where she's working with another Hydra agent, Mitchell Carson).

And when she is personally, singularly responsible for hiring not just Zola but the other Hydra scientist personally responsible for the WS mind-control program (Johann Fennhoff).

Unlike her irrelevance to Steve's story, (that 'failing the sexy lamp test' I've banged on about before), she is absolutely instrumental in bringing about Bucky's WS arc. In fact, if you deleted the character entirely, Steve's arc would be no different at all but Bucky's would be immeasurably improved!

(And her being instrumental in the WS program creation means, as a knock on consequence, that if you delete her you'd also free a lot of the Black Widows, and possibly also Taskmaster, since Dreykov was only able to keep them enslaved with research stolen from the WS program. Yikes. And she's known about the Red Room child victims already since the 1940s.)

Her What If episode has Peggy casually hinting at having tortured Zola... whom she happily works with in her next What If episode. And that Ant Man cameo has her telling SS Officer Werner Reinhardt/Daniel Whitehall that she considers his work "valuable" and worth hiring him for (in the exact circumstances she worked with Zola in What If). And Reinhardt later goes on to torture people (though no doubt he had tortured people already during the war). So canon strongly suggests she's got no problems with torture.

And if Howard was there with his buddy 'Arnie', torturing Bucky, (pretty likely, since he's the one with WS in the 90s) the way Peggy lets Howard get away with doing bad things without criticism in CATFA, (which they ineptly tried to retcon in her show), suggests she'd just do the same over.

To play devil's advocate for a moment, though:

Due to the strong vein of misogyny that runs through the writing of this character (AKA, men writing what they think are strong female characters), there is a certain amount of evidence to support a reading where Peggy really is just an oblivious posh twerp?

A white feminist nepobaby glass ceiling hire, brought in under the auspices of Daddy / Daddy's Friend the Senator / Fiancee in Home Office / Brother in Old Boys Network / Millionaire Sugar Daddy / dining out off Alleged Ex Flame's Fame, etc. Basically just there to catch the heat for the men who don't listen to her (the real movers and shakers), because she's conveniently stupid and well connected, and too arrogant to believe that anybody else could possibly be in charge while she's around.

But her serial incompetence is more an accident of the writing than what they were actually aiming for. What they were aiming for, and think they've achieved, is 'Peggy is the boss of Everyone and can do everything the men can do, backwards in high heels!!' Where 'everything' means 'decades of Nazi collaboration and condoning torture.' 😬

Her own show demonstrates that she's happy to free villains and work with them, multiple times (or perhaps, that she's stupid enough to fall for it when villains transparently goad her into freeing them? 🤔). Because she cares most about her own pride; about showing off and looking good ('I, however, am not afraid of you') so as not to be thought inferior to the men whose respect she can't admit she desperately craves. Far more important than something boring like keeping people safe, or doing her actual job. 🥱 Beneath her dignity!

(Try to picture consummate spy Natasha doing any of this! Or Coulson! 😂)

So, if you did believe in an an 'oblivious bullying posh idiot / scapegoat hire' reading, I can easily see a scenario where Peggy finds out that Bucky is alive, and is being tortured, and simply has no problem with it just because some SHIELDra employee tells her he's a Bad Man.

She never knew Steve or Steve's friends well enough to see the nonsense in that, after all. And according to her show, the only reason Steve himself had any moral sense, she believes, is because she was there to provide him 'courage, strategy, and moral guidance.'

(The fact that Steve always did the exact bleedin' diametric opposite of whatever she said, if he listened at all... doesn't seem to have occurred to her?? 🤔)

So can't you just picture a scene where she, Saint Margaret, sanctimoniously lectures poor Bucky on being a terrible person, while he's strapped into the electric chair, not understanding who she is or what he's done wrong? 😥 (No doubt followed by her flouncing off dramatically, thinking she's done the Men's Job for them.)

Canonically, as per CATFA, she lacks the requisite humility and common sense to realise that someone (anyone!) could matter more to Steve than her (which, after all, isn't hard; they never even went on a date.) But there's something about the sinister way they have her stepping into Bucky's shoes, even taking over his war record, without ever mentioning him (other than to sneer at a radio show character with his story but her name).

A Watsonian explanation of this is that, subconsciously, Peggy does recognise Bucky's greater importance to Steve, and wishes he had never existed. Probably the Rat writers projecting onto her! 🙄

#shieldra founders #long post #antipeggy #antisteggy #cynthia glass #p*ggy meta #mcu critical #steggy is hydra trash party #meta #mcu meta #toAyourQ #dat's me #hey nonny #bucky barnes #bucky meta #mcu #ngl CATFA kinda reads like a lying cash-grab biography of a GreatMan written by a groupie who wants ppl to think GreatMan dated her #there may come a day where I can answer an anon ask about pggy in a brief paragraph... but it is not this day 😔 #remember folks: REBLOG 🔁 / DON'T JUST LIKE 🤍

[amarriageoftrueminds]

What do you think about the personality (character) of Howard Stark (young)? At what point did he become a serious prude?

I can't think of any evidence to suggest he has ever become a serious prude anon so idk where you're getting that from.

Are you perhaps getting him mixed up with another character?? 🤷‍♀️

I have big meta on him I did recently:

HERE

And you can find other meta about him round about this tag.

.

Cliff notes:

a creep (took indecent photos of women without consent)

a serial liar (too many to list!)

a greedy ruthless thief (AC, IM2).

friends with Hydra/Nazis and similar (IM1, AOU, EG, AM1).

'invents' horrific weapons and stockpiles them (AC)

knew about Bucky and didn't help him, both in main timeline and other universes (CACW, WI.)

also a bad father by the way Jr describes him (IM2).

Tries to paint his relationship to Steve in a better light than it really had in CATFA.

(IDK why this guy looked sad in the boat at the end; he's the guy sneering that a transponder is more trustworthy than Steve, questioning whether they should believe what Steve says about tesseract energy (in front of Steve's boss), sneering about Steve to his assistants / behind his back, etc. Didn't show up for the Valkyrie mission when everyone else was going (suspicious). He and Steve only spoke directly on 2 days total (not counting the 3 occasions he addressed a group Steve was part of), 3 if you include the deleted scene. And most of it was talking shit about him, even to his face. He was not nice to Steve. He was barely civil. Explains why Steve wasn't enthusiastic about Jr. tho... 🤔)

Apparently made shit up about Steve and Peggy (to make it sound as if they were both more important to the Great Captain America??) and passed it into his Butler. (What he describes of their relationship not only isn't true but isn't physically possible given the timeframe and the plot of CATFA wouldn't function if it were true. Meta on that here.)

.

TL;DR: What do I think of him? As I said in the other ask: not much.

#antihowardstark #shieldra founders #mcu critical #mcu meta #toAyourQ #catfa meta #dat's me #hey nonny #why do ppl keep asking me this same strange question over again? #are they expecting the answer to change somehow?? #or- wait- is this a bot?? 😬 #oyvey #I guess it's part of the plan to try and prop up miss brexit #separate steve from his support network and then surround him with assholes #so that relatively speaking she can look as if she's being supportive in comparison (even tho she isn't) #🤔 #my meta

[amarriageoftrueminds]

Do you see Tony stark as a male version of Peggy Carter? A rich high class brat that won't hesitate to do anything and side with anyone to shine and then act like everyones protective god mother? Or do you think he is at least a bit redeemable because he might have learned bit from his mistakes.

There are certain similarities. Peggy definitely has more in common with the Starks than anyone.

In her show, all her 'friends' are not from the same SEC as her, as with the Starks. In fact, her friends are... employees. Butlers, waitresses, housekeepers... they're almost literally being paid to be friends with her. You see that with Tony, too. His 'friends' are: an air force colonel (when Tony has extremely lucrative military contacts with the air force), his PA (who gets made his CEO and... immediately dumps him), his bodyguard, his robot butler, his other robot servants... and women who benefit financially from sex with him (Christine Everhart and Maya Hansen). In Peggy's case, she's that woman to Howard Stark. 😬 (And Steve).

In AC, the only time you see a person from the same socioeconomic class as Peggy, they're a villain. Similar thing with Tony's villains in IM (Obadiah Stane, Anton Vanko, Justin Hammer, Aldrich Killian...) they're just Other Tonys.

(So you can tell that TPTB have some kind of... English fetish going on and think upper classness is definitely part of her Specialness?)

While Tony has the same 'avoidance of all consequences for his actions' wealthy white privilege that Peggy has, there are certain important differences.

Generally speaking, they share one over-arching trait, which is: if you consider whether or not the world / people around them would be better off if they didn't exist, the answer is yes.

Without Tony, there'd be no Anton Vanko, no Aldrich Killian, no Quentin Beck (which means no Spider-Mans dimensional incursion), no Ultron (which, in another universe, endangered the entire multiverse), no dead Pietro, no dead Sokovians generally (meaning probably no Scarlet Witch, no Vision, no Westview Hex, all the knock-on effects of that?), no Snap. And Hulk or Thor could have put the nuke through the wormhole in A1 (except he wouldn't because it wouldn't have been written into the story at all since Hemsworth doesn't have short man syndrome.)

With no Peggy, Steve's story in CATFA isn't altered (because she didn't matter to the plot or his life at all). But there would be no Winter Soldier programme (since she wouldn't be around to give the man who started it a job at SHIELDra), ergo no Black Widows being mind-controlled either (since that was based on Winter Soldier tech), no continued Hydra (WhatIf confirms all this by showing that a SHIELD founded by everyone else who was there originally, except her, has no Nazis in it.) Ergo no Project Insight. No Winter Soldier means no assassination of Howard Stark, so no Civil War bust up of the Avengers, if Tony still exists (unless Zemo found some other way to effect it). C.1940s her male colleagues in SSR would have handled everything she interfered with in AC, Edwin Jarvis's wife wouldn't have been sterilised by gsw in the uterus, and Daniel Sousa would have settled down with a nice girl (nurse Violet, possibly Skye) and wouldn't have been assassinated by Hydra for whistleblowing in 1955, because there wouldn't be any Hydra.

.

Now the differences:

First, Tony is actually above-average at some of the things he thinks he's good at, so his arrogance based on that is at least partially warranted (which Peggy's conviction of her own competence, moral integrity, etc. isn't).

His estimate of his own ability is debatable, though, since his genius (in the MCU) stems from the Grand American Capitalist Tradition of stealing other peoples' work, doing a minimal amount to hone it, and then claiming all the credit / reaping all the financial reward.

(See: Iron Man suits, AI, E.D.I.T.H., B.A.R.F., Extremis serum, time-travel, etc. Tony's only original creations I can think of in the MCU are his robot-servants and the improvised booby-traps from Iron Man 3. And for all we know these could be rip-offs, too, it's just not mentioned.)

Second, Tony may have got into MIT as a legacy admission (nepotism), but he does actually have at least some of the expertise in a STEM field to warrant a place, which Peggy lacks. (She gets an honorary degree from IIRC Oxford: ie. rewarded for doing no work. And while she claims competence in mathematics (as part of the AC retcon of her non-existent war record), outside of one code-breaking scene, her alleged mathematical ability is never shown. (And in fact Bletchley Park's concession to her leaving it mid-war suggests she wasn't a crucial employee.)

Third, while Tony may have inherited his company without earning it, he does have the necessary brains and thieving habits to create and maintain such a company if he wanted to. He has the appropriate skills; which cannot be said of Peggy in any of her unearned spying jobs.

Peggy is a nepotism baby who couldn't stomach any of the jobs she was handed, one after another, that she kept idiotically choosing to ask for despite her unsuitability for them (which she cannot recognise).

And then she flaked out on these jobs from 'boredom,' even in the middle of a crisis like a world war (failure is never her fault, always the job's, always the mens').

She is a woman who thinks she's a maths whizz and yet has to have the number of sides of a cube explained to her (and as said, Bletchley Park were apparently fine with her quitting mid-war. It's like the opposite of all those 'screenshots of my boss begging me to come back after I quit' sm stories about crucial workers).

She believes she is a brilliant, underappreciated spy, surrounded by inferiors, but cannot spot a single spy when they infiltrate her organisation or home (any one of many, many, many, many occasions: during the war and after).

She's a spy who craves attention.

Whose disguises fail in seconds, and are so inept that she cannot avoid detection by someone who barely knows her, even when photographed from the back.

(Contrast that with actual-spy Natasha, whose disguises are so good not even we realise it's her until she reveals herself!)

Peggy is a woman who thinks she is a sort of hero to other women... but is fine shunting the work which she considers beneath her off onto them... (when she reacts with outrage when men do that exact same thing to her)... or fine with letting her rich male friends get away with chauvinism.

Who interferes to prevent male feminist colleagues from taking steps that would make life better for the Other Girls whom she is Not Like and who Cannot Therefore be allowed to Become Like her.

(Because as long as White Feminist knows Her value, she's the only person that matters!)

It takes a certain level of competence to correctly gage the extent of your own competence, or relative incompetence.

It's the basis of true self-awareness. She lacks that. (Whether Tony also lacks it is... not clear. Maybe he does, too).

Peggy's continued bloody-minded belief that she is, eg. a competent spy and a feminist, directly contrary to the evidence... (because the writers aren't capable of recognising when they've written the exact opposite of what they vaguely intended) ...is the proof that she lacks the qualities necessary to actually be either of those things. And to realise that she is just not physically or temperamentally suited to spying or heroism, at all.

She does share Tony's habit of blaming anything but herself for her problems, though. 🤔

When Peggy shows up hours late for work, eats like a slob at her desk while all the men are doing their paperwork, refuses to do said paperwork (even though that's the job she's been hired for and accepted) as if it's an insult to even ask her, shunts it off onto female underlings, and then does nothing except sabotage her colleagues' work for months, then unilaterally hiring someone who cannot be trusted and who kills 40+ people... (Johann Fennhoff)

She acts as if her male colleagues' lack of enthusiasm about her ability is due to... sexism, only... and not to her being, for example, a lazy, entitled, violently bad-tempered, disastrously-incompetent dickhead and self-outing nepotism hire.

When Tony calls himself a "genius, billionaire, playboy, philanthropist..." He is at least getting 1/4 of those right... ish.

(Is it genius to commit industrial espionage and rip off the designs of other men including employees, do 12% of the work and then patent them as your own? When it's JARVIS and FRIDAY who do everything for him, actually? Is inheriting generational wealth a flex? Does exchanging sex for favours make you a womaniser or a creepy Weinstein-esque loser? Does making money off cleaning up the very mess you caused, for Rich-White-Guy tax write-offs, count as actual philanthropy? Would an actual philanthropist list philanthropy last, of all those things on the list?)

He does appear to learn from his mistakes for a brief period...

(His Act 1 Fuck Up is usually revealed as a Plot!Coupon necessary for his Act 3 Success; the icing over of the Iron Man suit, the double-reverb attack gained from firing at Rhodey, etc.)

...But that is over-ruled at the beginning of each new Iron Man movie, when the lessons of the last one are ignored to set his personality back at 0. 🙄

In the case of the Avengers movies, though, he doesn't learn at all. Ultron tries to murder everyone, (WhatIf reveals he would have eventually destroyed the entire multiverse.) Hydra tries to enact Project Insight A.I. to kill millions...

And yet years later Tony is still claiming those two as morally correct successes, flawed only because they were made to fail (not because they were horrible fascist ideas to begin with), and redoing Insight as EDITH only giving it to a disastrous teenage boy. 🤦‍♀️

Peggy, however, is pathologically incapable of learning from mistakes, because that first requires you to acknowledge that you are capable of making mistakes, which is inconceivable to her.

She has herself up on a high pedestal, as the pinnacle of womanhood around which the world and all other women (surely?!) revolve, and cannot be knocked off its axis.

The closest she has ever come to an accurate self-assessment was when Edwin Jarvis called her arrogant and ignorant and she flippantly pretended to agree. (Inadvertently proving him right).

Tony is possibly redeemable because he at least has sensible people around him, telling him he's a fucking idiot.

He does occasionally make the obeisance of saying 'my bad,' even if he doesn't fully comprehend it.

Peggy on the other hand isn't redeemable because she doesn't think she's ever done anything wrong in her life, ever. She thinks she is practically perfect in any way. Atwell thinks she's a good enough sort of woman to fix any man! Like a lot of TERFs and white feminists, she would see the mere suggestion of any wrongdoing on her part as preposterous.

#long post #antitony #antipeggy #antisteggy #cynthia glass #p*ggy meta #mcu critical #steggy is hydra trash party #meta #mcu meta #antitony...ish? #shieldra founders #toAyourQ #dat's me #hey nonny #to quote mcu-peggy in the comics -- implying she is either corrupt or incompetent is 'insane' and will get you IMMEDIATELY attacked by her #unrelated factor: both RDJ and atwell are essentially playing themselves which is why their characters read as fresh and charismatic #but while RDJ has great acting talent on top of that to lend tony's less-RDJ-ish emotional scenes heft and verisimilitude... #atwell is not so talented (reminding me of Jennifer Saunders parodying bad actresses in French & Saunders comedy show) #and so isn't as natural in those moments as she is when peggy is being eg. violent/bossy/white-feminist/condescending etc. #my meta

[amarriageoftrueminds]

What do you think about Howard Stark? Describe his character please. This character seems multi-faceted. Sometimes in the series Agent Carter he was shown as “stupid”, but if he really was like that, how would he have achieved all this...

Short Answer:

L o n g Answer:

The basis of the assertion that Howard Stark is smart is this idea of him as a genius inventor, right? Well, I can't speak to the comics, but the MCU's versions of the Starks aren't, actually, inventors. They're thieves. They are your standard billionaire tycoons who hire the actually-inventive people, of lower SEC, take the intellectual and intellectual property credit for whatever they invent, (do 12% of the work?), and then rake in the cash and acclaim. (And if said invention doesn't work, or proves disastrously dangerous in an unanticipated way, well, that's other peoples' fault). Basically, the problem is: Because we know Howard is a liar and a thief [see below], and rich enough to have scientists working under him and to be able to cover up his crimes, any time Howard claims to have invented something we have to take that with a massive pinch of salt. Which means (if we're engaging in good faith critical thinking, here) that we should also approach any claims of genius with a similar level of skepticism.

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CATFA:

So, from the beginning, what do we have in CATFA that "shows" Howard being a genius?

Prototype Hovercar / gravitic reversion technology, that immediately fails. (No proof that that was Howard's invention and not an SEI -- a Stark-Employee's Invention. Either way, Howard would be taking credit for it. If it was Howards invention... then he's inept, because it immediately fails. And Howard is doing what Tony does; putting on a big show to the public to show off how great he is. That's a grifter's move, not a scientist's.)

The vitaray tube (which Stark is in charge of, and flipping the switches on... but he is also surrounded by technicians and other scientists, including Erskine. How do we know it wasn't one of them who invented all this and Stark is just taking credit because they're his employee and that's his go-to move? Him being a wealthy industrialist provides an instant explanation for him being involved, even if he never personally lifted a finger. But the Army's "number one weapons contractor" has no reason to be there as an inventor, because nothing they're working on is a weapon?? In fact, since Erskine has created a version of the serum which requires vitaradiation, isn't it most likely it was he who designed the vitaray tube without which this version of serum would be much less effective? Just because Stark is in the room with the vitaray tube, and in charge of operating it, that doesn't prove he invented it.)

Stark saying "speaking modestly, I'm the best mechanical engineer in this country..." (Which is still a tell not a show, but I think we can take him being a mechanical engineer as true because if it was false the other characters would know... However, it is still not impossible that this is Musk-esque, 'delulu billionaire calling himself XYZ because he can pay people not to contradict him' syndrome. Calling himself the best is typical Stark hubris, and we have seen nothing yet to support it.)

"...but I don't know what's inside this thing or how it works." (Which would seem to undermine any claims to genius. However, if him being flummoxed is because Zola has the tesseract to study whereas Stark doesn't, then this rare moment of admitted ignorance doesn't actually contradict the idea that Stark is a smart guy!!)

Possibly a transponder, which also immediately fails because it's not bullet proof. (When Steve queries it, ignoring Peggy, Howard merely says "it's been tested more than you, pal." Which doesn't prove that it has been / that he's telling the truth, but if he is then that only proves that he know that particular design has been tested, not that he invented it, and/or he is touchy about skepticism because he sees it as his -- whether it is or not. Oof this is confusing. 😵)

Howard diving for cover when Peggy, throwing a tantrum, fires a gun at Steve while he's holding a vibranium shield (Despite what Tony tries to claim, that shield is not Howard's discovery, that's Wakanda's. How did Howard get hold of that vibranium, legally? why doesn't he want Steve picking up that shield? is it basic greed? why is he ducking for cover? is it because he doesn't know the vibranium will protect them, or because he doesn't trust Peggy's aim, or both? if the former, why does the man taking credit for the vibranium shield, who was just talking about its properties, not act as if he knows its properties??)

a cut to Steve having a new suit design after talking to Howard about it (but Steve himself says those were his ideas -- perhaps they were even Bucky's ideas, since he was the one urging Steve to keep "the outfit." And Howard is surrounded by other scientists. We have no way to say which one of them came up with Steve's technical suit, including Howard.)

A magnetic anti-tank bomb used by Jacques Dernier (again, we don't know who came up with that; could've been Dernier himself. Nothing in the movie actually shows or tells us it's SSR tech. So we could assume it's SSR tech, but we don't know. And even if it was, that doesn't make it Therefore Stark's invention. Even if he says it is, which he doesn't. 🤦‍♀️)

Steve's booby-trapped harley davidsons (Again: we don't know for sure those are SSR tech / Hydra are shown on motorcycles so it could be another stolen design / We do know Stark would take credit either way. Tony having his own fancy samurai chopper in his garage in the present-day also doesn't prove it, either. He could just like harleys?? To me the biggest piece of 'evidence' that these might be Stark originals is how flashy they are? 🤔 And/or the way Steve tosses them aside like trash LOLOL. 😂)

Howard finding the dropped tesseract / having technology which could detect the tesseract (This is coming straight after the Valkyrie raid and/or Zola's capture, so it could be that Zola and Red Skull, himself a scientist, had invented something to detect that gamma radiation, and Howard just purloined it. It's not impossible that Howard invented something to do this job... but that's just not what's shown. You could also see this scene as evidence of navigational talent by the guys actually piloting the ship, not a sign of Howard's competence, for example! Even if they found the tesseract because of re-tracing the Valkyrie's flight path exactly, that could've been accomplished because of Hydra records from the base, not because of Howard's genius. We just don't know. 🤷‍♀️ Howard being present while something clever may (or may not) be happening isn't proof he's responsible for it.)

TL;DR: CATFA writers are BAD at showing genius instead of telling.

sidenote: all of CATFA + deleted scenes included, Stark was actually a dick to Steve. Repeatedly sneered at him -- to his face, behind his back, and in front of his boss -- and questioned his intelligence and competence, despite being baffled by the same things as him. This idea of him and Steve as friends is a retcon, to try and bolster the Stark mythos, just as with Peggy's whole career leapfrogging off being 'Cap's Girl,' she says. Steve and Stark in CATFA were barely civil. (You can see they started this retcon post Avengers 1, because in that movie Steve has a bitch-face on the second he hears the name 'Stark' from Fury, criticises Howard's actions with the Tesseract, and dislikes his son Tony on sight.)

. So are there any inventions we can definitely say are Howard's?

Agent Carter:

Has been declared non-canon (most of it can't be, if you consider the timeline is impossible). And tbh Anon, to do a deep dive on Howard I'd have to re-watch the Agent Carter show, and (to borrow an earthy phrase of my father's) I'd rather put my dick in a vice. 😬 But for argument's sake / from memory we have:

1) Howard claiming Steve as one of his accomplishments (not, for example, Steve's own? or Abraham Erskine's? Which is funny, cuz in CATFA Howard was being nice-ish to Steve's face, but then talking shit about him behind his back. Before handing over Steve's shield / discussing suit designs with him, Stark was busy sneering to one of his lackeys that he bets Steve didn't notice a certain property of the tesseract tech… the tech which Steve himself had captured for them, without getting blown up like Howard does, even despite being shot at. So how's about you show some gratitude, Howard? Or some basic professional courtesy? Ah, but that would mean giving other people credit...)

2) Finished Hovercar (Still breaks down. Stark is shown working on it when it breaks down, though? An improved version using a '62 Chevy Corvette appears in AOS… but who knows who was responsible for those improvements. It's credited to Stark, by Stark, but what does that prove??)

3) Midnight Oil. (Not proven as Stark's invention, merely taken from Stark's lab, and from the vault underneath his mansion. Could've been one of his underling's inventions and he'd still say it was his. In fact, when asked "you invented a poison gas?" he says "No! Well, not intentionally." But, interestingly, then goes off on a tangent without confirming that it was he, himself, that discovered it. I'm reading a book about Operation Paperclip currently, and this reminds me of the way Nazis talked about their discoveries... if it was something bad, it was never them personally who did it. IMO, this is nevertheless the closest to painting Stark as a plausible 'inventor' we ever come. Not the genius who thinks of things, but the wealthy opportunist who accidentally blunders across things while researching unrelated things in his lab... things which may or may not have been invented by someone else. We have Howard claiming he severed ties with the US Army after this. But he's fine for the psychochemical gas to be handed over to a US alphabet agency... co-founded by a US Army Colonel. How is this severing ties??)

4) Stark Heat Vest (made of an alloy, insert [who in the Stark Labs really invented it? we don't know!! disclaimer] Which transforms into a suicide vest when you lock it. Another example of one of "Howard's" inventions being dangerous ill-conceived.)

5) Constrictor (a back massager which causes involuntary muscle contraction to the point of breaking bones. Another fuck up. Again, it's stored in Howard's property -- his yacht, The Heartbreak -- and credited to him, but is it really his tho? And if it is, that's not an accomplishment.)

6) Blitzkrieg Button (not actually an invention, but a container for the last vial of Steve's blood. So: a. Stark will canonically LIE and claim to have invented a thing, b. that doesn't even exist, c. to cover up the fact that he's a thief, meaning: d. Stark is genuinely talented at creating 'fake' inventions?? e. Stark wants Steve's blood to make money. (They tried to frame this as Peggy being tired of compromising her principles for him. LOLOL 😭 What principles?? She doesn't take Steve's blood off Stark, she lets him take it!)

7) Electroshocker (Ohhhh, this from the guy who knew what was being done to Bucky -- ie. being electroshocked?? And no one can work out what the purpose of this device is?? Do I have to draw a diagram of why this is suspicious??)

8) Camera pen (Hardly unique to Stark, but once again: just because he owns the rights, doesn't make it his invention, even if he says it is. And he uses it to take indecent pictures of women without their knowledge or consent. JFC...)

9) Photonic Amplifier (usual insert [who in the Stark Labs really invented it? we don't know!! disclaimer] problem. The sheer number of things he's crediting himself with inventing, by the way, is actually more of an indication that he's probably just taking credit from someone else. If they'd only said he invented one or two things...)

10) Gamma Cannon (insert [who in the Stark Labs really invented it? we don't know!! disclaimer] problem; Howard sends the specs code for it for it via telegram, but that doesn't prove he invented it. Oyvey. He does take time out to try and come up with a name for the rift-generator tho... which he stole.)

11) Jitterbug (insert [who in the Stark Labs really invented it? we don't know!! disclaimer] problem, Stark's Butler knowing the codes to use it still doesn't prove Stark invented it.)

12) Nitramene (Quote from the show: "Howard is working on a formula for molecular nitramene [...] Supposedly, it has its roots in his work with vita radiation." a. What do you mean "supposedly?" (Word doing a lot of heavy lifting there). b. What do you mean "with" vitaradiation? Not on? c. What work? Genuinely. Erskine is the one who invented serum that requires vitaradiation, not Stark. Nothing in CATFA credits Stark with coming up with that idea, not even Stark himself, and there is no pre-Steve vitaradiation-related invention mentioned to account for why Stark would know about/be working on it already. (Could the hovercar perhaps be vitaradiation related somehow? But even then, that doesn't prove it's Stark's expertise.) The person actually most-likely to know about radiation other than Erskine would be Zola, the tesseract guy, whom they conveniently do not mention. d. So this is a second-hand account?

13) And when you say "Howard" is working on it, do you mean Howard, or Howard's employees?

14) "My formula for molecular nitramene. Technically, we're not even sure it works, but, well, let's face it… I invented it, so it works" Now, unless Howard has suddenly started using 'they' pronouns or the Royal We, mid-sentence, notice the switcheroo there? One second it's Howard's formula, but as soon as doubt is introduced it's "we" who aren't sure about it. Who's this mysterious we, Howard? I thought you just said it was your formula?? How could the guy who invented it not know if it works? Notice how it's only his alone if he's taking credit, rather than blame, and how he's hedging -- giving himself a get-out-of-jail-free excuse, in advance -- in case it doesn't work? And it's Edwin Jarvis, a Butler, who knows how to neutralise it, "render it inert with a solution of sodium hydrogen carbonate and acetate." Does that 'prove' Edwin Jarvis is a genius inventor? No, of course not. It's just supposed to prove that he... merely... works with... a genius inventor. 😳 AND GUESS WHO SHOWS UP in connection with Nitramene?

15) Anton Vanko, the man Howard stole the arc reactor design from, as revealed in Iron Man 2, and whom Howard had deported and reduced to penury so he could do that. That's The invention that basically made Stark Industries!

16) And Anton Vanko is also, coincidentally, linked to this other huge invention Howard is crediting as his own? And it's he who knows that Nitramene emits vitaradiation? If Howard is the so-called vitaradiation expert... why isn't it Howard telling Peggy that?)

Even if they had showed a hundred inventions of Howard's in AC, the fact that they also establish him as a greedy, unscrupulous liar, and a thief of industrial secrets, makes any other "true" claims suspect. TL;DR: AC writers are BAD at showing genius instead of telling.

.

Sidenote: I've commented before how AC is basically inept writers furiously trying to retcon the shitty writing of Peggy in CATFA and make out like they wrote a good female character, when they didn't (largely by stealing all Bucky's traits and giving them to her. As if that's what the issue was.)

But there's also a disquieting disparity between Howard Stark in CATFA and AC that I never noticed before.

In CATFA, he's referred to as a "weapons contractor."

And yet none of the technology he's connected to in CATFA is actually a weapon. (With the possible exception of the flamethrowers on the Harley WLAs. Putting magnets on a pre-existing tank bomb doesn't count, IMO).

But by the time of AC, only a year later, we're hearing about these hideous inventions Stark claims he created (and claims to regret) which were used in the war. There's a direct throughline from his fascination with the tesseract to the Hydra-guns Steve was so appalled to find in SHIELD's arsenal in Avengers 1, just like what Bucky and the Howlies were forced to make in Zola's POW camp (which violates the Geneva Conventions, btw).

And yet, during the war, Steve somehow saw none of these devices of Stark's. And there was no hint of Stark's thievery back then, either.

...Isn't that odd??

Was the guy who sneered at Steve behind his back, perhaps, also hiding other things from him as well?

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Iron Man 2:

Other than stealing from Anton Vanko, we have Howard building into the design of the Stark Expo the secret to an unknown element (I think Tony tried to get it named Badassium) he claims he discovered. (Seriously, guys, pick a fucking lane, is Howard a weapons contractor industrialist, a mechanical engineer, a geneticist, or a chemist, which is it?) Hypothetically, if Nitramene was actually Anton Vanko's discovery, and he also invented the arc reactor, isn't there a much greater likelihood that it was he who discovered the arc-reactor-saving unknown element? (And the reason Vanko's son doesn't know would even be the same reason why Howard's son doesn't know: because the technology to synthesise that element hadn't been created yet.) Once again, we only have Howard The Thief's word for it that Badassium was his discovery, in the movie where we find out he steals other peoples' ideas and takes the credit. I'll take that with a huge pinch of salt.

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Elsewhere:

There's a serial pattern with Iron Man villains where they're basically just Tony but with protagonist-centered-morality declaring whatever Tony does only bad if it's bad guys doing it. And Tony and Howard are cut from the same cloth. So Obadiah Stane? That's Howard. (How much more powerful that story would've been if they went there!) Anton Vanko? That's Howard's demon. Justin Hammer? Doing exactly what Howard did -- ripping off someone else's work, including his own employee's, and selling it to the US military. (We even have the like-for-like moment where Justin Hammer tries to do a showy demonstration of "his" invention, and it goes disastrously wrong... because he doesn't actually understand what it is he's trying to pass off as his own. So he has to hire someone who does -- ie. Anton Vanko.) Why are we supposed to see all these people as villains and dilettantes, not geniuses, but not Howard Stark for doing the same thing? It's just protagonist-centered morality. Even Wernher von Braun, who is alluded to in IM3. They try to paint him as a "starry-eyed" scientist who just wanted to do space travel uwu 🥺 (Definitely not because of Walt Disney making movies with him at all honestly!!) In fact, von Braun was a high-ranking Nazi in the SS. He was nominated for SS membership by Heinrich Himmler. He was decorated by Hitler himself (you can see in photos of him wearing a golden badge on his tie... that's from Hitler). He was in charge of his own concentration camp (Mittelwerk Nordhausen-Dora) full of slaves supplied by the SS, at a rent of 3 marks per day, and created to build V-2 rockets, in an underground bunker just like Camp Lehigh had. (Krausberg and the Valkyrie base in CATFA could've been lifted straight from his story!) 20,000+ people died in Nordhausen-Dora. And von Braun went personally to Buchenwald concentration camp (after penning a cheery letter about it), which was only 50 miles away, to hand-pick skilled slaves to build a lab for himself. And then, despite all this, he was sent to the US under Operation Paperclip. And the guys that worked with him on rockets? That's what Howard did with Zola. Zola is the von Braun to his Walt Disney.

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Ant Man

And then there is the twin example of Hank Pym and Mitchell Carson. In What If...? when Hank Pym and Howard Stark are co-founding SHIELD (but not Peggy), there are no Nazis in it (this is also a consequence of Steve and Bucky still being around to nip that in the bud.) But in Ant Man, Hank Pym is shown confronting his colleagues about unethical behaviour (that being: a Hydra agent stealing his inventions), and leaving SHIELDra in protest... But Howard Stark (surprise surprise!) is happy to stay. And, obviously, has no problem with stealing other peoples' ideas. Which is what Mitchell Carson, the Hydra agent, does.

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Endgame

Flashforward, and Stark is wandering round a "quasi-fascistic" (his own son's words!!!) black site, looking for his buddy "Arnie" (Arnim Zola, the Nazi rocket scientist who also tortured American POWS and utilised them as slave labour till they could be worked to death and replaced: "...use up what strength they have left, Doctor. There are always more workers.") And letting this random Tony Potts guy wander off with the suitcase containing the tesseract. And he is shown doing this, right next to the computer that will be housing Zola's brain, in the future:

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What If...?

The mecha ('Hydra stomper') suits shown as Howard's in What If...? were actually Zola's creation in CATFA, not Howards. Even the writers will steal other peoples' ideas to give them to Howard! (Even A.I. is first shown in connection with Zola, not Tony). In regards to his general character, here's a meta about how Howard definitely knew about what was being done to Bucky in the main timeline / CACW. (Mr Professional Thief has WS serum in his trunk, which he apparently got after "a quick stop ... at the Pentagon." And AC proves he would steal even from his own 'side' to try and make money off serum. That to me makes it obvious why Hydra killed him: because he's a greedy thief, not because he's anti-Hydra. He was fleeing with his loot to the Bahamas, at Christmas...) Here's a meta about how What If...? s2 confirmed that he knew. And here's meta on how What If...? s2 SHOWED that Howard would have no problems using Bucky exactly the same way Hydra did (while dehumanizing him. As long as it's convenient.) .

Conclusion

So, Anon... you say Stark is multifaceted. I'd say, sure he is. He is, after all, a bastard on many levels. (Absolutely valid writing decision. Simultaneously claiming he isn't, though? That's a nonsense writing choice.) You say he couldn't achieve what he achieved if he wasn't smart. I'd say: sure he's smart! Canonically, he has a talent for lying and charming and stealing, (not only lying but lying convincingly to professional liars, whose job it is to detect liars), abusing/exploiting women, kinda slut-shaming women (how many names has he dropped? what was the purpose of his fondue comment?), abusing his position of power to destroy his victims, and to cover up his crimes, taking credit for other peoples' work, ignoring human suffering when it suits him, and collaborating with Nazis. And of course, the most important thing: putting on a show! But none of those things takes a genius... 😕

#long post #SHIELDra founders #antihowardstark #mcu critical #mcu meta #tw war crimes description #toAyourQ #dat's me #hey nonny #antiendgame #antipeggy #antisteggy #meta #full meta under cut #IT'S A LONG 'UN! #writers: but we wanted you to think he was smart?? 🥺 #me: then you shouldn't have written him lying and stealing then?? 🙄 #anyway nonny hope that's got ya thinking! #my meta

[amarriageoftrueminds]

TIL:

you can actually see Zola’s brain in the background of the Camp Lehigh bunker (while Tony and Howard are down there, while Peggy is upstairs in her office with ‘Director’ on the door) in the VFX for Endgame.

#antihowardstark #antiendgame #antipeggy #cynthia glass #p*ggy meta #mcu critical #meta #mcu meta #mcu #SHIELDra #anti shield founders #zola meta #yet each man queues the thing he loves #🙂