Hayley Atwell Wants Peggy Carter Throwing Punches, Not Frisbees, in ‘Avengers: Doomsday’
Peggy Carter has always been one of the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s most beloved figures, a character whose legacy stretches from World War II battlefields to boardrooms full of superheroes. She has died more times in the Marvel Cinematic Universe than most characters in the franchise combined, yet fans keep coming back for more of her. Now, with ‘Avengers: Doomsday’ on the horizon, that legacy is about to get another chapter.
During the Marvel panel at this year’s San Diego Comic-Con, it was officially confirmed that Hayley Atwell will reprise the role of Peggy Carter in ‘Avengers Doomsday’. The reveal came during the Robert Downey Jr. portion of the panel, with Atwell appearing on stage alongside Pedro Pascal and Chris Evans. Notably, Marvel had also confirmed Chris Evans is returning as Steve Rogers, reigniting speculation about the pair’s storyline.
That excitement carried straight into the promotional circuit, where Atwell made her feelings about Peggy’s future crystal clear. Speaking with Rotten Tomatoes at Comic Con, Atwell pitched for the character to get more physical, insisting she has the strength and coordination to hold her own in the action, a comment that immediately had fans buzzing about a more hands on Peggy in ‘Avengers Doomsday’.
That desire for more action tracks with the character’s long, frustrating history of being written out too soon. The hope among fans is that this version of the character finally gets treated with the respect she deserves, especially since it never quite made sense to bring back Captain America without his defining love interest somewhere in the mix. It is still unclear whether Atwell is playing the original Peggy from Steve Rogers’ timeline or another variant of Captain Carter, given the multiverse heavy nature of the story.
That ambiguity is part of what makes this return so intriguing. Her most recent on screen appearance was in 2022’s ‘Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness’, where she played Captain Carter of Earth 838. In an earlier conversation with Screen Rant, Atwell described her renewed take on the character as more expansive and nuanced, explaining she had no desire to go over old ground with Peggy again, a sentiment that lines up neatly with her call for more action this time around.
The scale of ‘Avengers Doomsday’ only raises the stakes further. The Hall H panel reportedly featured over seventy stars gathered to promote the film, alongside new footage previewing its sprawling, multiverse spanning story, and Marvel gave Atwell a proper stage moment rather than a surprise credits cameo, a signal many are reading as proof the studio finally understands what fans want from Peggy Carter.
With ‘Avengers Doomsday’ set to hit theaters on December 18, fans still have a wait ahead before finding out whether Peggy gets the fight scenes Atwell is clearly campaigning for. Given everything the character has survived across this franchise, it feels only fair that she finally gets to throw a real punch instead of a frisbee. What kind of action sequence would you want to see Peggy Carter pull off in ‘Avengers Doomsday’?
