Agent Carter

Agent Carter is the fourth in a series of Marvel One-Shots and was attached to the Iron Man 3 physical media release on September 3rd 2013. The one-shot is set after the events of Captain America: The First Avenger.

 

After revisiting Captain America's sacrifice during the events of Captain America: The First Avenger we see that Peggy Carter now works for John Flynn at the Strategic Scientific Reserve. She is generally avoided being selected for missions and treated poorly by her colleagues and her boss.

As her boss and colleagues go to get drinks after another failed mission, Peggy Carter winds up recieving a call detailing a mission - in which recommends 3-5 agents. She rejects this notion as the other agents are all out drinking. She end up going alone taking a briefcase filled with weapons including a smoke bomb, using her combat training to take out the guards.

She ends up acquiring Zodiac which appears to be a chemical vial however she is ambushed and almost killed, barely managing to survive by reaching for a knife concealed in her briefcase. 

While she was succesful her actions were reckless and she did not follow any form of procedure, resulting in her boss criticising her. It's revealed that he felt she was being kept around because she was the love interest for Captain America and did not feel she had a use.

Getting a phone call from Howard Stark, who appears to have monitored the situation, John Flynn is instructed to inform Peggy Carter that she will be running S.H.I.E.L.D - as Peggy Carter heads to Washington to work with Howard Stark. In a post-credit scene Dum Dum Dugan is shown with Howard Stark commenting on the invention of the Bikini.

While her near death shows she is competent rather than infallible, her recklessness was born from a desire to prove herself in order to focus on the episode's commentary on the nature of sexism in the mid 1900's. The basic concept of depicting everyone around her as incompetent does not really demonstrate the Strategic Scientific Reserve as competent.

While her mission success proves that she should have been viewed as an equal, at the same time her lack of following protocol almost ended in her death which somewhat weakens the message of the one-shot as her doing the right thing. It would have made more sense if she was gifted this mission via Howard Stark as a method of proving herself - leaving her boss no excuses for his actions against her. Instead it falls a little flat as a commentary, but the overall one-shot delivers on Agent Carter action and works well as a follow-up to Captain America: The First Avenger.