Exclusive: Hayley Atwell's Captain Carter brings 'chutzpah and style' to Marvel's 'What If...?' series

Move over, Steve Rogers. Peggy Carter's the captain now.

Animated series "What If...?" – the latest Disney+ Marvel project following "WandaVision," "The Falcon and the Winter Soldier" and "Loki" – reimagines key characters, storylines and scenarios in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. The first of nine weekly episodes (streaming Wednesday) takes fans back to "Captain America: The First Avenger" and explains what would have happened had British intelligence agent Carter (Hayley Atwell) received the super-soldier serum in 1943 instead of Army soldier Rogers (Chris Evans).

USA TODAY has an exclusive clip from the debut of "What If...?" in which a buff, souped-up Captain Carter wields Steve's familiar shield (now with a Union Jack instead of the stars and stripes), throws motorcycles and goes to town on a bunch of evil Hydra goons.

Ranked: Every Marvel superhero movie (including new solo film 'Black Widow')

Voiced by Atwell, Captain Carter takes on the Red Skull (Ross Marquand) and Hydra in their quest to use the powerful Tesseract. But even as a super soldier, she has to deal with a bunch of sexist military dudes not taking her seriously. Her love interest Steve is still in the picture and plays an important role: Instead of becoming Captain America, he pilots an Iron Man-like armored suit called the Hydra Stomper. (Other MCU movie actors returning to voice their characters include Sebastian Stan as Bucky Barnes and Dominic Cooper as Howard Stark.)

"It’s an exciting and worthy progression of the character," Atwell says of this new version of Peggy. "Audiences get to see her in a more dynamic way, and it puts an end to the now-tired narrative that she’s underused beside her male counterparts. She was. Many women across industries have been and are. It’s time for change and for seeing more characters onscreen implementing that. She knows her value, always has, and here she gets to live it out."

And while Steve took becoming Captain America very seriously, Peggy gets pure enjoyment from her extraordinary new strength and abilities. "The ease with which she wields her power allows for moments of levity, which add to her charm," Atwell says. "Work has to be fun, otherwise it’s a dispiriting grind. She’s got chutzpah and style and flair. It makes for a far more entertaining experience for the audience."