Agent 13Peggy Carter

An Agent’s Archives

Peggy Carter fought with the French Resistance during WWII alongside Steve Rogers AKA Captain America. Through the course of their working relationship, they developed a closer, more romantic bond. When a smitten Cap expressed concern about Carter’s dangerous work, he tried to convince Peggy to leave the resistance. Her sense of duty would not allow it. She did, however, promise she would wait for Cap if the war ever separated them, and that she would always remember him.

Orders soon forced the lovers apart. Peggy was sent on a solo mission to join the Paris underground, while Captain America was sent to attack a German bunker outside the city. They parted reluctantly, with Peggy promising to await Cap’s return and the star-spangled soldier vowing to come back for her. Cap’s mission led to a series of other missions, however, while the Nazis eventually captured Peggy in Paris. Refusing to give up the location of the underground’s leaders, she was scheduled for execution alongside other prisoners. However, just as they were being led to the firing squad, Allied forces attacked and began the liberation of Paris. A Nazi officer tried to shoot the prisoners before they could be freed, but Peggy grappled with him until an artillery shell hit, seemingly destroying them both. Captain America arrived moments later in search of Peggy and was crushed when he heard of her seeming demise. In reality, Carter had survived the blast, but the trauma left her amnesiac and she staggered off alone, remembering nothing but the explosion.

Wandering Europe for months, Peggy somehow survived, though she later remembered few details of this “terrible” period, apart from an old family friend recognizing her in Belgium and ultimately bringing her home to Virginia. Delirious and distraught, she got worse after hearing of Captain America’s supposed death in 1945; she stopped speaking, started wearing a veil and dressing in black, and mostly stayed in seclusion.

Over the ensuing decades, Peggy’s mental health improved enough that she had extended periods of emotional stability and mental clarity, during which she fully remembered her past. After an alien energy source was discovered in Russia in 1952, Peggy and Howard Stark investigated, but ended up encountering a newly formed terrorist group called Hydra. They worked alongside Woody McCord and Ebon Seeker to eliminate the threat and stop Hydra.

Peggy’s niece, Sharon Carter, idolized her aunt, enthralled by stories of the war and romance with Captain America. Peggy proved to be a greater influence on her niece than the youth’s own parents, something Sharon’s father never forgave his sister for, especially after the younger Carter joined elite intelligence agency S.H.I.E.L.D. Sharon was trying to emulate her aunt’s past as a woman of action, and she also hoped working with S.H.I.E.L.D. might lead to partnering with Captain America, who had then-recently revived from suspended animation.

Taking the codename Agent 13 in her aunt’s honor, Sharon teamed with Cap on several S.H.I.E.L.D. missions and they fell in love, partly because of the woman’s remarkable resemblance to a younger Peggy, though the hero was unaware the two were related. Feeling disloyal to Peggy because of this, Sharon repeatedly refused Cap’s marriage proposals and eventually tried to end their romance.

Meanwhile, Peggy had sunk into another period of depression and amnesia, and Sharon’s parents placed her in the Lost Souls Asylum & Rest Home, run by corrupt psychiatrist Dr. Faustus and his associate Dr. Johann Wolfgang. An old foe of Cap’s, Faustus had arranged to treat Peggy in hopes she might give him unique inside information about his rival’s psyche.

When Captain America, his partner Falcon (Sam Wilson) and Sharon all investigated the asylum, Faustus forced them to participate in his re-creation of Peggy’s final wartime battle, which shocked Carter back to a state of mental clarity. However, Peggy soon realized how her doctors were manipulating her, and she helped Cap and the others defeat Faustus and Wolfgang. Cap and Carter were reunited, and the former finally learned how Sharon and Peggy were related.

Cap resumed his romance with Sharon, but they initially concealed this from Peggy, not wanting to set back her mental recovery. Her memories of the decades since World War II hazy at first, Peggy had difficulty accepting how much she had aged, assuming her romance with the costumed hero could simply pick up where it left off.

Still remarkably fit despite her advanced age, Peggy worked with S.H.I.E.L.D. to refresh her old wartime skills and be closer to Captain America. Assigned as backup to senior S.H.I.E.L.D. agent and fellow WWII veteran Gabe Jones during his second infiltration of the subversive Secret Empire, Peggy helped her colleague—along with Cap, Falcon and the X-Men—thwart the evil organization’s attempted overthrow of the US government. When the exposure of a high US official as the Empire’s leader drove a disillusioned Captain America into retirement, Peggy tried in vain to talk him out of it. Shortly thereafter, Cap finally told Peggy as firmly as he could that their romance was a thing of the past. Heartbroken at first, Peggy found comfort in her increasingly close friendship with Gabe Jones, which was gradually becoming romantic.

Often partnered on S.H.I.E.L.D. assignments, Peggy and Gabe briefly met the new Captain America (Roscoe Simons), whose death in action convinced Steve Rogers to take back the role, though not before the two S.H.I.E.L.D. agents also encountered their old ally in his short-lived alternate costumed identity as Nomad. When the Nazi villain Red Skull (Johann Schmidt) began targeting members of the Federal Open Market Committee for assassination, Gabe, Peggy, Cap and Falcon teamed up to oppose the villain’s plans. During the assignment, Peggy told Cap she’d accepted the fact that their romance was over, and that she would stop living in the past.

Pleased they could start over as friends, Cap also approvingly noted the growing closeness between Gabe and Peggy. The racist Red Skull also noticed the two agents’ obvious chemistry and was deeply offended by it, due to Jones’ African- American heritage. The Skull had his henchmen capture the two agents and he tortured them for seven hours, but Gabe and Peggy remained defiant, literally spitting in their captor’s face, until Cap and Falcon stormed the base. Gabe freed himself and Peggy and they called in S.H.I.E.L.D. backup to wrap up the case, though not before the two agents shared a passionate embrace in the heat of the moment. The Red Skull, though defeated, escaped.

This same mission exposed the Falcon as an unwittingly brainwashed pawn of the Red Skull. Under orders from overzealous field operations co-director Jeff Cochren, Gabe and Peggy investigated Falcon’s background and confirmed the Skull connection, but remained supportive of the high-flying hero, who was ultimately pardoned. Peggy’s romance with Gabe continued on and off after that, but they gradually drifted apart as assignments separated them.

Later, worried after Sharon infiltrated the subversive National Force, Peggy recruited Captain America to help her investigate. Despite being nearly killed by National Force agents and later taken hostage by the group’s mastermind Dr. Faustus and his brainwashed pawn the Grand Director (William Burnside, the 1950s Captain America), Peggy helped Cap and Daredevil (Matt Murdock) defeat the villain. Sharon was seemingly killed during the mission, but actually survived and went into deep cover on another assignment, though Cap and Peggy would not learn she was alive until years later.

When S.H.I.E.L.D. disbanded after its infiltration and subversion by the Deltites, Cap contacted Peggy to root out where former Howling Commandos Dum Dum Dugan, Gabe Jones, and Nick Fury could be found. They discovered them and worked together to destroy a S.H.I.E.L.D. base. Peggy was injured in the end but Cap suggested she work for the Avengers; Fury agreed that her skills would be perfect for the communications facilities of Earth’s Mightiest Heroes.

Working with the famed team, Peggy was stationed on Avengers Island, and helped defend it when Dr. Doom’s robots attacked during the “Acts of Vengeance” conspiracy. She stayed at her post until the artificial island sank. Rescued by Avengers member Quasar (Wendell Vaughn), Peggy continued her communications work at later bases such as Avengers Headquarters and the re-created Avengers Mansion, serving as a longtime core member of the Avengers Crew support staff until they were all laid off during the group’s post-Onslaught disbanding.

Peggy’s mental and physical health eventually declined as old age finally caught up with her. She was institutionalized at the Larkmoore Clinic, where her niece Sharon regularly visited, though Peggy did not always recognize the younger Carter. Other visitors included William Burnside, once posing as Cap to pump Peggy for information. On her good days, a mentally sharp Peggy entertained the facility’s staff and residents with war stories; the rest of the time, she thought the war was still on, and that she and Cap were still young and in love.

When Peggy passed away, her funeral was attended by Sharon Carter, Steve Rogers, Dum Dum Dugan and Nick Fury. A statue was erected in her honor outside of the S.H.I.E.L.D. Academy in Newark, New Jersey.