#a ghost sif that was killed by the king (?) that seems to only exist because of the kings wishcraft

[sitten1115]

Rotating the many non human Siffrins in my mind. Love when people put Siffrin through things.

[violetfaust]

Episode 3 of What If...? ended where it should have started.

Nobody was asking "What if there was a murder mystery?" We wanna know who would be the Avengers if the first string was knocked out.

Fury was starting with Captain Marvel and a thawed-out Captain America. Who else would join c. 2011?

By process of elimination, not:

Asgardians--In this universe, Loki seems to have taken over the earth pretty easily with a united Asgard behind him. Have to assume that after his Heel Reveal, he's going to remain the antagonist (at least until Thanos shows up collecting Infinity Stones). Among the Asgardians, the only people who seemed to really dislike/distrust Loki are the Warriors Four (incl. Sif), but they are not likely to team up with the planet that murdered Thor. There IS an Asgardian wild card, though; see below.

Ant Fam cluster--Hope is dead, Janet is still lost in the quantumverse, Hank is presumably in prison forever, and Scott also hasn't yet been released. The Ant-man suit is locked in a basement. But see below for wild cards.

Isaiah Bradley--Leave him alone!!! Let the man have peace! But also he doesn't seem to have been known to SHIELD and the people in the Army who experimented on him think he's dead.

Bucky Barnes--Still mind-controlled by Hydra, but also quite possibly dead. There's a good theory that since Hope died on a mission in Odessa in 2009, she was involved in the shootout where Natasha met the Winter Soldier. And if the Winter Soldier killed her, I imagine Hank would have gone after him even before the potential Avengers.

Defenders/Netflix MCU cluster--I haven't watched these shows, but from what I can glean online, none of them are active heroes in 2011, and the only one who has powers at the time is Jessica Jones, who is resisting her friend's pressure to take on a costumed identity. Jessica could end up being a wild card if Fury did an open call, but that doesn't seem smart when your main antagonist is the guy who rules the world.

Spider-Child--Is eleven. Also unpowered.

Dr. Strange--Still busy being an arrogant asshole surgeon (instead of an arrogant asshole wizard sorcerer).

Vision--Doesn't exist, and with Tony and Banner dead, never will.

Wakanda cluster--If I understand correctly, T'Chaka is currently the Black Panther and he is busy being a king and raising a family. Erik/N'Jadaka is unpowered and racking up kills in Black Ops. I'm not sure if a threat to the entire world (Asgardians) would be enough to lure T'Challa out of Wakanda but my gut says probably not.

Wanda and Pietro--Unpowered, supposed to be teenagers I think? May not even have been recruited to Hydra yet.

Yelena Belova and the rest of the Black Widows--Still under mind control for another five years. Possibly a wild card if she finds out who killed her sister, though she's more likely to go for murder than joining a team.

Okay, so who ARE the possibilities?

Iron Fam cluster--Pepper and Rhodey are alive and have access to Tony's tech. One of them could definitely take up Tony's legacy, and Fury knows where they live. My money is on Rhodey, since Pepper would probably be the one running all the businesses.

SHIELD agents--Fury packed the OG Avengers with two of his agents, so he definitely promotes from within. The obvious choice is Melinda May, who is established as Natasha's equal if not superior. I can only assume she wasn't on the roster from the beginning because she isn't based on a comics character and so didn't yet exist was on desk duty following the trauma of the Bahrain incident. But since her partner Coulson is alive to ask her nicely, she'd come back into the field for this. (Maria Hill, as Fury's personal deputy, would stay with SHIELD.)

That makes four.

Now for the fun part--the wild cards!

Valkyrie--Is out in space, probably already established as a bounty hunter on Sakaar. She wouldn't give a shit about Asgard or Midgard--BUT what if she already knew Carol, and joined up as a personal favor to her...?

Ava Starr (Ghost)--Has had her powers since childhood and apparently at this point was actually being used by SHIELD as an assassin. Her backstory is as horrifying as Isaiah's, frankly, and I'd like to think that she was kept secret by the Hydra side and Fury had no part in her abuse. But if he knew about her, her genuine superpowers might outweigh her mental instability so he would recruit her.

Sam Wilson--In 2011 Sam was out of the army; Riley had died and the EXO-7 Falcon project was scrapped. He could become Falcon at any time--but he seems to have been entirely off Fury's radar and had no access to his gear. He doesn't meet Steve until 2014 and that's completely by chance. BUT. If the entire world has been taken over by superpowered/magical alien beings (and that's what the Asgardians are), I can't imagine him NOT fighting back somehow. Whatever resistance there is, he'd be part of it. So he might come into contact with the Avengers that way, and if he did, he'd immediately offer his "resume" as he did to Steve in CA:TWS.

The Yellowjacket suit--The Ant-Man suit is locked in a basement, but Hank was arrested wearing the Yellowjacket suit. That gives Fury access to it, and barring it having some kind of kill switch (probably literally), he can just drop whichever agent he likes into it. I was originally thinking Coulson, but...far more evilly...what if it was Rumlow or Grant Ward...? Thus putting a Hydra mole into the Avengers from the very beginning...?

So here's my roster:

Captain Marvel/Carol Danvers

Captain America/Steve Rogers

Iron Man/James Rhodes

The Cavalry/Agent Melinda May

Valkyrie/Brunnhilde

Ghost/Ava Starr

Falcon/Sam Wilson

Yellowjacket/Grant Ward (muwhahahaha)