Howard Stark Is Our New Favorite MCU Character in 'What If...?'

Although Tony Stark is the most famous of Marvel’s Starks, his father, Howard Stark, wasn’t too shabby either. And Episode 1 of What If…? serves us some prime Howard Stark — a genius who spent a night with Hedy Lamarr and learned zero German. He definitely bears a striking resemblance to his son, both in demeanor and appearance, but who is the voice behind Howard Stark?

Many of us are familiar with John Slattery’s older Howard Stark from Iron Man 2, Captain America: Civil War, Ant-Man, and Avengers: Endgame. However, some of us might have forgotten that we actually do meet a younger Howard Stark similar to the one in What If…? in Captain America: The First Avenger, played by Dominic Cooper. But does Dominic voice Howard in What If…? or is someone else taking on the role?

Dominic plays young Howard Stark in Captain America: The First Avenger, and now What If…? has given him the opportunity for another crack at the elder Stark in his prime time. While it’s been confirmed that Robert Downey Jr. won’t be joining the cast of What If…?, Dominic’s portrayal of Howard definitely eased some of our pangs of nostalgia for Robert’s Tony Stark.

This young Howard is a sly guy — he’s funny, he’s brilliant, and he definitely has that 1940s charm. We can see where Tony Stark gets it from. Not only that, but when he gets his hand on the Tesseract, he creates an Iron Man-esque suit for Steve Rogers to wear called the HYDRA Stomper. In this alternate universe, Howard Stark did it first.

Although MCU canon is technically anything produced by Marvel Studios and Kevin Feige, Dominic loved his turn at Howard so much that he was part of a different Marvel property. Dominic was also Howard Stark in the Marvel series Agent Carter.

While this was at one point considered an MCU property, Kevin has more recently revealed that WandaVision was the first television show considered MCU canon.

Regardless, Dominic Cooper has been around, even before taking on the mantle as Tony’s dad. He’s actually from the U.K., so he started on stage in the West End and moved onto film and television later. His first major film role was opposite Keira Knightley in The Duchess in 2008, so he did pretty well before joining the MCU.

Are we going to hear more of Dominic in the MCU? It does seem likely. While every episode of What If...? in Season 1 is based on a different alternate universe, Season 2 will have another Captain Carter episode, so our fingers are crossed that we’ll get a reprise from Dominic.

Episode 1 of What If…? is now available to stream on Disney Plus. New episodes are released Wednesdays.