3) Peggy Carter – Captain America: The First Avenger
The love interest in a superhero movie is usually a thankless task for an actress. All they’re usually required to do is to fall in love with the hero over a ridiculously brief period and then generally play the damsel in distress at the climax. Thankfully, that wasn’t the story of tough-as-nails British secret agent Peggy Carter in Captain America: The First Avenger.
With the perfectly cast Hayley Atwell in the role (who looks astoundingly like the leading ladies of the time period), Peggy gets to prove that she’s every bit as brave and capable as Steve Rogers throughout the movie and remarkably, is never captured or kidnapped. Sure, she falls for the super-soldier, but it’s more of a romance between equals than most – not to mention that it has a tremendously tragic ending.
It’s no surprise, then, that Peggy became the movie’s breakout character. Not only did she spinoff into her own Agent Carter TV series, but she also popped up in the movies for cameos in the likes of Avengers: Age of Ultron and Ant-Man.