We don’t want to say anything too obvious here, but the further we get into the MCU, the more stuff happens. And the closer we get to the end of a phase, some Marvel projects find themselves in the uncomfortable position of having to tie up a ton of loose threads in service of a broader plot. With The Fantastic Four: First Steps just around the corner, and technically ringing in a whole new phase, Captain America: Brave New World seems to be in that exact situation.
The events that have led us here go all the way back to 2008 and are now scattered across Disney+ series and movies alike, and not necessarily in a good way. So here follows a messy account of all the loose ends that wound up on Sam Wilson’s to-do list.
There have been moments throughout Marvel’s nearly 20 years of storytelling dominance that have more business to take care of, so to speak. Going all the way back to Iron Man 2, some MCU titles don’t have the luxury of just telling their own story, and in recent years you can argue that none of them have. But the need to tie up loose ends in any given project is more present than ever in Marvel films now, and it gets more complicated the more characters bob and weave through the canon. Sam Wilson’s first solo outing as the official Captain America seems to be one of those projects that drew the short straw, with more than a little thread-pulling to do.
Sam’s road to wielding the shield is the straightest path to the events of Brave New World. First appearing in 2014’s Captain America: The Winter Soldier while running slower than Steve Rogers would like, Sam started his MCU tenure as a VA counselor, helping veterans readjust to life back at home. After proving himself by helping to root HYDRA out of SHIELD, he quickly became Steve’s most trusted right hand… err left I guess is the side he’s always on. By the time Avengers: Age of Ultron’s final moments rolled around, Falcon was a full-fledged Avenger. Captain America: Civil War finds him so entrenched he’s heading off to prison with the rest of Team Cap. And this is where the path to Brave New World gets well and truly muddy.
Before he becomes Captain America, Sam meets Thaddeus Ross in Civil War at the Avengers Compound and likely again while being incarcerated at The Raft, gets reluctantly chummy with Bucky and very briefly crosses paths with Sharon Carter before going on the run with Team Cap all the way through the events of Infinity War. There he joins the battle against Thanos in Wakanda only to be dusted – and just kinda not exist for five years before coming back to battle Thanos again, but this time on the winning team. Cut to old man Rogers back from his time-travel adventures keeping Hulk’s promise to the Ancient One, and gifting Sam a shiny new shield that came from… somewhere in the past, or maybe an alternate timeline, because the original one was for sure chopped in half. Will we finally find out where that shield came from in Brave New World?
And that’s not even including The Falcon and The Winter Solider, where he finally took on the mantle of Captain America after a lot of hemming and hawing. So where Brave New World open questions are concerned, let’s start there.
Where’s Bucky?
We loved Bucky and Sam’s frenemy energy in Civil War, and it was nice to see the two former partners of Captain America bond in The Falcon and the Winter Soldier. So on the one hand, it’s kind of surprising that Bucky isn’t back for Brave New World. He has been in every other Cap movie to date, after all. But then again, it’s a big ol’ Marvel Cinematic Universe, and he has other places to be.
Namely, James Buchanan “Bucky” Barnes is audience bait on another big tentpole movie for Kevin Feige. Thunderbolts comes out in May, where Bucky will be hanging out with a team of non-Avengers that includes Yelena Belova, Red Guardian, U.S. Agent, Taskmaster, Ghost, Sentry, and Selina Meyer… uh, Contessa Valentina Allegra de Fontaine. Don’t worry though. I’m sure he and Sam will get to nod steelily if lovingly at each other in Avengers: Secret Wars.
The Winter Soldiering of Isaiah Bradley, and His Young Avengers Grandson
Carl Lumbly’s Isaiah Bradley has one of the grimmest backstories in the MCU. A Korean War vet, he and other African-American soldiers were experimented on in an attempt to recreate the Super Soldier Serum that had turned Steve Rogers into Captain America. Though these efforts led to the deaths of most of his comrades, Bradley survived and was imprisoned by his own government for decades. Eventually he was freed, and it was in The Falcon and the Winter Soldier that we learned of his story.
Now, in the trailers for Brave New World, Isaiah appears to have fallen under the control of another malevolent force as he attempts to assassinate Harrison Ford’s President Ross. Was he Winter-Soldiered, in a sense? He’s clearly not doing this by his own accord, but who is controlling him and why do they want Ross dead?
Meanwhile, Bradley has a grandson named Eli. In the comics, Eli is also a member of the Young Avengers and goes by the codename Patriot. Is it possible that he has the Super Soldier Serum coursing through his veins? The MCU sure has been setting up the Young Avengers for a long time now, so if they ever pull the trigger on it, Eli is ready and waiting for the call.
Sharon Carter the Traitor
The once flirty neighbor in The Winter Soldier turned ally and love interest in Civil War, Sharon Carter turned out to be a straight-up villain in The Falcon and the Winter Soldier. Presumably because she was mad at the government for almost a decade of that fugitive life, the former Agent 13 re-fashioned herself into the Power Broker for reasons that remained mostly off-screen. She wrapped up her time on the show clearly up to no good and planning to use her fresh pardon for fresh crimes.
The loose end factor here is two-fold: Why did she, dear perfect Peggy Carter’s niece, go so bad, and what would it take for her to go good again? She was down to sell super soldier serum to the highest bidder in TFATWS, and the jury is still out on if, as a Captain America character, Sharon even shows up in Brave New World at all. It’s just as likely as it is not. Considering she played such a big part in The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, this is a mess that might just stay messy, but who knows, maybe she’s behind whatever serum gives the president his new look. Speaking of which…
General – Secretary – President – Red Hulk Ross
Finally getting past Falcon and the Winter Soldier, but perhaps in the wrong direction… When was the last time we actually saw Thunderbolt Ross on screen? Chronologically speaking, that is. Of course, he was the brutish military man/antagonist and would-be father-in-law to Bruce Banner way back when Banner looked like Edward Norton and Ross looked like the late William Hurt. He subsequently popped up only here and there, most notably as a reminder that the Avengers had rules to follow just like everybody else in Civil War. He chased Natasha Romanoff for a while in the Black Widow solo film (which took place after Civil War but before Avengers: Infinity War), but only saw her again on a hologram conference call during Infinity War. He was also at Tony Stark’s funeral in Endgame, which, by our count, was his most recent, in-universe appearance.
In the meantime, clearly he’s had his sights on politics. President Matthew Ellis held the office for at least two terms in the present tense Marvel films, Dermot Mulroney’s President Ritson was commander-in-chief for at least a Secret Invasion amount of time, but somewhere in there, ol’ Thunderbolt Ross entered the political thicket as well. And got or is about to get Red-Hulked along the way. His MCU origins in The Incredible Hulk leave plenty of options as to the how and when and why of his Hulking, one of which is… well… we guess it’s safe to assume he still has a daughter…
The Doctor Was a Woman, You Jerk, and She Was Betty Ross
We’ve had no shortage of Hulk in the MCU and even no shortage of Hulk romance. The dude’s got a kid and everything now. But do you know who it seems has been completely and rudely forgotten about it? His original flame, Betty Ross. I hope they broke up properly at some point.
They kinda were already broken up the last, and first, time we saw Betty back in 2008’s The Incredible Hulk. She had another boyfriend and everything, but we all know that dude was more of a spare and Bruce just kinda vanished so there can’t have been any closure worth a damn and Bruce was the only Hulk for her and I just want Betty to be happy is all. Anyway, Liv Tyler is said to be returning for Brave New World, so stay tuned there.
And while we’re talking about 17-year-old MCU movies, Tim Blake Nelson’s Samuel Sterns, a.k.a. Hulk villain The Leader, is also set to make his return in the film. We’ve got a whole other article and video about this going up this week, so check that out too.
That Celestial Hand
One of the knocks of the MCU since Eternals came out in 2021 – yeah, remember that one? – is that there’s still a giant goddamn hand (and head!) popping out of the ocean. It’s the kind of mind-shattering, “the world doesn’t make any sense anymore” thing that people start religions over, and it’s gotten barely a mention in the years since. Until now!
Based on the trailers, it seems that Marvel is finally revisiting the thing in Brave New World, and it could have a big old nerdy implication for the MCU. Basically, the hand belongs to the cosmic being known as Tiamut, who was – get this – planted by the Celestials millions of years ago as a seed in the center of the Earth. There he grew, feeding off the energy of the human race, and was meant to one day emerge in a not entirely imaginative event called the Emergence, destroying the Earth along the way. (This actually happened in an alternate universe on What If…?) But the Eternals realized this was kind of a sucky thing to do, and so they stopped the Celestial mid-Emerge. Hence giant hand (and head!) sticking out of the Indian Ocean. And hence that age-old Google search term “Why there is a giant statue of a man sticking out of the ocean.” Yes, we have an explainer on that on IGN.
As for why Marvel is finally returning to all of this, as revealed at Comic-Con last summer, it turns out that Tiamut’s body is the source of none other than the precious and super-fake Marvel metal alloy known as adamantium. That moment in the Brave New World trailers when President Ross is almost assassinated? Apparently he’s announcing the adamantium that was recovered from the dead Celestial. Adamantium, of course, is bonded to Wolverine’s skeleton and claws, and the MCU couldn’t use it in the past because the X-Men movie rights were tied up at Fox. But not anymore. As Kevin Feige himself said at Comic-Con, “Just when I think my nerdy life can’t get more complete, I heard Harrison Ford say adamantium.”
How Messy Is the MCU World Now? Messy as This Recap?
The end of TFATWS featured a typical Captain America inspirational speech, with Captain Wilson encouraging the leaders of the Global Repatriation Council to show some compassion. And Cap himself admitted there are no easy answers to everybody that was blipped, only to return and find other people living in their homes and loved ones having moved on or daughters being like 10 years older somehow instead of just the five years that had gone by (this is an Ant-Man’s daughter in Endgame reference, obviously).
But also, man, none of the other movies seem to have gotten the message. There’ve been almost 20 projects that take place chronologically after TFATWS, and it seems as though Marvel has moved well past being interested in the repercussions of the Blip. Like Sharon Carter, the Flag Smashers, and Baron Zemo (can’t forget about him), it will be interesting to see if Brave New World can live up to being a sequel to The Falcon and the Winter Soldier.
Which is to say, can it be a sequel to The Incredible Hulk, The Winter Soldier, Eternals and The Falcon and the Winter Soldier while also answering lingering questions from three of the four previous Avengers movies?
Like we said… it’s a mess out there.
Let us know what you think of the messy Marvel timeline. Does Brave New World have a chance at cleaning it up?
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