I’ll already know what happens in Captain America: Brave New World when I see it over the weekend. After all, I’ve been following MCU leaks for years, and the Captain America 4 plot leaked long ago. The same leaks said test audiences didn’t really like the movie, and the mixed-to-negative reviews coming in after the premiere seem to confirm that.
Thanks to the same leaks, I also know what to expect about Sam Wilson’s (Anthony Mackie) Avengers, which Marvel cheekily teased in the Brave New World trailers and clips. After all, the MCU will need a team of Avengers in place by the time they meet Doctor Doom (Robert Downey Jr.) in Doomsday.
But the film’s credits scene, which leaked ahead of Friday’s Captain America 4 premiere, is much more exciting than I would have thought. Before we can discuss it, I’ll warn you that big Captain America: Brave New World spoilers will follow below.
The Captain America 4 trailers and teasers already showed that President Thunderbolt Ross (Harrison Ford) would want to reform the Avengers, with Captain America leading them. That’s not a surprise, considering we’ve been waiting for Marvel to address the Avengers in the MCU since Endgame.
It’s a topic Marvel avoided in previous Multiverse Saga films and TV shows. The Avengers are revered after the events in Endgame, but they’re not there ready to intervene. We needed years of Multiverse Saga adventures to learn the world doesn’t have any Avengers. It happened off-screen, so we thought Captain America 4 would introduce them.
Now that the full Brave New World plot is out in the wild, we know that’s not the case. Sam never gets to agree to lead Ross’s Avengers, as the two ultimately clash physically. President Ross becomes Red Hulk, and he fights Captain America.
This is a Marvel movie, so the good guys eventually win. After fighting Red Hulk, Sam decides to create his team of Avengers at the end of the film, with Joaquin Torres (Danny Ramirez) becoming the new Falcon on the team. While this happens at the end of the movie, we don’t learn who will be on the team.
Sam’s decision to assemble his own Avengers isn’t a credits scene either, as a previous leak had suggested. That made sense at the time, considering we already knew we wouldn’t get any new Avengers to join Sam in the movie.
Brave New World’s actual credits scene is more exciting than learning a new team of Avengers is about to be created. Again, that was a foregone conclusion. One way or another, Captain America 4 is the movie that sets in motion the events needed to create another team of Avengers.
The Captain America 4 credits scene made me realize how important the film’s villain might be for the future of the MCU and these new Avengers. Samuel Sterns, aka The Leader (Tim Blake Nelson), sets in motion the events leading to Ross becoming Red Hulk.
After the events of The Incredible Hulk, Sterns remained a prisoner of Ross’s after The Leader was injected with Banner’s blood. Sterns developed superintelligence, which allowed him to find a cure for Ross’s heart disease and secretly turn him into Red Hulk. That intelligence also helped Ross become president.
Talking to an imprisoned Stern at the end of Brave New World, the MCU’s new Captain America mocks the villain. Sam gloats that he beat The Leader’s odds of facing and surviving the Red Hulk. That’s where the film’s credits scene gets good.
The Leader gives an ominous speech, telling Sam that he had looked at all sorts of probabilities, coming up with the idea of a multiverse and the secret wars that might be looming. Stern wonders what Captain America will do when he has to defend his world by killing other realities.
The speech practically gives Sam a warning that multiple realities might exist, and they might collide in a worst-case scenario. Well, it’s not like Sam doesn’t know about the multiverse. After all, he lost Steve Rogers (Chris Evans) to a different reality after the events in Endgame. The Leader might have come up with the existence of the multiverse on his own, but Sam is already aware of the concept of multiple realities.
Despite knowing of the multiverse, Sam might not necessarily expect a war between realities. Who in their right mind would? And even if you do, how would you prepare for it? That’s why seeing a villain like The Leader predicting the events in Doomsday and Secret Wars is so interesting.
Sam’s Avengers, whoever they might be, could use the help of a mind like The Leader, especially in a world where there’s no Iron Man to think of such scenarios. Also, remember that Deadpool & Wolverine told us that other gifted individuals have come up with the idea of the multiverse. Fox’s Reed Richards (Ioan Gruffudd) did. And it’s likely that The Fantastic Four’s Reed Richards (Pedro Pascal) will, too.
Until the Avengers meet the latter, they might want to see what The Leader has to say about multiversal wars and how he might help protect the world against a powerful threat that looks just like Iron Man.
