Captain America: Brave New World is the fourth entry in that long-running Marvel franchise, in addition to being the primary to star Anthony Mackie’s Sam Wilson within the lead function moderately than Chris Evans’ Steve Rogers. But as a lot as this new film is dedicated to persevering with the story of Captain America within the MCU, it’s additionally selecting up quite a lot of unfastened ends from one of many very first MCU films. Brave New World is virtually The Incredible Hulk 2.
From Harrison Ford’s Thunderbolt Ross to Tim Blake Nelson’s The Leader to Liv Tyler’s Betty Ross, let’s break down the historical past of those MCU characters and why Brave New World is basically an Incredible Hulk sequel in all however identify.
Tim Blake Nelson’s The Leader
The Incredible Hulk teed up the subsequent huge villain in Hulk’s world with the introduction of Tim Blake Nelson’s Samuel Sterns, a tease that’s solely simply now lastly paying off in Brave New World. In The Incredible Hulk, Sterns is revealed to be an ally to Norton’s Bruce Banner, working with Banner from afar to assist discover a remedy for the Hulk.
Banner and Sterns lastly meet face-to-face within the movie, the place Banner discovers that Sterns has been a bit overzealous in his experiments with Banner’s gamma-irradiated blood. Sterns is captivated by the thought of their gamma analysis bringing them scientific acclaim, suggesting that he doesn’t fairly have Banner’s sense of ethics. That’s some particular foreshadowing there.
After Banner is taken into custody, Blonsky strongarms Sterns into remodeling him into one other Hulk. Sterns is injured throughout Blonsky’s transformation, at which level a pattern of Banner’s blood seeps into an open wound on his brow. Sterns’ head instantly begins to swell and rework.
Comic e-book followers know that that is the place Sterns evolves from atypical man into The Leader, a gamma-powered villain who’s as sensible as Hulk is robust. But once more, it’s solely now in Brave New World that the MCU is lastly following up on this twist.
Where has Sterns been all these years? The reply is in a comic book e-book known as The Avengers Prelude: Fury’s Big Week, one of many few comics that’s really canon to the MCU. It exhibits Black Widow bringing Sterns into S.H.I.E.L.D. custody, the place he’s presumably remained ever since.
But sooner or later, Sterns escaped and is now on the heart of the conspiracy involving Captain America and President Ross. We don’t know a lot about his function within the movie, as Nelson has been all however absent from the advertising and marketing thus far. We can most likely assume that Sterns had one thing to do with Ross’ transformation into Red Hulk, although, since that was the case within the comics.
Sterns might even have his sights set on adamantium. We know Brave New World can be introducing that iconic, unbreakable metallic to the MCU, doubtless sparking a brand new arms race as the worldwide powers conflict over possession of this invaluable useful resource. The Leader may even see a chance to play that battle to his benefit. Whatever his plans, as The Leader, Sterns is now superhumanly clever, making him a really harmful foe for Captain America and Falcon (Danny Ramirez) to deal with.
Liv Tyler’s Betty Ross
Nelson’s Samuel Sterns isn’t the one The Incredible Hulk character making an extended overdue return look in Brave New World. This can be the primary time we’ll see Liv Tyler reprise the function of Ross’ daughter Betty within the MCU.
As established in The Incredible Hulk, Betty and Bruce Banner initially met and fell in love in school. She later joined Banner as a researcher in Project Gamma Pulse, the place she created the primer that allowed Banner to outlive his publicity to gamma radiation and turn into the Hulk. Betty was amongst these injured throughout Banner’s transformation, sparking her father’s obsessive, Ahab-like hatred of Banner. That obsession has achieved nothing to assist Betty’s already dysfunctional relationship together with her father.
By the present-day occasions of The Incredible Hulk, Betty has principally moved on and began relationship Dr. Leonard Samson (Ty Burrell), although she doesn’t hesitate to hurry to Banner’s support when he resurfaces. Betty does her greatest to help her ex-boyfriend in his quest to remedy himself of his situation, at the same time as that pits her immediately in opposition to her father.
Ultimately, destiny doesn’t enable Betty and Banner to reconnect for lengthy. He resumes his life as a fugitive and Betty fades out of the MCU highlight. We don’t know a lot about her story since then, other than the truth that Betty is among the many many briefly snapped out of existence by Thanos in 2018’s Avengers: Infinity War.
Tyler is lastly reprising her role for Brave New World. But as for what function Betty is supposed to play on this story, we do not know. Like The Leader, Betty has been absent from the movie’s advertising and marketing thus far. Will we uncover she’s patched issues up together with her father? She is the daughter of the president now, in spite of everything. Will she be known as upon for her experience in gamma analysis and all issues Hulk? Let’s additionally not overlook that Betty herself turns into Red She-Hulk within the comics. Will Brave New World observe go well with? We can solely hope.
Harrison Ford’s President Ross/Red Hulk
The most evident signal that Brave New World is definitely an Incredible Hulk sequel is that it revolves closely round Harrison Ford’s Thaddeus “Thunderbolt” Ross. Ford is taking up the function from the late William Hurt, who performed Ross in various MCU films relationship again to 2008.
Ross initially debuted in The Incredible Hulk, serving as one of many most important antagonists to Edward Norton’s Bruce Banner. A stoic army man, General Ross oversees Project Gamma Pulse. Banner is led to imagine the mission revolves round radiation resistance. What he doesn’t know is that Ross is making an attempt to create a contemporary and extra highly effective different to the WWII-era Super Soldier Serum. When Banner checks his experimental components on himself, the Hulk is born.
Since that day, Ross has devoted himself to bringing the Hulk underneath authorities management by any means crucial, even at the price of his relationship together with his daughter Betty. Ross turns to elite soldier Emil Blonsky (Eli Roth) to assist seize the fugitive Banner. Unfortunately, this alliance finally ends up making a monster worse than the Hulk.
Ross injects Blonsky with a model of the Super Soldier Serum, remodeling him right into a Captain America-esque super-soldier. However, Blonsky finds that energy addicting, and it’s not lengthy earlier than he forces Sterns to show him to gamma radiation, changing into the Abomination. After a violent battle in Harlem, Hulk subdues the Abomination. Ross reluctantly permits his nemesis to flee the battlefield, suspending their subsequent showdown for an additional day.
The remaining scene in The Incredible Hulk exhibits a dejected Ross drowning his sorrows at a bar, solely to be approached by Robert Downey, Jr.’s Tony Stark. Stark makes an attempt to recruit Ross into the Avengers Initiative, simply as Nick Fury approached him within the post-credits scene in 2008’s Iron Man, which had been launched only a month earlier than this movie.
For the complete story on that encounter, although, we now have to show to the 2011 Marvel One-Shot brief movie “The Consultant.” There, it’s revealed that the World Security Council needs to recruit the Abomination to affix the fledgling Avengers, a lot to the chagrin of S.H.I.E.L.D. brokers Phil Coulson (Clark Gregg) and Jasper Sitwell (Maximiliano Hernández). Coulson handpicks Stark to fulfill with Ross particularly as a result of he is aware of the egotistical Stark will botch the job and Blonsky will stay in jail. Mission un-accomplished.
From there, Ross didn’t reappear within the MCU for years, lastly resurfacing in 2016’s Captain America: Civil War. By this level, Ross has turn into the Secretary of Defense and is instrumental in drafting the Sokovia Accords. He hopes to rein within the Avengers and make them accountable to a better authority.
The ratification of the Sokovia Accords creates a schism within the Avengers, and Ross winds up throwing Captain America’s anti-registration faction within the superhuman jail referred to as The Raft. It’s not lengthy earlier than Cap breaks his buddies out and so they turn into fugitives from the regulation.
Chronologically talking, Ross’ subsequent look is in 2021’s Black Widow, the place he’s seen looking down Scarlett Johansson’s rogue agent. However, Natasha stays one step forward of Ross and his troops, leaving him to scrub up the wreckage of the Red Room’s floating fortress whereas she disappears into the wind.
Ross makes a small look in Infinity War, the place he’s seen making an attempt to keep up order as Thanos’ forces invade Earth and arguing with Don Cheadle’s War Machine. Ross doesn’t have a lot time to react to Rhodey’s defiance earlier than he and trillions of others are snapped out of existence by Thanos.
Ross, together with the remainder of these trillions, is restored to life when the Avengers handle to undo Thanos’ act in 2019’s Avengers: Endgame. Ross might be seen at Tony Stark’s funeral, paying tribute to a person he butted heads with in life.
Now Ross is returning to play a serious function in Captain America: Brave New World, with Ford taking up the function. As the film opens, Ross has just lately been elected President of the United States. Given how 2023’s Secret Invasion ended, we will infer that the American public, scared of the potential of extra alien invaders lurking amongst them, turned to Ross as a determine with a embellished army document and a robust historical past of coping with superhuman and alien threats.
“The Ross that we knew traditionally, going again to unimaginable Hulk in 2008, and positively variations of him that we noticed throughout the years within the MCU, his nickname was Thunderbolt. He had a thunderous mood. He was a man who hunted Hulks. He was a man who had this actual legacy that would possibly be outlined by his anger,” director Julius Onah informed IGN in a current interview. “But the person that we’re assembly now could be a person who’s an elder statesman, who’s a diplomat, who’s turning a brand new leaf, who sees and understands the errors of his previous and needs to do higher. And in doing that, initiating the Avengers is as a result of they may very well be a profit to the world. So this can be a man who is also trying to reconnect together with his estranged daughter. And there was one thing actually nice about placing him on this journey of redefining himself as he is additionally interfacing with the Captain America who’s defining himself too.”
We’ll see Ross try and make peace with Mackie’s Sam Wilson within the movie, hoping to usher in a brand new period of cooperation between the Avengers and the US authorities. However, Sam will quickly discover himself drawn right into a deep conspiracy after Ross survives an assassination try and transforms into the Red Hulk. That’s proper – one way or the other, Ross has turned himself into the very factor he all the time hated most.
As within the comics, we assume Ross is searching for to guard his nation by making a model of Hulk with extra tactical expertise and battlefield prowess, even when which means making a Faustian discount with The Leader. Unlike the comics, nevertheless, Ross doesn’t appear overly involved with hiding the truth that he’s Red Hulk.
But for Ross, defending his nation additionally means gaining management of adamantium, the newly found super-metal that each world energy is trying to weaponize.
“There’s so many implications to a brand new know-how like this rising, and in some methods it ties into why this film’s known as Brave New World, a know-how that would have each extremely optimistic implications and in addition doubtlessly harmful or destructive implications,” Onah mentioned. “So it was actually thrilling for me to have the ability to be directing and writing a film the place we introduce adamantium to the MCU, and clearly that teases quite a lot of issues that followers are tremendous keen about and it should be nice. And it is also nice to additionally see the geopolitical implications of it on this story as a result of as a know-how, it might have extremely highly effective software for various nations around the globe. And then you concentrate on it in a world the place vibranium additionally exists, it is only a very, very wealthy terrain to play with.”
Does the brand new Captain America have what it takes to unravel this conspiracy and take down a Hulked-out President Ross within the course of? But possibly there’s a greater query we needs to be asking…
Where Is The Hulk in Brave New World?
At this level, the one factor stopping Captain America: Brave New World from being known as The Incredible Hulk 2 is the truth that Hulk himself is MIA. There’s no indication that Mark Ruffalo’s Bruce Banner has a component to play on this sequel, although we wouldn’t rule out a secret, last-minute cameo look. Cap might definitely use the additional muscle when he takes on Red Hulk.
It would definitely make sense to incorporate Banner in some capability, given how the character’s story has unfolded within the MCU thus far. Banner and his alter ego have come up on the earth because the occasions of The Incredible Hulk. Hulk joined the Avengers and gained an aura of respectability, After his self-imposed exile on Sakaar in Thor: Ragnarok and his near-death battle with Thanos in Avengers: Infinity War, Banner has gained a newfound management over his gamma facet. Banner and Hulk have primarily merged right into a single being with all of Hulk’s energy and all of Banner’s intelligence.
Including Hulk in Brave New World makes much more sense when you think about that he’s one of many solely heroes preserving the torch of the Avengers alive proper now. If we’ve discovered something from Phases 4 and 5 of the MCU, it’s that Banner and Benedict Wong’s Wong have turn into the planet’s first line of protection in opposition to all threats superhuman and magical. They’re minding the store at a time when the Avengers have but to be reformed.
We must assume that Banner would have an interest to know that his outdated nemesis has immediately turn into a Hulk, too, and that Sterns has resurfaced with gamma powers of his personal. We’d additionally prefer to know what the present state of Banner’s relationship with Betty is as of late. Have the 2 reconnected now that Hulk is a decent superhero in command of his powers?
For higher or worse, it doesn’t seem that Hulk does have an enormous half to play in Brave New World. Any Banner look could also be relegated to a post-credits scene, if even that. But it’s price remembering that Banner has his arms full with different issues as of late. He’s now a member of a full-fledged household of Hulks. We noticed his cousin Jen Walters (Tatiana Maslany) turn into a superhero lawyer within the She-Hulk sequence. That present additionally ended with the reveal that Banner has a gamma-powered son, Skaar, from his time on Sakaar. Banner could also be off-world bonding with Skaar, explaining why he isn’t round to assist Cap take care of Red Hulk and The Leader.
In that case, we’ll simply have to attend till 2026’s Avengers: Doomsday to see Earth’s Mightiest Heroes formally again in motion.
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Jesse is a mild-mannered employees author for IGN. Allow him to lend a machete to your mental thicket by following @jschedeen on BlueSky.
