Highlights
- Captain America: Brave New World will introduce Adamantium and potentially The Leader as a villain, setting the stage for future MCU storylines.
- The film may feature a pivotal Celestial Island Summit event and focus on the transformation of liquid Adamantium into metal form.
- Concerns about how the film will handle its antagonists are raised, with a potential need to avoid falling into the MCU's villain issue.
Captain America: Brave New World might still be months away from release, but the upcoming Marvel Cinematic Universe entry is already doing quite the job with the shared universe worldbuilding as the film’s recent promo clips reveal an interesting new addition to the MCU.
Captain America: Brave New World is the fourth installment in the Captain America film series as well as directly following up the 2021 Disney+ show Falcon and the Winter Soldier, and will mark the first mainline MCU project depicting Anthony Mackie’s Sam Wilson as the new Captain America. While expectations for the film are high, including Captain America: Brave New World needing to satisfyingly contrast Sam Wilson with his predecessor Steve Rogers, there’s still very little to go on about the film overall, as while some promotional material has been released it’s not done much to answer the sheer multitude of questions fans have concerning the project.
For a select few, Marvel’s recent showing at D23 offered a sneak peek at some new footage from the upcoming Captain America film, and while this isn’t widely available just yet, one part of the sneak peak will be particularly interesting for longtime Marvel fans. According to ComicBookMovie's reporting on D23, eCaptain America: Brave New World finally revisits the Celestial corpse left in the ocean in Eternals, the movie that first introduced the Celestials to the MCU in one of its own trailers. According to the report, during a promotional clip for Brave New World, newly elected President of the United States Thaddeus ‘Thunderbolt’ Ross holds a Celestial Island Summit event during which he reveals that a new mineral known as Adamantium has been found within the Celestial’s remains.
It was rumored early on that Captain America: Brave New World would introduce this superior material to the MCU, and now that claim has been validated right down to the source of the material. If the rest of the leak is to be believed, then the film’s plot will see Japan be the first to transform the liquid Adamantium into the more popular metal form best known for coating Wolverine’s skeleton and giving him his signature bladed offense. Elsewhere, it’s also been used to create a secondary shield for Captain America, making its inclusion here fitting and potentially even indicative of a future story beat. Furthermore, this rumor also alleges that this initial supply will be plundered by The Leader, a longtime foe of the Hulk and another villainous presence in the film, as this version of the material is discovered early on to absorb radiation.
There has been a long list of things that the MCU has to get to before properly introducing several new characters and storylines ot the MCU, and the addition of adamantium to the mix seems to be a step in the right direction. While this won’t get its proper payoff until the X-Men and Wolverine specifically are fully integrated into the franchise, having the metal in the canon beforehand is smart. As for the potential significance in the actual plot, everyone will just have to wait and see whether the leaks and rumors pan out or not. If it all pans out, then The Leader’s interest in the metal might lie in its effectiveness against gamma-powered characters like the Hulks. There’s every chance that the actual plot of the story has been altered drastically since then, with extensive and expensive reshoots being the order of the day around the set of Brave New World. The production of the film has been troubled for a while now, with the Russo brothers reportedly being brought in to save the project at the 11th hour.
The one thing that Captain America: Brave New World definitely has to watch out for is how it will treat its antagonists. This has been a major problem for Marvel projects for a long while now, and even the MCU’s latest triumph Deadpool & Wolverine suffers from this franchise-wide villain issue. With a much more grounded look and feel to it making the film that much more reliant on a well-written, credible threat, the next Captain America is going to have to watch out for this pitfall extra carefully.
Captain America: Brave New World is currently set for theatrical release on 14 February 2025.
Source: ComicBookMovie.com
