Brave New World: What Does Captain America 4's New Subtitle Tease For The MCU
The artist formerly known as "Captain America: New World Order is no more. The first "Captain America" movie to feature Anthony Mackie's Sam Wilson as the titular star-spangled superhero is now known as "Captain America: Brave New World," per the June 6 announcement of the brand new "Captain America 4" subtitle.
The "Captain America" film series is one of the cornerstones of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, so the name change is obviously an intriguing development — not least because the series' titles have traditionally been pretty accurate indications of the ground each movie covers. "Captain America: The First Avenger" and "Captain America: The Winter Soldier" indeed introduce the super soldier personas of Steve Rogers (Chris Evans) and Bucky Barnes (Sebastian Stan), and "Captain America: Civil War" gives fans the MCU take on the classic "Civil War" comic book storyline about a conflict between two major superhero factions. Going by this logic, it's possible that "Brave New World" isn't just an Aldous Huxley reference, but will instead draw inspiration from the biggest Captain America-adjacent comic book story of that name: "Secret Empire: Brave New World."
If this is true, the new subtitle teases extremely interesting things for the new Captain America. The "Secret Empire" story revolves around an evil Cap who's loyal to Hydra and gains control of the US, so the movie may intend to use some of the beats in the comics storyline — though it remains to be seen whether it'll use the central premise of Cap breaking bad. Here's what the new subtitle of "Captain America: Brave New World" could mean for the MCU.
Sam Wilson is the great underdog of the Secret Empire storyline
"Secret Empire: Brave New World" is essentially a collection of viewpoint stories that play out as fractions of the larger "Secret Empire" event. While Sam Wilson doesn't play a huge role in this particular corner of the "Secret Empire" storyline, he's instrumental in the main plot as a down-for-the-count Captain America who eventually resumes the mantle and becomes a great hero again. This is an interesting narrative, given that producer Nate Moore has teased that Sam's Captain America will indeed be a Rocky Balboa-style underdog.
It's worth noting that "Captain America: Brave New World" likely won't adapt the "Secret Empire" storyline in its entirety. After all, the movie isn't called "Captain America: Secret Empire," and Marvel Studios will probably be hesitant to faithfully adapt a comics storyline that has drawn accusations of anti-Semitism and even death threats to its writer (via The New York Times). Besides, it doesn't seem likely that Sam Wilson will become a villain during his very first big-screen outing as Captain America. Instead, given what we know about the movie's cast so far, the most likely evil overlord situation might very well come from some combination of Tim Blake Nelson's Samuel "The Leader" Sterns and Harrison Ford's President Thaddeus "Thunderbolt" Ross, which would no doubt prove a mighty challenge for the new Captain America — especially if the persistent rumors about Ross' Red Hulk eventually showing up in the MCU are correct.
Of course, while the possibility of a full-on "Secret Empire"-style "Hydra Captain America" storyline seems distant, on the off chance that they'd be willing to do it, the situation would probably require Chris Evans' return as a villainous Steve Rogers. After all, Sam Wilson must stay the protagonist here, and a random introduction of a hitherto unknown alternate-timeline Cap seems like an awkward solution. So, could Evans potentially return?
Chris Evans is hesitant to return in the MCU but doesn't rule it out entirely
In an April 26 interview with Entertainment Weekly (via Twitter), Evans commented on his potential MCU return. "I love Steve Rogers," he said. "He's very, very dear to me. But that's exactly the reason that I'm hesitant to revisit — because he's so precious to me. It's this little shiny thing that I have that I'm just so proud of, and to revisit it would have a lot of implications."
While Evans refrained from closing the door entirely, he said he'd think twice before giving Steve another whirl, since the character's narrative arc is already quite complete.
"Look, do I think there's more stories to be told with Steve Rogers? Sure," said Evans. "But that doesn't mean you jump back into it. What that period of time was, what Marvel accomplished during that decade of weaving these movies together in a way that no one's ever done, and having such a good landing with 'Endgame' ... really tough to want to mess with that. I love the character and I would obviously love to keep playing him forever. But it just doesn't really make sense to me right now."
In all fairness, Evans gave the same speech almost verbatim during an appearance at C2E2 (via ComicBook) and even noted in the EW interview that he's essentially paraphrasing an earlier answer. Still, that doesn't necessarily mean Marvel Studios is feeding him lines. Evans has played the PR game for a very long time, so it makes sense that he'd have a stock answer for the most common question he's going to be asked ahead of "Captain America 4." All in all, his comments about Steve Rogers' potential MCU future are a bit of a non-answer ... but they do confirm that if the MCU does the unthinkable and brings back the original Captain America in a movie that stars the new one, you can rest assured that Evans will only sign on if the story is off-the-charts amazing.