What To Watch Before Captain America: Brave New World

With Marvel Studios latest entry in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Captain America: Brave New World fast approaching, I thought it would be fun to take a quick break from my usual content and make a guide for anyone wanting to catch up or refresh before it hits theatres. Here’s What to Watch Before Captain America: Brave New World.

 

It’s a good place to start off with 2008’s The Incredible Hulk, only the second ever entry in the Marvel Cinematic Universe and one film that gets too often dismissed or forgotten. The MCU’s introduction to Bruce Banner’s (here played by Edward Norton) incarnation of the Hulk. Important characters also include Liv Tyler as Betty Ross, Bruce’s former lover and confidant, as well as her father military man Thaddeus ‘Thunderbolt’ Ross, played by the late William Hurt. Thunderbolt Ross uses a version of the Super Soldier Serum on Emil Blonsky in an effort to counter the Hulk, with disastrous results. Notably, Bruce has a secret contact which turns out to be Samuel Stern, a scientist who makes use of Banner’s gamma-irradiated blood to further transform Blonsky in The Abomination and is also himself inadvertently infected…a plot thread which hasn’t been touched upon on-screen until now.   

 

Skipping past 2011’s Captain America: The First Avenger as it doesn’t feature any of the current film’s major players, we jump straight to Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014). This movie introduces the audience to Anthony Mackie in the role of Sam Wilson and marks his first appearance as the winged hero The Falcon. Sam aids Steve Rogers aka Captain America and Natasha Romanoff aka The Black Widow against Steve’s brainwashed friend Bucky now known as the titular Winter Soldier in a global conspiracy that goes all the way to the top of S.H.I.E.L.D.

 

Optional: 2015 saw Avengers: Age of Ultron in which Sam Wilson briefly meets up with Steve, only reappearing at the film’s end where he is recruited to the new Avengers roster. Also in 2015, the first Ant-Man movie features Scott Lang as the fledgling Ant-Man sneaking into the Avengers Compound to steal a MacGuffin only to be confronted by The Falcon. The two briefly battle but ultimately Scott gets away. This does however set up…

 

Captain America: Civil War (2016) pits Steve Roger’s Captain America against Tony Stark’s Iron Man when the Avengers are forced to choose sides following the implementation of the Sokovia Accords. The movie also saw the return of William Hurt as Thunderbolt Ross after 8 years, now promoted to the Secretary of State. With Bucky framed for a bombing, Sam helps Steve to recruit like-minded allies (including Ant-Man) to hold off Tony’s own team. Sam’s pick proves extremely helpful in the conflict but ultimately, they are all arrested. Fortunately, the film ends with Steve breaking them out, leading them to go on the run as fugitives…

 

Released in 2018, Avengers: Infinity War was the culmination of ten years of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. With Thanos’ forces on Earth seeking the Infinity Stones, Sam and the rest of the fugitive team reform the Avengers to defend The Vision in the Battle of Wakanda. Despite their best efforts, Thanos arrives and claims the last of the Infinity Stones before using them to erase half of the population of the Universe including Sam Wilson…

 

While the majority of Avengers: Endgame (2019) doesn’t feature The Falcon, it does have one of his most memorable scenes. After the erased population is restored 5 years later, a weary Steve Rogers stands alone against Thanos and his assembled army but just when all seems lost he hears Sam say ‘on your left’ as the returned heroes emerge from various portals and assemble for the Battle of Earth. Afterwards, a now aged Rogers passes on the shield to Sam.

 

Optional: The events of the Black Widow movie released in 2021 take place between Captain America: Civil War and Avengers: Infinity War, revealing more details on Natasha Romanoff’s early life and her surrogate family. William Hurt makes his last performance as Thaddeus Ross prior to his passing, pursuing Romanoff before she successfully dismantles the illusive Red Room’s Black Widow Program, apparently prompting him to give her a chance to escape. Reports indicate that actress Shira Haas will portray Ruth Bat-Seraph - known in the comics as Sabra – in Captain America: Brave New World, but to avoid controversy she will be established as a former Black Widow rather than an Israeli superhero.

 

As only the second Disney+ live-action Marvel Cinematic Universe series, The Falcon and the Winter Soldier covers a lot of ground in it’s six episodes. We learn more about Sam’s family life and his conflicted feelings about taking up the mantle of Captain America. He and Sebastian Stan’s Bucky have to put their differences aside to stop the Flag Smashers, while working to stop the new government-sponsored Captain America, John Walker (Wyatt Russell) when he goes too far. The series also introduces Joaquin Torres, a member of the Air Force who relishes working alongside The Falcon and is gifted a set of his old wings. When Bucky and Sam free Zemo from prison to aid them, the also wind up on the wrong side of Wakanda’s special forces, the Dora Milaje. After some soul-searching and a meeting with Isaiah Bradley, a tortured escapee of a Super Soldier Serum test who became Captain America during the Korean War only to be locked away for his service, Sam accepts the Captain America title and saves the day.

 

Optional: Strictly speaking, I don’t believe there will be any returning characters from the 2021 movie The Eternals featuring in Captain America: Brave New World. However, that film’s climax does centre around a gigantic Celestial emerging from the planet only to be transmuted, effectively becoming a massive ‘Celestial Island’. This new island will play a major role in the upcoming film.

 

That should be all the essential viewing you need to fully enjoy Captain America: Brave New World next month. I’m looking forward to seeing Harrison Ford take up William Hurt’s role as Thaddeus ‘Thunderbolt’ Ross and seeing how this mosaic of Marvel Cinematic Universe plot-threads will be woven together.

 

Until I get to tell Tom Holland I have my own movie, I remain

 

frogoat

 

 

Clones in the MC2 (Part 1)

 

Warning! The following post contains spoilers for comics from fifty to as recently as 15 years ago! It is not often a comic book storyline comes along that is so universally beloved for its consistency, quality, and brevity, but the ‘Clone Saga’…is not one of those storylines either. Though it is often unfairly maligned for bad writing and its excessive, unnaturally protracted length, the Clone Saga also delivered some spectacular stories with top tier writing with memorable, iconic, and beloved characters. Some of these characters heavily influenced the MC2. Which brings me to the subjects of today’s post: Clones in the MC2.

 

But before we start talking about clones, we need to detail where they came from, who created them. Which means we need to talk about Professor Miles Warren, who first appeared teaching biochemistry at Empire State University during Peter Parker’s first day of class in Amazing Spider-Man #31 and should not be confused with Peter Parker’s Midtown High School teacher, Mr Warren who first appeared way back in Amazing Fantasy #15 before being (sur)named in Amazing Spider-Man #8. Many years later, Untold Tales of Spider-Man #25 would establish the two men of science as brothers.

 

Shortly after the death of Gwen Stacy, we are introduced to new villain The Jackal in Amazing Spider-Man #129, who manipulates the vigilante known as The Punisher into targeting Spider-Man. The Jackal’s identity remains a mystery until Amazing Spider-Man #148 where he unmasks himself as Professor Miles Warren. Having orchestrated the apparent ‘return from the dead’ of Gwen Stacy (Amazing Spider-Man #142), Warren reveals that he coveted Gwen and blames Spider-Man for her death. Using cell samples obtained during one of his classes, Professor Warren tricked his lab assistant Anthony Serba into cloning Gwen and Peter. Initially led to believe the cloned cells were taken from a rat, upon realizing the truth Serba was murdered by Miles. Professor Warren disposed of Anthony Serba’s body, convincing himself ‘The Jackal’ had committed the crime. Afterwards, Warren fully developed his Jackal persona, and used hypnosis to ‘re-educate’ and control the newly awakened clone of Gwen. Having been drugged by The Jackal, Spider-Man awakens to find himself facing his ‘Spider-Clone,’ with neither Parker knowing which of them was the original thanks to both sharing the same memories up to that point. Breaking free of her mental conditioning, the clone of Gwen lashes out at Miles for his actions. Warren regained his senses just long enough to apparently die in his own timed explosion, along with the clone of Peter (Amazing Spider-Man #147-#149).

 

The clone of Gwen Stacy would bid Peter farewell and depart, while during a battle with Spencer Smythe’s Spider-Slayer, Peter would have the revelation he genuinely loved Mary Jane Watson. Despite having Dr. Curt Connors run a test to find out if he or his doppelgänger was the original, Peter chose to throw away the results without reading them, certain only the one, true Peter Parker could have felt that way. Worried a corpse bearing his face would be found, Peter disposed of the ‘Spider-Clone’ down a smokestack, believing he would be shortly thereafter incinerated (Amazing Spider-Man #149-#151).

For a while that was the end, until Peter Parker, the Spectacular Spider-Man #25 introduced a ghoulish new villain named Carrion who knew Peter was Spider-Man. Later in Peter Parker, the Spectacular Spider-Man #30 it was revealed that this mysterious figure was a clone of Miles Warren, though writer Bill Mantlo originally intended Carrion to be the ‘Spider-Clone’, badly decayed and clad in the remnants of the Green Goblin’s discarded costume.  It’s revealed that prior to his final confrontation with Spider-Man, Miles had injected a cell sample from himself into a ‘clone casket’ to incubate but the process had gone wrong, leaving the clone’s body within to wither and change but kept alive. Eventually set free, the Miles Warren clone sought revenge on the wall-crawler before finally perishing by the tendrils of his own ‘Spider-Amoeba’ experiment (Peter Parker, the Spectacular Spider-Man #31).

Relentlessly pursued by the High Evolutionary’s Gatherers from her quiet life as a teacher in Lansing, Michigan, the clone of Gwen Stacy makes her way to New York to seek Peter Parker’s help (Spectacular Spider-Man #142-#143). After reaching Peter and realising he is Spider-Man, the Gatherers capture clone Gwen and take her and Spider-Man to the High Evolutionary who runs tests on her. After a clash with Spider-Man and the Young Gods, the High Evolutionary claims that Professor Miles Warren had not, in fact, cloned anyone and proposes that Warren had instead kidnapped a woman of similar age and appearance and via infection with a genetic virus, transformed her on a molecular level to resemble Gwen. The Young God known as Daydreamer used her abilities to apparently revert ‘Gwen’ to her former appearance (Spectacular Spider-Man Annual #8). 

According to Professor Warren’s journal recovered from his old laboratory, the woman Warren apparently abducted was a student named Joyce Delaney. Miles’ former assistant Anthony Serba had also been transformed in the ‘Spider-Clone’ by the Professor’s genetic virus, and a version of this would also later turn Malcolm McBride into a second Carrion, with the implication being that another host body had been altered to become the original Carrion seen in earlier stories (Spectacular Spider-Man #149). These issues served to retcon the Original Clone Saga so that there had never been clones at all, a status quo that would not last for long…

 

That’s where we’ll pause for now before the 90’s Clone Saga kicks off. Special thanks to arias-98105, the Marvel Chronology Project, the now-defunct www.samruby.com (via the Wayback Machine) and the Appendix to the Handbook of the Marvel Universe and the Marvel wiki as well as the Clone Saga Chronicles Podcast which I re-listened to while working on this project.

Until I uncover a genetic virus to rewrite my DNA, I remain

 

frogoat