Would Steve Still Be Captain America?

Welcome to Marvel Maniac and MCU After Show. This is your host, Eric Cicada, aka Mr. Honest. Back with you for some solid discussion, slash theories, slash. What the heck is going on? It's a big year for Marvel, despite not too many theat theatrical releases. However, the theatrical releases are huge. Spider man, brand new day coming up just in a few weeks. I can almost taste it. And then we have a short five months from now. I say short because time flies by. We are on the foot of Avengers Dooms. And before we talk a little bit more about Spidey in the next few episodes, I thought we'd go and talk a little bit about our main man, Steve Rogers. There is a lot to speculate with Steve and his role in Avengers Doomsday. And I want to start off here with the concept art for Avengers Doomsday. If you haven't seen it, Google Avengers Doomsday concept art and it'll come up. It's shades of blue, kind of a light green. And at the very forefront in the middle of it, we have Dr. Doom's mask. We officially get to see his mask below him directly. We have a little Loki in the center of everything, but kind of quietly there. We have the X Men. We have the New Avengers. We have the Avengers, at least Sam Wilson and Falcon. We see Shang Chi. We see Shuri. We see Umbaku. We see the Fantastic Four. But something worth noting is, you know, I'd expect the Fantastic Four to take a big spot on the poster. If Thor's gonna be in the movie, I'd expect him to have one too. But Steve Rogers, well, he is as big as any main character. X. You know, he's smaller than Doom. That's. And that's the size of Thor, Steve Reed Richards, Fantastic Four, and Debataly. Sam Wilson, who's flying over everything as Captain America. Right, I said it. Captain America. This is where we kind of wonder what's going on with Steve Rogers. What is he gonna do in this movie? Is he gonna take the mantle from Sam? Is he gonna be another Captain America to operating Captain America's? Wouldn't that kind of cheapen the amount of time and build up at least, you know, the amount of time we've spent with accepting that Sam Wilson is our Captain America. And finally, I'm at a point where, like, I'm like, yeah, damn right, he's a captain. Oh, Steve Rogers coming back. Even when they put out this teaser trailer, which is something I want to discuss as well. Back in December, we haven't talked about these trailers on here because they were so speculative and I didn't know what any of them really meant. And the movie so far away, I just felt like it would just get me excited and then the hype would die down again. I'm just was waiting for that movie to get closer and it finally is closer. And now I'm starting to wonder after this concept arc. Okay, well, they weren't just showing Steve to get people in seats. They were showing Steve because he really not just showing up. He's not cameoing. He is returning for Avengers Doomsday. Being a fan of Captain America and the MCU in general. One of the OG Avengers coming back for this big battle royale. We're not talking about Fortnite yet, people. We are talking about a major Avengers movie. Something that will change the course of the MCU forever and onward forward. We have an Infinity War Avengers level threat type movie. It's on the horizon. And I still think back to Infinity War in theaters as long as it's been eight full years. This movie is going to make an impact whether we like it or not. And I'm going to pray that it's a dang good movie up to par with Infinity War because I trust the Russos. Likely forewarning for Mr. Honest after we see Doomsday, you may get a little bit of a toxic optimist. If the entire. I want to call it toxic. I just want to say if. If the entire fan base is kind of upset about this movie, I'm likely to try and find a little bit of good in all the bad. But let's just stop ourselves right there and just assume this movie is going to be amazing. Okay, now let's back to the poster. Back to Steve Rogers role in Avengers Doomsday. So the biggest clue in this concept art, it's not really what is, because it's what Steve isn't. Okay? Steve isn't wearing the shield, he isn't wearing the suit. And Marvel could easily just put him in, you know, the red, white and blue again. If they wanted him to appeal to Captain America fans, they're doing something specific. They didn't do that. And that feels intentional. So that's why I'm saying, and I'm fully committed to thinking that Marvel is telling us Sam Wilson is still our Captain America. I've wondered over the last few days which kind of led me to do this episode. I've been speculating myself. I even tweeted it. You know, I've been in the fan discussion on X Social media and whatnot. I like keeping up with the fans, seeing what everyone else is saying, thinking thoughts and, well, would end. You know, this was my thought that I kind of challenged a couple people with. I said if Marvel had always planned on Steve Rogers return like he is to this level in this next movie, technically, if just a broad Avengers fan walking in, just seeing the Avengers movies, the story they tell alone beside, aside from the inside singular movies, would Steve Rogers ever have even given down the mantle of Captain America to Sam Wilson? Personally, I don't think so. I. I don't think so. I don't think they thought he'd be coming back, at least at this level. Maybe he would have come back as the old man Steve. You know, there's something in the comics resembling him being kind of like a leader, like Nick Fury type as the old man. That'd be kind of cool. But would they have sent Steve back to Peggy if they knew about this? Would Marvel even have left him frozen somewhere? Kind of like they did with Bucky when he was trying to figure out not being the Winter Soldier, even though that's kind of still his name. The Winter Soldier who assassinated people for hydra. He. They kind of ripped that out of him, out of him in Wakanda, putting him under sometimes experiment and whatnot. So, you know, at the time, Endgame felt like the perfect goodbye. But Steve was only going away for six years and I know that's a long time, but that's the amount of time that it's taken for them to make another Avengers movie. It's. That's why we're so hyped right now. It's almost like the freaking release of GTA. Imagine we had to wait 13 years for a new Avengers movie. And it was always working in the process. That would be. I don't know if the fans would stay around for that. Personally, I would still be waiting. Was it a really, Was it really good pie at the end of End Game for Steve now? Is. Are we retconning? Are we going into this new release of Endgame? They're putting it back in theaters called Endgame Encore, where they're going to be putting some integral new scenes and maybe a post credit scene about Doomsday. They're gonna. I don't know if they're gonna retcon things that they did in Avengers End Game or they're gonna add to things that we didn't see off screen in Endgame. And you know, what is it just to get people's butts back in Seats partially, I think. But I also don't think they would have done this if they didn't want to kind of lay tracks out retroactively and decide, okay, well, we want to make it at least look like it was a plan for this to happen. Here's our new end game, edited for going into Doomsday. So that leads me to my next question. Who is Steve Rogers now in Doomsday? This is where the fun starts. Because he could make you do a lot of things here. I don't know as much about the comics, but I did a swift little Google search. I'm not gonna like, you know, not do a little bit of research because this is kind of important. So option one, Steve could become Nomad from the comics. This fits because it's still kind of a Captain America esque role, similar to US Agent John Walker himself, who's kind of grown on me as a character. I'm excited to see him in this movie. He does make the poster with the new Avengers, so we will have some shields of flying around, especially if Steve gets a shield. Again, I've been doing every little tiny bit I can do to avoid spoilers for this movie. So this episode is completely spoiler free. All speculation. I'd recommend, if you're somebody who uses YouTube as much as me, if there's a channel that's putting out a lot of spoilery stuff and that's just not your thing, there is no shame and just hard pressing the remote or wherever you are online and say, don't show me videos like this. Eventually your algorithm will start to get it. Because, you know, there's lots of rumors, lots of what they're calling plot leaks, things that contradict each other. I don't want to know. I don't want to know what happens. I just made an episode about this. You should go back and listen to it. We don't want. I don't want spoilers. There's a big subsection of the fan base who wants to go in and have the ride of a lifetime watching Avengers, Doomsday and Spider man for. For all it's worth. I think they're starting to show too much of that trailer. But back to the topic. Nomad is a comic book role that Steve takes on. He kind of hates the government. It's pretty much an anti government role. But I think it's something they could easily repaint to give him another superhero name, make him a little more prominent instead of just Steve Rogers. Nick. Like, maybe Steve Rogers is just like Nick Fury. You know, Nick Fury is a pretty cool name in general to stand alone as a hero or director. Maybe Steve will just go by Steve Rogers. Steve, you know, he's so iconic in his own right. He's definitely made his moves. He's a legend. So him being just Steve Rogers is maybe suffice. You know, he could actually be something else from the comics called the Captain, which is similar to Captain America as well. Comic accurate. So it's another mantle he could be putting on to let Captain America stay with Sam Wilson. Because that is a big decision that was made. And you don't just take away something like that after giving it. It wouldn't look very good at all, in my opinion. Even though I want Steve to be Captain America, I wish they knew they were going to bring him back because I wish he was Captain America. But you don't just pass on the mantle to another hero as a filmmaker and as a character and take that mantle away when the time feels right. Especially when they're jumping into their first Avengers movie is Captain America. So I personally don't want Steve to become Captain America again. And that might be a hot take. That might be something you all agree with. What do you think? Marvelmaniac pod gmail.com join our Discord discussion in the notes of this episode. We'd love to have you. I'm so curious to hear what you think about what you're thinking about all this. Yes. You know, back to option three. You know, those two names. He could be Nomad. He could be the Captain. He could be Steve Rogers, the mentor, the veteran, the. The man everyone follows, legendary in his own right. And that could honestly be the most powerful version. I mean, he is on the poster as Steve Rogers. He's not in any superhero suit. But we know what they do with posters pre movie. They change things for the story that they want us to think they're going to tell. And I think that Doomsday, thank God, isn't over marketing because they know they have a new Avengers movies on movie on their hands and how those movies sell themselves. They could put the trailer out a month before release. It would still break records. Okay, maybe that's something they'll do, but I highly doubt it. We have Comic Con coming up. There's things coming out about the movie. Kevin Feige's doing, you know, comic cons in Japan, I think, I don't know what they call it over there. And he's telling people little bits and pieces about what's coming up. You know, there's a Something about a certain character I'm not going to say anything about, but he kind of gave away a cameo and Brand New Day, which, you know what? Kevin Feige is the only one that could do that and not make me mad. He's the man. He's the one with the answers. He's the legend. So he's putting this whole thing together on top of the Russo brothers holding the MCU together, similar to Doctor Strange and Spider Man. No way home when he barely keep the multiverse shut at the end. And see, Peter has to give him that painful decision of how to fix that. But this is the one episode about Spider man we won't be doing this month. This teacher trailer that came out back in December, it doesn't show the same looking Steve Rogers that we see in the concept art. The trailer version of Steve Rogers is him looking pretty much like we left him. He is in the past, clearly. We got him riding a motorcycle. Classic Steve Rogers. We got him taking out his Captain America suit. And just looking at it makes me wonder, are they gonna do that? Well, we just have two Captain Americas. I mean, is that a possibility? Will Sam Wilson just step down? Will fans be mad at that? I think some people will be mad at that anyway. You know, there's a baby that's kind of the most important part. That's kind of the resonating note it leaves us on. And it doesn't leave us on, like, the most optimistic Avengers theme song. These trailers kind of like have a sadder version of the Avengers theme played on one piano note at a time. And it leaves us with like a 10, what feels like a 10 second shot of Steve and his baby. So, okay, this is where I'm gonna get speculative and I'm gonna wonder what is going to bring Steve Rogers back home to our mcu, as in home, instead of the home he has made with Peggy. Well, you're going to take that baby away, and he's got to go save his baby. That's one thing. And the reason I say this is this is just an example of there's a lot of babies in the mcu. The Fantastic Four has Franklin, Thor has love, and the MCU suddenly has multiple children tied to powerful heroes. And Marvel usually doesn't emphasize things, especially like children, unless they matter. So, you know, I'm not sure how important the baby is in all this. It might just be me overthinking. But Marvel doesn't usually spend precious teaser time on something that isn't emotionally important. Like, this seems to be Continuing into speculating a bit on the why Steve Rogers is back. It's. It's a good question, I think, to ask. Did he cause more problems than we thought with this time travel that he did? Returning the Infinity Stones and Thor's hammer and, you know, going back through time to make the time heist so it didn't break the entire multiverse, I think he might have done damage. But there's. There's no proof in the pudding for that. This is all theory. This is all wandering. This is something you can listen to me talk about. An episode one of Marvel Maniac. Back in 2021, I literally was pretty much writing the movie of Steve returning the Stones. Always interested in that story, him coming back. There may be. I mean, this is speculation again, this isn't spoiler talk. This is me wondering. This is me geeking out. Maybe they will open the movie or show that Steve returning the Stones wasn't easy for him. Maybe he caused some incursions along the way, and maybe, just maybe, there's some multiversal issues that he caused that bring him back into the fold of this movie. If Steve knew he broke something so big, so precious, putting billions of lives at stake. Because that's what we know. Incursions are the ending of worlds. Two worlds colliding and one kind of winning. And I mean, it's insane. Or both of them are all destroyed. That's billions of people. Steve would not let that stand. We just know him as a character. He would probably throw himself back into the mix to see what he can do to fix it. And if that means leaving Peggy again and his child, maybe that's just what it means because he has a responsibility to correct the mistakes he made. That's how I would look at that version of the movie and why they bring him back. You know, it's all spec. Because I'd like to know, you know, what happened during that time at the very least. Maybe it's not the exact reason. Maybe this. His baby is taken, but maybe it's both. Who knows? You know, there's a lot of little pieces we could pick up and just run with. With Steve coming back. It's one of the greatest mysteries of this movie, in my opinion. So we still don't know exactly how Marvel is gonna, you know, fit this time travel stuff together and, you know, kind of not retcon, but decide to tell a story with the establishment of time travel that they set up in Avengers Endgame for. To me, them putting out another version of that movie being the Final actual movie that releases before Doomsday. I think that says a lot. I don't think they would be doing this if they didn't feel like it needed to be done. So I would recommend going into theaters and I'm asking you to cough up your money to go see this movie in theaters one more time. Honestly, it sounds very nostalgic. I rewatch Infinity War all the time. So I will watch Infinity War once more. And then not forever, but then I'll go see that end game in theaters again and try and relive some of that magic and then be pleasantly surprised by the new things they've added. Because I've seen the movie so many times that there's no way I'm not gonna notice new stuff if they've added it or in post credit scenes. Hopefully they don't give away too much in the trailer in the post credit scene. I don't think they will. I think they'll give us a scene, I think if. If they do some meaningful things to end game to make it work for Doomsday. Good. But this is getting a little George Lucas Star wars, you know, going back into the original films and connecting them to the prequels. He adds a lot of CGI and changes to the movie. Some people, you know, it's a very controversial thing. You know, let's not become Star wars fans. Rip each other's throats out. Star wars is a great franchise. Love it. I don't have a Star wars show. Probably won't. But the thing is, this is a big deal. Steve Rogers is a big deal. For years we debated whether Steve should have even retired. And I think Marvel really has already answered that question. Big outstanding. No, he isn't Captain America anymore. He's something even bigger. C. Rogers has become the legend everyone else measures themselves against. And we will truly see what is up in avengers. Doomsday on December 18, 2026. This year, months away. Are you excited? I am beyond stoked. I got the chills. I love, love, love Marvel and mcu. I'm a Marvel maniac. They might call me. And he said the thing. 234 episodes and he said it. So everything is led to telling us that Steve Rogers is going to play an integral part in this movie. Either that or they want us to think it and then they kill him in the first act just for shock value. Which would sting, but also would establish Doom as a terrifying hero. Did I call him a hero? Maybe he's a hero in his own right. Just like Thanos. Maybe he is actually doing heroic things in this movie that lead to worse, morally debatable things. It's a whole other episode for Dr. Doom. We'll talk about that. But for now, I want to leave you with Is Steve Rogers going to take on a mantle? Is he going to play a huge part in this movie? My answer is yes. We will see in time. And I really appreciate you being here today to hear me nerd out over something that is relevant and important to the upcoming stories that we're going to be watching and re watching for years showing our kids one day. Maybe your current family is just an Avengers family. That's really cool. That's, that's, that's life goals right there. Honestly, if you think about it. I have a new niece. I want to introduce her to Harry Potter and I want to introduce her to Marvel at the right times. She's not even one yet though. So we have some time. We have some time. So yeah, think about everything I was talking about. I would like to know if you have any other, you know, speculation, no spoilers please. If there's spoilers or you think you know a spoiler, don't send that to me. I would ask you to send me your theories and maybe anything you want to bounce off of this idea to put it in the YouTube comments. If you're on YouTube, send me that [email protected] I'd love to know what you think. We will be doing more Spider man themed things in the near future. We have brand new date just around the corner. We will be fully covering it. And we isn't me, but the show is a we because we are assembled together as fans. Together in this time of Marvel and the culmination of the Multiverse saga. Something that hasn't gone completely smooth, but they, they could stick the landing and make it all that much better. Thank you for listening. This has been Eric Cicada aka Mr. Honest, your host and until next time, Avengers disassemble.