Steve Rogers Isn’t Captain America Anymore

If you saw Captain America: Civil War – and based on the box office numbers, there is an excellent chance that you did – then you probably left the theater wondering what was going to happen next. The Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) was effectively broken, and Captain America himself had fled the United States of America and abandoned his star-spangled shield. It’s hard to hit the reset button after that, and as we learned from Captain America: Civil War co-director this week, that’s not going to happen soon.

“I think him dropping that shield is him letting go of that identity,” co-director Joe Russo told Huffington Post. “[It’s] him admitting that certainly the identity of Captain America was in conflict with the very personal choice that he was making.”

Fans of the comics will recognize that this is nothing new for Captain America, who has on several occasions left the mantle to other characters, either as an act of rebellion or for other, more personal reasons. On all of those occasions Steve Rogers remained a key player in the Marvel Universe, occasionally under different superhero aliases like “Nomad,” until he (inevitably) donned the costume all over again. And actor Chris Evans is currently expected to play Steve Rogers once again in Avengers: Infinity War when it’s released in theaters on May 4, 2018.

Marvel Studios

Also: The ‘Captain America: Civil War’ Writers Make Revelations on The B-Movies Podcast!

Meanwhile, on the trivia front, Captain America: Civil War co-director Anthony Russo revealed to Entertainment Weekly this week that if Robert Downey Jr. hadn’t come on board, Captain America 3 would have essentially had zombies in it instead.

“There was a period where we did discuss a third act that revolved around the Madbomb from Cap mythology,” said Anthony Russo. “It didn’t have anything to do with Civil War, and if we couldn’t get Downey – in the very, very early conversations before we nailed him – somebody pitched the idea of a third-act that revolved around the Madbomb, which makes people crazy. It almost like zombifies them – but not literally.”

“The notion of the Madbomb would have been Cap having to fight civilians and how he would he handle that,” Joe Russo added. “We were always trying to put him into these interesting moral conundrums because of his nature. That would have made a compelling third act because if civilians are the antagonists, how could he stop them without killing them?”

It looks like we’ll never know how Captain America would have resolved that problem (in the movies anyway, since Cap already dealt with Madbombs in the comics). But at least we know what Captain America 3 would have been like in the alternate reality where Robert Downey Jr. walked away from the MCU.

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Top Photo: Marvel Studios

William Bibbiani (everyone calls him ‘Bibbs’) is Crave’s film content editor and critic. You can hear him every week on The B-Movies Podcast and Canceled Too Soon, and watch him on the weekly YouTube series Most CravedRapid Reviews and What the Flick. Follow his rantings on Twitter at @WilliamBibbiani.

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