Six Questions About Captain America: Civil War After First Trailer

How big a Role does General Ross Play?

General Ross is seen for the first time since Phase 1 here. A character who certainly had his problems with superheroes running amok in The Incredible Hulk, he's seen early in the trailer, telling Cap that things need to change.

But what will his role really be? Is he just the government stooge at the start of things, or could he be manipulating things a bit more behind-the-scenes? It would seem strange to bring him back just for a tiny early role.

Of course with Hulk missing from this story, you know, Ross has a bright red temper of his own in the comics...

Where are Nick Fury and S.H.I.E.L.D. in all this?

This is a question that might be answered only on TV, but with the issues of registering and monitoring powered people (though it's focused on Inhumans) on Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., it seems more likely than ever that this movie will have another big, game-changing crossover with the show. If all of a sudden you have the biggest heroes in the world smashing each other at an airport, you kinda have to deal with that.

How Does Black Panther Factor In?

So, it looks like the airport scene might be at an African airport. After all, that IFID Security truck and office has the continent plastered on it. That's probably why Black Panther, who is often a much more isolated hero, gets involved. How long he stays involved, and whether he's really on Iron Man's team, or more just there in a "get your violent crap out of my country/continent/life" capacity remains to be seen.

Is There an Inciting Incident?

In the comic book series that this is loosely based upon (it looks like very loosely), there was a particular inciting incident that made registering/training/monitoring superheroes seem essential. That doesn't seem to be the case this time around, or if it is, we may have already seen the incident in question. When Ross is first talking to Steve Rogers, he hands him a thick manual:

"The Sokovia Accords: Framework for the Registration and Deployment of Enhanced Individuals"

That of course refers to Avengers: Age of Ultron and the use of Sokovia as a weapon by the titular evil robot.

So while Bucky seems to be a major point of contention personally between Steve and Tony, it looks like Age of Ultron was the "incident."

Where are Ant-Man and Vision?

Two of the newest - and flashiest - Avengers aren't seen in this first trailer at all. This is most likely just because their powers require basically all CGI, so they're holding them back for later. It'll be interesting to see if they're involved in that airport fight at all, though, because right now Tony and Rhodey look awfully outnumbered.

Is Rhodey Doomed to Die?

And that brings us to the big one - things did not look good for Rhodey, our War Machine. The character is clearly not in good shape in this shot, with his arc reactor torn out of his suit, eyes closed, and being held by an extremely concerned Tony Stark. With new players on the field, and people with unpredictable or newly-used powers like Scarlet Witch, Ant-Man, even Winter Soldier, an accidental death certainly isn't out of the cards.

And that would certainly be enough to solidify Tony's conviction for the rest of the film.