The growing tensions between Captain America and Red Hulk boil over in a new look at an upcoming Marvel comic. Next week sees the release of Captain America: Brave New World and the big-screen debut of Red Hulk, played by Harrison Ford. Brave New World is also Sam Wilson’s first time headlining a Captain America movie. Marvel is capitalizing on all the buzz with a new series titled Sam Wilson: Captain America, where Sam will coincidentally face off against Red Hulk. While fans wait to see that showdown in theaters, they can get a sneak peek at what it could look like courtesy of Marvel Comics.
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ComicBook has the exclusive preview of Sam Wilson: Captain America #2 by Greg Pak, Evan Narcisse, Eder Messias, Fer Sifuentes-Sujo, and VC’s Joe Caramagna. It picks up in the middle of Sam Wilson’s fight with Red Hulk already in progress. Red Hulk is the Head of Security for Eaglestar, a rising tech company recruiting the historically disenfranchised to farm land on its state-of-the-art skydream facility. When Sam’s cousin Billie convinced him to check them out, Eaglestar staged an attack to help with their recruitment. Once Sam found out, Eaglestar’s CEO activated Red Hulk in response.
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The fight between Captain America and Red Hulk is rocking the Eaglestar skydream facility. Billie and Sam both realize that the Eaglestar CEO is controlling Red Hulk through a device on Red Hulk’s hand. Thaddeus Ross can only turn into the Red Hulk for an hour at a time, but can Sam and Billie survive that long? Billie wants Sam to call in his sidekick Falcon, but Sam says Falcon is busy. Instead, Sam calls upon a legion of birds to distract Red Hulk long enough to try and pry the implant off his hand, which is where the preview ends.
ComicBook got to speak to Sam Wilson: Captain America writers Greg Pak and Evan Narcisse before the series launched. We asked the duo how Red Hulk’s MCU debut factor into their story.
“There’s a movie coming out. And the great thing is that gives us a chance, because, it’s great to have a comic book coming out at the same time as the movie that has some of the same characters,” Pak said. “All of that plays on that excitement and feeds off and contributes to it. But the great thing is that we’re not beholden to whatever’s happening in the movie. Neither of us has seen it. You know what I mean? We don’t know anything more about it than you do. So what we’re doing is independent stuff that’s happening in the comics, which is the way it should be, and it’s great. Red Hulk’s in the movie, so that’s a fun character for us to use, but it totally makes sense with everything that’s happening in the story. So it’s one of those things that’s absolutely part of the initial mandate, but it absolutely makes sense and feeds all the themes we’re working on.”
Narcisse added, “They’re just introducing this character, whereas this character has been around in the comics for so long that we can tap into some of the twists and turns that Red Hulk and Sam and some of the other characters in this series have gone through. So, yeah, we’re excited to be adjacent to the movie coming out, but not beholden to it like Greg said.”
Sam Wilson: Captain America #2 goes on sale Wednesday, February 12th.
