'Avengers: Infinity War's Captain America Movies Connections

Avengers: Infinity War brought together many aspects of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, especially in regards to Captain America.

Spoilers incoming for Avengers: Infinity War, so if you haven't watched the film yet you've been warned.

While all of the Marvel movies have meaningful elements and payoffs in Infinity War, few of those are as important as the Captain America films. Some of that was expected going in, as the world of heroes these days is still being impacted by the events of Captain America: Civil War. That wasn't the only connection the films had though.

In fact, you can see one major connection between Infinity War and the very first Cap film in the opening minutes. Thanos and his Black Order have decimated the Asgardians' ship, killing many of the soldiers and heroes onboard. Thor is held captive as Thanos asks Loki for the Tesseract, which originally showed up in Captain America: The First Avenger.

The powerful artifact is revealed to be the Space Stone after Thanos crushes the cube, revealing the small stone inside. The connections to Cap's original outing don't stop there either, as fans would learn during Thanos' trip to Vormir.

After Gamora leads him there a weathered person in a robe approaches them, essentially the gatekeeper to this ancient place. That person is revealed to be the Red Skull, who vanished after trying to hold the Tesseract in the original film. The Tesseract would fall into the sea, to be later recovered and held by Loki in the first Avengers film.

Ironically, Loki was doing the bidding of Thanos at the time and attempted to lead an invasion of his forces through the portal to carry out Thanos' plan of removing half of the Earth's population. That did not come to pass, but that mission carried over into Infinity War.

Captain America: Winter Solider also featured a big connection to Infinity War thanks to Bucky Barnes. After he and Cap battled in Winter Soldier Bucky would return in Civil War, helping to cause the rift between Steve Rogers and Tony Stark. Since then he's been under the care of Shuri on Wakanda and is revealed to be finally rid of the Soviet programming.

He receives a new arm (Iron Man destroyed it in Civil War) and suits up once again in Infinity War, finally reuniting with Captain America before the battle of Wakanda.

Did we miss any big Captain America connections? Let us know in the comments!

Marvel Studios' Black Panther and Avengers: Infinity War are in theaters now. It will be followed by Ant-Man and the Wasp on July 6, 2018, Captain Marvel on March 8, 2019, the fourth Avengers movie on May 3, 2019, the sequel to Spider-Man: Homecoming on July 5, 2019, and Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 in 2020.