It's Mission Report Day, the Day Winter Soldier Killed The Starks

As the clock ticks past midnight, the day has finally arrived: Mission Report Day, the day Helmut Zemo (Daniel Bruhl) has had circled on his calendar for quite some time.

In Captain America: Civil War, Zemo's mission for the majority of the movie was tracking down those who had information in regards to a former HYDRA mission that took place on December 16, 1991. Zemo's repeated "Mission Report: December 16, 1991" line eventually went on to become a meme in and of itself.

The day itself has a rather bleak meaning. It's the day that HYDRA ordered The Winter Soldier (Sebastian Stan) to track down Howard (John Slattery) and Maria (Hope Davis) Stark because they possessed a batch of the Super Soldier Serum the neo-Nazi organization wanted to use on a select few soldiers.

After Zemo ended up showing Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) footage showing the assassinations, Stark launched into a fight against the Winter Soldier and Captain America (Chris Evans) and the effect is still felt throughout the MCU today and the group remains fractured as a result.

As of the current MCU timeline, Zemo is still presumably in the custody of the Joint Counter Terrorism Task Force headed up by Everett Ross (Martin Freeman). As the character's still alive, it's entirely plausible the character makes a reappearance in a later Marvel Cinematic Universe property.

Earlier this year, Bruhl himself hinted at a potential return to the shared universe.

"Well I hope so. I always say they didn't kill me, which is always a good sign," Brüh told ScreenRant. "As you can imagine, it's extremely secretive. Even if I would know something, I would probably not be allowed to tell you."

"But again, I was very glad about the fact that he [did] not kill himself and [was] stopped by Black Panther and that he ends up in a prison," he continued. "But I'm pretty sure he's going to get out of that prison somehow."

As for Stark, Rogers, and Bucky Barnes, the trio is slated to appear in next spring's Avengers: Endgame, where they'll hopefully put their differences aside to defeat Thanos and restore order to the world after the events of Avengers: Infinity War.

Avengers: Endgame will be released on April 26, 2019. Other upcoming Marvel Cinematic Universe movies include Captain Marvel on March 8, 2019, and Spider-Man: Far From Home on July 5th, 2019.