Warning: This article contains spoilers for Captain America: Brave New World. It’s been 17 years since Samuel Sterns (Tim Blake Nelson) was exposed to Bruce Banner’s gamma-irradiated blood in 2008’s The Incredible Hulk and four years since the Celestial Tiamut emerged from the Earth in 2021’s Eternals, two plot threads that went unresolved until Captain America: Brave New World. While the latest Marvel Studios movie ties up the aforementioned loose ends, it leaves its own dangling plot threads that will continue on in Thunderbolts (May 2) and the Multiverse Saga-ending Avengers: Doomsday and Avengers: Secret Wars.
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In Brave New World, Captain America (Anthony Mackie) and the Falcon (Danny Ramirez) unravel a conspiracy masterminded by Sterns, a gamma mutate with an enlarged brain and an intellect to match: his mind is able to foresee every probable outcome, including his own defeat after engineering an international incident between America and Japan and then triggering President Thaddeus Ross’ (Harrison Ford) transformation into a rampaging Red Hulk.
RELATED: Captain America: Brave New World Changed Red Hulk’s Fate in Reshoots
The underlying conspiracy involves everyone from the first Black Captain America — the Super-Soldier Isaiah Bradley (Carl Lumbly), a carryover from 2021’s The Falcon and the Winter Soldier — to former Black Widow Ruth Bat-Seraph (Shira Haas), and spans from Washington, D.C., to Japan and the Indian Ocean. Besides more obvious connections to previous MCU movies and cameos by Betty Ross (Liv Tyler) and congressional candidate Bucky Barnes (Sebastian Stan), there some lesser-known characters and connections you might have missed.
Copperhead
In Oaxaca, Mexico, Cap saves hostages while Falcon recovers the adamantium stolen by the mercenaries known as Serpent (a.k.a. the Serpent Society). The big goon that Cap fights in the church is credited as Copperhead (Jóhannes Haukur Jóhannesson), who allows Seth Voelker/Sidewinder (Giancarlo Esposito) to escape.
In the comics, Copperhead is Davis Lawfers, originally a member of the Serpent Squad: a gang of snake-themed villains Puff Adder, Black Racer, and Fer-de-Lance. Copperhead is introduced in 1987’s Captain America #387, which teams Steve Rogers and Falcon with Nomad and D-Man (more on him later). The teleporting Sidewinder recruited the four to the Serpent Society, but Copperhead’s loyalty was to Madame Hydra/Viper, who had an insidioussss plot to take over Sidewinder’s snake pit.
Dennis Dunphy
Navy SEAL Commander Dennis Dunphy (William Mark McCollough) tells Captain America about the brewing conflict between the American and Japanese military fleets surrounding Celestial Island in the Indian Ocean. Dunphy leads the investigation into the pills that Cap found, along with President Ross’ medical records, at Camp Echo One: a black site where Ross held Sterns as his own big-brained think tank. After Dunphy reveals that Ross’ heart pills are laced with gamma radiation, Sterns uses a device to stop Dunphy’s heart.
Dennis Dunphy is the alter ego of Demolition Man, a wrestler for the U.C.W.F. (Unlimited Class Wrestling Federation). In his first appearance in 1985’s The Thing #28, “Demolition” Dunphy wrestled the Fantastic Four’s Ben Grimm, a ringside debut that ended with Grimm victorious. Dunphy befriended Grimm and appeared as a supporting character in that title through its final issue (Thing #36).
Demo’s strength was augmented by pills provided to him by the Power Broker (an identity that Sharon Carter adopted in The Falcon and the Winter Soldier), which turned out to be an organization, Power Broker, Inc., that empowered John Walker/U.S. Agent and Lemar Hoskins/Battlestar. In Captain America #328, Demo donned a costumed identity based on the yellow suit originally worn by Daredevil and took the name Demolition Man (D-Man for short).
The rookie superhero operated as part of a unit that included Steve Rogers (then known as the black-clad Captain), Falcon (Sam Wilson), Nomad (Jack Monroe), and Vagabond (Priscilla Lyons). Demo served as Cap’s partner until Captain America #349, when he was thought killed aboard an exploding Quinjet — an apparent death that evoked memories of Cap’s original partner, Bucky Barnes. But Dunphy survived, and later sided with Cap when he opposed the Superhuman Registration Act during Civil War.
Mr. Blue
The song that the Leader uses to activate his mind-controlled assassins is “Mr. Blue” by The Fleetwoods. This is a reference to the online code name that Sterns used when he was in contact with Bruce Banner (Edward Norton) in 2008’s The Incredible Hulk, where Sterns acquired samples of Banner’s gamma-irradiated blood.
The code name originated in 2001’s Incredible Hulk #34, where a fugitive Bruce Banner is in hiding and uses the moniker “Mr. Green” to communicate with “Mr. Blue.” The identity of “Mr. Blue” wouldn’t be revealed until 2003’s Incredible Hulk #62: Banner’s supposedly-dead wife, Betty Ross.
Adamantium, America, and Japan
Much of the plot hinges on President Ross’ treaty with Japan over the “discovery of the millennium” mined from Celestial Island: adamantium.
Of course, adamantium is the near-breakable metal alloy that coats the skeleton and claws of Wolverine (and has been used to enhance his enemies like Sabretooth, Cyber, and Lady Deathstrike). In the comics, adamantium was developed by Dr. Myron MacLain, an American scientist, but the Japanese scientist Kenji Oyama, a.k.a. Lord Darkwind, was the first person to develop the process to bond adamantium to human bone. (It was Dr. Abraham Cornelius who would bond adamantium to Logan’s skeleton, creating the metal-clawed mutant for the Weapon X program.)
Fun fact: the very first time that adamantium is mentioned in a comic (in 1969’s Avengers #66), Dr. MacLain says, “The military must know the potential of this new adamantium at once! Even the president is standing by!”
Camp Echo One
The West Virginia-based black site is named after Camp Echo-1, an Inhuman relocation facility that the teen super-genius Amadeus Cho (who was supposed to make a cameo in Brave New World) originally helped S.H.I.E.L.D. build to contain the Hulk.
Cho, having befriended Banner and the Hulk, retrofitted an unpopulated township into an environment where he’d be pacified and not a danger. In 2017’s Champions #10, Cho and his teammates discovered that Hydra had repurposed the town into a prison for hundreds of super-powered Inhumans.
Leader and Red Hulk’s Origin
Brave New World pays homage to Red Hulk’s comic book origin with the revelation that Sterns’ pills treating Ross’ heart failure were laced with gamma radiation.
2010’s Hulk #23 revealed that the Leader and M.O.D.O.K. of the Intelligencia used stolen gamma energy siphoned from Bruce Banner’s Hulk to transform Ross into the Red Hulk using the Cathexis Ray, a device that turned Doc Samson (Betty’s lover in The Incredible Hulk, played by Ty Burrell) into a super-strong gamma mutate in the comics. Unlike Ross’ comic counterpart, however, MCU Ross didn’t consent to being transformed into a Hulk.
Octavia Spencer
Viewers who sit through the end credits for the post-credits scene may have noticed a name in the “special thanks”: The Help Oscar winner Octavia Spencer.
Spencer starred in Luce, a 2019 film by Captain America: Brave New World director Julius Onah. Mackie told Black Film and TV that Spencer called him to recommend Onah for the director’s gig.
“Octavia calls me, and when Octavia calls, you know it’s something going on, so I’m like, ‘What’s up, girl?’” Mackie said. “‘She was like, ‘Mackie, you know my friend is up for your movie, and you better get him the job. ‘Cause if you don’t, I’m coming to New Orleans.’”
Fun fact: before she was “Oscar winner Octavia Spencer,” Spencer had an (on-screen) role in another Marvel movie, appearing as a ringside check-in girl in 2002’s Spider-Man.
Marvel Studios’ Captain America: Brave New World — starring Anthony Mackie, Danny Ramirez, Shira Haas, Carl Lumbly, Xosha Roquemore, Giancarlo Esposito, Liv Tyler, Tim Blake Nelson, and Harrison Ford — is now playing in theaters.
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