Captain America: Neal McDonough Teases "Rumblings" for Dum Dum Dugan's Return

Actor Neal McDonough is known to millions of comic book movie and TV show fans as the Arrowverse's Damien Darhk, but McDonough actually got his live-action superhero franchise start in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. McDonough played the role of Timothy "Dum Dum" Dugan in Captain America: The First Avenger, serving as one of Steve Rogers' "Howling Commandos" unit in WWII. 

Dum Dum Dugan made appearances in a handful of MCU projects since First Avenger, such as Agents of SHIELD, Agent Carter, and the What If...? animated series. Obviously, the timeline of Dum Dum Dugan's active years makes it hard to keep him around for modern-day MCU stories – but in the world of comic book storytelling, it's certainly not impossible. 

Neal McDonough spoke to ComicBook.com about his new film The Shift (2023). Of course we had to ask the First Avenger actor if there was any chance he could be one of the many MCU characters we could potentially see return in the current MCU Multiverse Saga, which offers the possibilities of different variations of Dum Dum Dugan getting to make an appearance. 

"There's always been rumblings of how we could do it. You know, in the comic books, when Nick Fury got shot some of that Super Serum blood landed on Dum Dum, so he lived for a long time – aged quicker than Nick Fury did, but he's still out there, and he still could be." 

Marvel Comics have always found ways to bring back Dum Dum Dugan – including one storyline that revealed that Fury replaced the real Dum Dum Dugan with an advanced Life Model Decoy (LMD) after his friend was fatally injured on a mission. Dugan didn't know for some time that he wasn't human, and Fury would regularly upgrade the LMD, as needed. That alone would be an easy route for the MCU to bring Dugan back – let alone all the multiversal variants they could introduce. 

However the powers that be at Marvel Studios decide it, Neal McDonough is ready and willing to return as Dum Dum Dugan: 

"I loved Dum Dum. I loved everything about him. I loved that I had to gain 40 pounds of weight of muscle and fat just to get big like him. That mustache that I grew, [his wife] Ruvé absolutely hated it. So would I love to play Dum Dum again? Yes. Out of all the characters I could reprise, Dum Dum is right on top of my list. Because he is very close to who I am in real life and I loved it. It was great." 

You can stream Captain America: The First Avenger on Disney+. The Shift is now out.