There is a lot packed into the latest trailer for Captain American: Brave New World. We get to see Sam Wilson (Anthony Mackie) fully embracing his role as the incumbent Captain America, the return of Isaiah Bradley (Carl Lumbly), the emergence of new villain Sidewinder (Giancarlo Esposito), and an overall action-packed political thriller that seems to be the spiritual successor of Captain American: The Winter Soldier.
But the biggest shock was easily the full reveal of Harrison Ford’s transformation into the Red Hulk. As President Thaddeus Ross, Ford has stepped into the shoes of the same role previously played by the late, great William Hurt. But in this movie, as was teased in the previous trailer, Ross will go full Red Hulk, resulting in an epic smackdown against Captain America. But, now that the full CGI Harrison Ford as Red Hulk thing has been revealed, what other tricks does Marvel have up its sleeve?
Within the context of the MCU right now, Thaddeus Ross becoming the Red Hulk is as shocking as it is confusing, partly because Thaddeus Ross’ nickname in the comics is “Thunderbolt,” and the Thunderbolts is a totally separate movie entirely. But the most shocking thing about the revelation of Red Hulk at this stage in the game is that it really makes you wonder what else happens in this movie.
To put it another way, Marvel could have easily not shown Harrison Ford fully Hulking-out in this trailer and kept that full transformation part of the spectacle of actually seeing the movie. This new trailer even gives us glimpses of Red Hulk’s biggest limitation; the angrier he gets and the more his power grows, the more he heats up physically. Those sparks in the trailer are a good indication that the MCU Red Hulk will be fairly accurate to what we’ve seen in the comics. But, if President Ross becoming Red Hulk isn’t the biggest spoiler in Brave New World — what is?
The idea that this Captain America trailer is giving away the biggest and best moments of the new film might suggest the opposite. Perhaps Brave New World isn’t the movie we think it is at all, and everything that’s been revealed thus far is just a precursor to several more twists that Marvel is keeping under wraps. The idea that Marvel is hiding a bunch of plot points in trailers has several precedents. Nearly all the major cameos and reveals in Deadpool & Wolverine were excluded from the trailers, to say nothing of the hidden cameos in Doctor Strange & the Multiverse of Madness, as well as the big surprises in Spider-Man: No Way Home.
The point? Marvel is great at preserving some kind of massive WOW moment for its big releases. And it seems possible that Brave New World could have bigger mysteries than most Marvel films. For one thing, the film had a big reshoot earlier in 2024, which resulted in adding Giancarlo Esposito to the cast. So, clearly, the resulting film will be much different from whatever it’s from was previously. But more broadly, new material that we know about is very different from new material that hasn’t been revealed at all.
In some senses, Captain America: Brave New World is the first Avengers-adjacent film since The Marvels, and also, the biggest Avengers-starring film on Marvel’s slate before the release of Avengers: Doomsday in 2026. With Doctor Doom on the horizon, it seems reasonable that Red Hulk is not the biggest deal in this movie, and that Marvel is actually giving Cap a lot more to think about than we’ve been told or can imagine.
