WMG / Captain America: The First Avenger

Howard Stark accidentally caused the "Mutant Problem"

If we assume that the X-Men movies and the Avenger movies take place in the same universe than it is possible that the cosmic cube caused the surge in mutations seen between X-Men: First Class and the other movies. In First Class, Shaw claimed that mutants were the children of the atomic bomb. Now, of course there were mutants before that but most likely not as many (if there were, than the government would have known about them before Charles revealed himself). In Iron Man it is mentioned several times that Howard Stark worked on the atomic bomb. At the end of Captain America, Howard recovers the cube from under the sea. Red Skull thought the power of the cosmic cube was meant to be seized by superior men. Put it together and what do you get? Howard Stark used Cosmic Cube technology to create the atom bomb and the atom bomb acted as a sort of catalyst to bring out the powers of the ‘superior men.’ And in the X-men universe what is the scientific name for mutants? Homo Superior.

The people who designed the Captain's "convalesce room" belong to the same group who would order a nuclear strike on Manhattan

By playing an archive recording of a baseball game (and one in May 1941 at that, sheesh!) they managed to unnecessarily hurt some of their guards (Captain surely showed no mercy at them even though he did not aim to kill) and more importantly, freak the poor hero out: an American agency would never cheat him with a DATED radio program, so maybe the GERMANS dug him out and were attempting to brainwash him later?!
The Captain would still have found out that the room was dodgy since it was part of the final plot — by realizing the "view" outside was a cardboard cutout, for instance, which is another bit of proof that his senses were a lot better than normal people, while the radio thing was just stupid: if they wanted to "Take it slowly", they could've placed a radio that proclaimed the surrender of Japan, telling him that he ENTIRE world war is over so as to relax, then let Agent Coulson or someone tell him that his coma was, in fact, more than a couple of months.

Alternately, it was a Secret Test of Character by Nick Fury

By placing incongruous details (the image, the ball game, the appearance of the SHIELD agent sent to wake him up), Fury was testing Cap: Testing that he was as intelligent as his reputation portrayed him as, and that his time in the ice hadn't hurt his faculties.

Gabe Jones of the Howling Commandos is a young Nick Fury

He's smart, skilled, and one of the most badass of the Howling Commandos. Its clearly implied that the SSR would later form the basis for the organization S.H.I.E.L.D.. And, they have access to blood samples from Steve Rogers with which to attempt to recreate the super soldier serum. So, my theory: like the rest of the Commandos, Gabe goes off with the 107th and the SSR to form SHIELD. He becomes one of the best of their operatives, if not the best. Good enough for two things. One, he's chosen as the recipient of one of the attempts to recreate the SSS, that doesn't work particularly well (aside from retarding aging, probably only discovered later). And two, when Gen. Chester Phillips dies or retires, he becomes his successor as Director of SHIELD, taking on the alias used by the director, "Nicholas Fury." (Try envisioning Tommy Lee Jones with an eyepatch if it helps.)

• Alternatively, Gabe is Nick's father or grandfather and passed on a weakened version of the serum to his descendants.
  • It doesn't even have to be that complicated. In the comic Nick Fury was the leader of the Howling Commandos and his life is unnaturally extended by some kind of serum (whose name eludes me at the moment, could easily be folded into a diluted version of the SSS for the films, and I think it actually is in Ultimate Marvel). It's possible, even likely that when Gabe Jones is taken in for covert work, he's given a codename and he pick Nick Fury cause it sounds badass.

  • Or it is Nick Fury (as leader of the HC ) and not Gabe Jones (or did they use his name in the film?
    • He's credited as Gabe Jones.
• A younger Nick Fury does seem to appear in Captain Marvel.

The ARC Reactor Howard Stark builds in the 60s is the result of studying the Cosmic Cube

Perhaps the Cube is a perfected Vibranium ARC Reactor. Tony's father spends 2-3 decades studying it before building the massive prototype.

• I've been thinking about it, and this is what I've collected, the element Tony was trying to create in Iron Man 2 was probably more or less the same as the one in the cube. Think about it, his father studies the cube, makes the model and keeps it in a video for Tony to find. Howard could've done it himself, but as he said in the video, his time didn't have the technology for it yet.
  • The novelization makes the claim that the material is vibranium which doesn't fly too well with caps shield. Unless thats what it was before Tony hit it with his homemade particle accelerator (because Cern can suck it apparently) and Tony converted it into a cosmic cube, vibranium hybrid element.
• According to the post-credits scene in Thor, SHIELD hasn't exactly figured out what does the Tesseract do even with Tony Stark's help, and is still looking out for ways to utilize it, unwittingly playing into the hands of Loki who likely knows the true purpose and capabilities of the device.
• However, other aspects of HYDRA technology could've been developed further. HYDRA Elite Mooks seem to use powered exoskeletons. Iron Man establishes that a miniaturized portable power source is perhaps the most important component to a successful suit of Powered Armor, so Tony Stark could've had a more direct inspiration from their designs once he invented the arc reactor. Building a suit in a cave, with a box of scraps, requires that he is at least partially familiar with previous attempts to implement the technology.

The woman that tried to fool Steve at the end was Sharon Carter.

The setup is just too elegant: the first person he sees when waking is his next Love Interest. Plus her actress, Amanda Righetti, seems a little too big of star for such a small role- and she's already listed as filming The Avengers, and listed as Sharon Carter. Admittedly, the IMDB can be edited by the public, but not quite as easily as a Wiki.

• Not anymore she isn't.
• Being on The Mentalist doesn't make her a star. Natalie Dormer was on The Tudors and still wound up playing a bit character.
• She does resemble Peggy a lot. We'll probably find out in the Avengers movie.
• She shows up in Winter Soldier played by Emily VanCamp. Still, time travel of many kinds exists, as do face-altering masks.

Peggy Carter is Tony Stark's mother.

Perhaps after the war she and Howard did end up "fonduing". This would give Steve a reason to dislike Tony, as Tony has his daddy issues for not warming up to Steve right off the bat.

• Uh, no. Tony's mom is Maria Stark.
  • But has that been confirmed for the movies? They've already played around with established canon, primarily through mixing classic and Ultimate storylines- as well as making Howard Stark himself something other than a complete bastard.
  • Uh, yeah? It was established in Iron Man 2 that Maria Stark is Tony's mommy. Howard calls to her to grab little Tony when he was trying to film for the Stark Expo.
    • Actually, the only thing that scene establishes is that Maria is either Tony's mother or stepmother.
    • Or' nanny.
    • Wasn't Maria mentioned as being Tony's mother in the clip show portion at the start of Iron Man 1?
• It would be tricky to fit in the timeline, given Peggy and Tony's ages. Not impossible, but tricky.
  • Actually it would be pretty impossible. Peggy is hardly any younger than Howard Stark meaning she had Tony well into her fifties.
  • And how would that enhance the story, exactly?
    • Pshaw... You're talking like every WMG needs to make sense from every angle.
    • How about one angle, then? It doesn't makes sense age-wise, nor does it make sense as far as the characters go. Steve isn't a petty man that would be bitter about Peggy moving on and having a kid, and Tony isn't so immature as to dislike someone because they'd almost went on a date with his mother once. Their personalities are all the conflict fuel they need.
• It wouldn't be surprising if Tony's mother is one of the dancing girls at Howard's presentation.
• Jossed by the Avengers deleted scenes. Peggy Carter is very much alive, and living in London.
  • And ultimately backed up by her appearance in Winter Soldier.

This movie, and all the other Marvel movies in this series, take place in the same universe as Indiana Jones

Because of all the shout outs to it. And they're both owned by Walt Disney now. And then we can make Crossover WMGs.

• For example: Marion is related to Peggy.
  • Except Indiana Jones ISN'T owned by Disney, it's owned by Lucasfilm.
    • Well, the Skull does mention Hitler "digging in the desert for trinkets". Now, where do two of the four Indy movies take place?
    • Disney has just bought Lucasfilm! Now we can finally make Crossover WMGs!
  • The best thing that would happen was that if the Howling Commandos took care of the rest of the convoy chasing Indy in the 3rd movie. Because they can.

The Boss Herself taught Steve Rogers how to fight.

Because physical perfection notwithstanding, there is no other plausible way that an inexperience boy who has never seen actual combat before storming Zola's Lab can become such a fearsome warrior and skilled martial artist in a window of time that is months, if not mere weeks at best.

• Jossed

The Red Skull cut off his own face in a fit of madness when he first injected himself

The side-effect of the early super-soldier serum wasn't physical deformity, but a temporary bout of agony, hallucinations and madness, similar to the DTs. Red Skull mutilated himself while he was undergoing a "bugs under the skin" sensation common to substance-abusers. Since the serum might have given him something like a healing factor, the redness was the result of him clawing the skin off repeatedly and it growing back as bright red scar-like tissue. Something like this happened to Ultimate Red Skull.

• It's possible.
• This would be the reason Steve was restrained inside the capsule; to stop him from mutilating himself or doing something else during the hallucinations and madness part.

The Skull wasn't disintegrated, but rather transported to Asgard

Where he met up with a certain God of Trickery and gave him the genesis of a verrrry bad idea, which plays out in The Avengers.

• Once he got to Asgard, he was put on ice and will be thawed, either as a prisoner or as a possibly useful pawn by Loki.
  • I posit one step further. All of the energy weapons used to disintegrate people were in fact transported to Asgard. All those soldiers and Hydra men were actually transported to Asgard thousands of years ago, and became the ancestors of the Norse gods. It would explain a lot about the similarities between Asgardians and humans, and why they have advanced technology (Hydra was the Nazi's science division).
  • Well, his "disintegration" does look a lot like the Bifrost being used. And he did refer to the Cube as "the jewel of Odin's treasure room" — given the interconnectivity of these movies, that's a very strong suggestion that the Cube is a piece of Asgard tech that was left behind after they were done fighting the Frost Giants all those centuries ago.
• Possibly confirmed!
• They might have to explain why he hasn't aged though. Transporting him to Jotunheim would make more sense to this troper and would also further the Red Skull's position as a dark mirror to Steve. (Frozen in ice after an accident then discovered and revived 70 years later.)
• Half-confirmed, as of Avengers: Infinity War. The tesseract transported him to Vormir, where he has spent the last 70 years as the guardian of the soul stone.

Cap is actualy the third to last Avenger

He is called the first beacuse he was born first but this makes him the oldest.

• Wasn't Thor born centuries earlier than Cap?
• He was one of "Earth's Mightiest Heroes" before any other Avenger.
  • He technically wasn't a hero before, not like the Avengers. He was more of a Blood Knight.

SHIELD was backronymed to honor Captain America

That's why they bend over backwards to come up with something decent for that acronym—they're paying homage to the weapon of the man who started it all.

• Jossed by the first Iron Man movie which had the full name already in place, and the acronym isn't thought up until the end of the movie.
  • No one can think of an acronym, and it's just right there! Coulson was likely using the long form because SHIELD likes to remain obscure.
  • Not really. In a tie-in comic for the first Iron Man, Agent Coulson mentions that everyone calls SHIELD by its long form because they think that's how Nick Fury prefers it. Fury, of course, shows a preference for the acronym when Coulson slips up and uses the short form.
  Fury: I like it. And I can say it without tripping over my own tongue.
  • By that same tack, maybe Coulson — who was using the acronym before Fury — noticed the happy coincidence and started using the acronym in honor of Cap, and it simply caught on with everyone else. Phil's a Captain America fanboy, after all.
• Well, we now know Peggy and Howard, as well as Tommy Lee Jones' character, went on to found Shield... Given how heartbroken the first two appear over Steve's disappearance (in the Agent Carter series), the "let's name it something whose acronym reads Shield, so as to honor his memory" sounds pretty plausible.
• Grant Ward, in the very first episode of Agents of Shield, even notes that (I paraphrase) "someone very much wanted it to spell shield".

Steve will yet have that last dance with Peggy.

Let's do the numbers. Suppose Peggy Carter was, say, 28 in 1943. That means she'd be 97 in 2012. Hence, not necessarily dead.

• Please oh please let this happen.
• Or she may have been killed during the war. There's no telling what might have happened.
  • I will be very disappointed if she does not turn out to be a founding member of SHIELD
    • To that effect, this troper would absolutely love to see an old photo hanging on the wall at SHIELD headquarters that features Peggy Carter, Howard Stark, General Chester Phillips, and Nick Fury sitting around a table together with a small gold plaque underneath naming them as the "Founding Members of SHIELD."
    • It seems more than likely that Peggy is deceased by the time Cap wakes up, given the rate at which WWII veterans (and people of that age) are dying; however, it might not be all bad. The first time Steve walks into those hallowed halls, a portrait of Miss Carter hangs in a place of honor... wearing a locket with a newspaper photo of Steve Rogers.
• Or he has a dance with her niece Sharon Carter.
  • Better yet, Steve will get a chance to have a relationship with Sharon, but the sequel will end with Steve telling her that he has "one more thing left to do", as we then see her visiting an aged Peggy (preferably played by the same actress from The First Avenger, but using Benjamin Button-esque SFX to age her), and getting that last dance in.
• One novelization of the The Avengers movie seems to confirm that Peggy is indeed alive in well and living in London, so maybe something for the sequel?
  • A deleted scene from that movie showed Steve going over the dossiers of all his former colleagues. All of them were deceased except Peggy, who was listed as retired and living in Manchester, UK. He then looks at a phone and visibly considers calling the number recorded there (He doesn't).
  • Peggy appears in The Winter Soldier, but she's quite old now, and bedridden. But still awesome.
• Finally delivered in the last scene of Avengers: Endgame.

The montage of hunting down HYDRA bases involved large amounts of fighting regular Nazis

Just for Rule of Cool and opportunity for exposition and characterization in later films and fan-fiction, Rogers' main mission was taking down HYDRA's different weapons factories, but in between HYDRA missions, the Howling Commandos fought in the 107th Infantry on the front lines against the regular German army as well.

• Confirmed by a deleted scene in The Avengers and newsreel footage that plays in Captain America: The Winter Soldier, where Steve is seen leading forces and marching Nazi POWs.

Zola is still alive, and a cyborg.

Well in the comics he's a geneticist, and put his brain in a body with a camera for a head, and his face on a big screen on his chest. Sorta makes more sense if that body is the resualt of cybernetic modification. Zola would have been highly desirable by any number of nations for his research after the war, like many German scientists in real life.

• Somewhat confirmed in The Winter Soldier. Except he's an AI instead of a cyborg. And reveals that HYDRA invented North Korea.

HYDRA had/has Mind Control technology

Although it was limited. It involves big expensive machines where someone is strapped in and indoctrinated, and while they do render the poor saps involved into HYDRA fanatics, it generally compromises creativity to a severe degree. Said system is too expensive to use on Labourers and to destructive to use on agents or administrators (who are for the most part fanatically loyal) but is useful for producing soldiers.

• Maybe that's what Dr. Zola was experimenting with when he had Bucky captive? Trying to use get him to become a Brainwashed and Crazy servant of HYDRA? In that case, it's fortunate that Steve found him before any further experimentation could happen. Whatever work Zola had already done on Bucky would later be completed after he fell off the train, and would be the work that turned him into the Winter Soldier.
  • Or the recruits were simply attracted to the electric guns and the shiny, Raygun Gothic tech.
• Confirmed by both Agent Carter and Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., as it relates to Doctor Faustus.

HYDRA will be the/a villain in The Avengers

Not that bad, Loki needs Mooks, after all.

• Jossed by The Avengers. It's the Chitauri. They do come back in Cap's second outing, though...

Cap was left in the ice for seventy years on purpose

If Skull returned from wherever the hell the Cube sent him anytime prior to the fall of the Berlin Wall, The Government wouldn't have given (insert offensive language here) over his war crimes - only his knowledge of HYDRA technology. He (like the other ratliners like von Braun and Strughold) would get a pardon and a new identity faster than you can say "Herr Doktor". And given that both "died" fighting each other, the government would probably decide it best to leave Cap where he is, having enough of Erskine's notes to realize that Cap would stay a Human Popsicle as long as necessary. Skull will pop up again in the second Avengers movie, running the American mutant death camps.

• Epically unlikely, given the tone of every single MCU movie yet.
• Then the MCU has some MAJOR differences from Real Life given what happened to brilliant Nazi scientists post-WWII. And you have to discount The Incredible Hulk, as the core of it is General Ross wanting to create human WMDS with his "Bio-Force Experiments". The Hulk is almost the polar opposite of Cap - an indestructible monster as opposed to a paragon of humanity.
  • Missing the point and offensive. There is a *huge* leap from "one guy going to unethical extremes to make a superhuman weapon" and "deliberately leaving Captain America on ice, oh, and also, death camps."
• There is also a distinction between "Real smart, but possibly complicit in violations of the Geneva Convention" and "Raving Megalomaniac who would happily Burn The World". Zola, I can see (and even then the Death Camp thing would never get off the ground). Schmidt? Not a chance.
  • Then what part will the mutants play in the MCU? They're basically the Civil Rights Movement's Fictional Counterpart. Cap would be on their side simply by nature of what he is - "Not a perfect soldier, but a good man", while Fury has compromised with monsters on numerous occasions simply because they have authority over him.
    • Firstly, assuming facts not in evidence; given the OOC licensing issues, there probably won't *be* any mutants or mutant issue in the MCU. Secondly, assuming facts not in evidence, as far as movie Fury making outright monstrous compromises. Put bluntly, until the movies actually put the slightest whiff of flagrant evil on that scale on the part of the US government, its laughable to just assume it exists. Again, "dubious experiments and hunting down one person who probably should be pursued anyway" *does not equal* "mutant death camps and intentionally leaving for dead a war hero."
• Could you reference "the OOC licensing issues"? "The Mutant Problem" is a key component of the Marvel universe, and it's not going to be referenced in any way, shape or form for the MCU? Kinda odd. It'd be like having a DC universe without Superman.
  • The X-Men film rights are held by 20th Century Fox; the Captain America film rights (along with Iron Man and Thor) belong to Paramount. Maybe that's it? (Note that the Hulk rights, last I checked, belonged to Universal Pictures... but it seems like Ed Norton won't be playing the Hulk in Avengers anyway, so they'll probably reboot along with recast him.) Besides which, adding 'the mutant problem' to the series would be overburdening an 'arc' already dedicated to founding and following the Avengers, which is why the above movies are tied together; anything more than a passing reference would be saddling the Avengers films with something that should be (and is) already found in the X-movies. Also, Civil War sucked.
    • Marvel Studios specifically got back the rights to Hulk, and did before The Incredible Hulk even finished filming. Maybe before it started filming, reports have been conflicting. As for mutant rights being integral to the Marvel U, honestly, they are a giant Plot Tumor that has weighted down the setting for years. I am entirely glad to see the overly iron age cruft stripped away from the cinematic setting.
  • Fox (the firefly slayers - may they all die of gonorrhea and rot in hell) also owns the rights to Fantastic Four - and the movie they made of that was kinda lame. And Columbia owns Spider-Man. That eliminates the other three big Marvel titles - so what's left for the MCU after The Avengers?
    • More Avengers, obviously. Plus sequels and threequels to the current successful single-hero franchises: Iron Man, Thor, Captain America, maybe even rebooted Hulk. And of course the X-movies roll on, after First Class succeeded in regenerating interest in the mutants and such.
    • Spider-Man will get his own stand-alone MCU film in 2017, after first showing up in Captain America: Civil War.
    • Also Luke Cage!
    • And Moon Knight, Black Panther, The Runaways, Cloak & Dagger, Iron Fist, any number of other Avengers regulars, possibly Daredevil, Task Master, Dr. Strange, Namor, maybe the Punisher, a good Ghost Rider movie... The list of untapped Marvel properties that would make good films is pretty staggering.
• Jossed. Red Skull was transported to Vormir and was still there by Infinity War.

Bucky Barnes survives his fall off the train.

Firstly, they Never Found the Body. Secondly, when Cap rescues Bucky in the HYDRA base, he's strapped to an operating table, possibly having been experimented on with the imperfect Super Soldier Serum, enough to make him durable enough to survive the fall.

• Though possibly not without losing an arm in the process ...
• Actually mentioned on the commentary of the DVD....imperfect serum from Zola and all.
• Yes we all know what is going to happen with Bucky. If you don't just search him on google and have the plot of a Captain America sequel spoiled.
  • Yes. He did. With a new, shiny arm.

The Cosmic Cube is an Asgard artifact

Not Asgardian, Asgard.

• Jossed. It's an Infinity Stone.

Jim Morita was a member of the 442nd Infantry Regiment before he was captured by HYDRA.

Because it makes him a badass.

• This seems likely, as at the time units were still segregated and there wouldn't have been a lot of options for a Japanese-American. The fact that he says he's from Fresno is sobering, since it's likely that he enlisted to leave one of the many internment camps created in the wake of Pearl Harbor, prior to signing up (California, in part due to its location on the West Coast, being a big supporter of the 'exclusion zone' idea) and his family and friends may still be there.

The movie takes place in the Fallout universe.

Following the 'death' of the Red Skull, the 'defection' of Zola, and the acquisition of the HYDRA bases, the US military claims the technology developed during the war, particularly the laser-based weapons and body-armor. Reverse-engineering creates a more portable, more replicable, not quite as powerful power-source, allowing for mass production until the entire military is outfitted. In the face of an America with unprecedented military and technological might, the rest of the world stays silent when China begins its rise in hopes that the two countries will check each other; unfortunately the conflict turns hot, eventually plunging the globe into thermonuclear devastation. Remnants of HYDRA were assimilated into the US government for their expertise, but many retained their loyalty to their deceased leader and indoctrinated their descendents: The Third World War provided the pseudo-HYDRA agents with the opportunity to take control. They rename their new organization the Enclave, abandoning mysticism altogether in favor of extreme science (note all the 'subjects' in Raven Rock). More-or-less inspired by the fact that the suited-up HYDRA soldiers, with their glowing-blue weapons, reminded This Troper of the Enclave's laser/plasma weapons and sparking Tesla Armor... plus the Enclave evoking Nazis.

• Jossed

Red Skull isn't dead and will reappear as the villain...of Thor II, not Captain America II.

It's a no brainer Red Skull isn't dead and wasn't disintegrated by the Cosmic Cube. Rather, it seems that he was transported somewhere, to another world connected by Yggdrasil. This will be important in the second Thor film, where Red Skull will come out of whatever world he's been hiding on to make trouble for Asgard. This will also be the first time a villain from one movie has crossed over into another hero's movies. Given Red Skull's obsession with the powers of the gods, it'd make sense he'd try to get his hands on more Asgardian tech. By the end of the movie, however, Red Skull will be returned to modern-day earth (but it will free Cap up to have another of his villains take center stage for the second Cap film).

• Or he'll return in the Avengers teaming up with Loki.

• Except that Captain America has no villain more iconic than the Red Skull, or at least no-one that hasn't been compiled into other characters for The Movie. Look at this list and try to find a villain/villain group that's both unrelated to HYDRA and not too out-of-date or silly. Though a Winter Soldier-esque Bucky could be pretty cool...
  • Actually, there are several of Cap's villains that could work for the movies. Baron Zemo for one would be an excellent choice.
    • I assumed Zemo had been subsumed - essence-wise, if not directly - into the movie characters of Zola (Nazi's leading genius/supertech scientist) and movie-verse Red Skull (charisma, ability to lead massive organization of fanatics, Big Bad status, ect).
    • Heinrich Zemo has. Helmut Zemo hasn't.
• Jossed. It's a race of Dark Elves with lasers and terrifying masks.
• He'll still come back eventually, probably as a new underling of Thanos in Infinity Wars.
  • Jossed. He only appears as the Guardian of the Soul Stone.

Cap's shield only absorbs frontal attacks.

If the shield truly absorbed all energy, it would be useless as a weapon. Its impact against an enemy would be absorbed, so the enemy wouldn't be hurt and the shield wouldn't bounce back. Also, there's the question of what happens to the absorbed energy? It can't just keep absorbing energy forever, can it, until it has like fifty tonnes of TNT worth of energy sitting inside it, perfectly neutral? The answer: the shield is designed so that any blow from front-on gets absorbed, but any blow to the edge causes a certain amount of the absorbed energy to be released — so that an enemy hit with the flying shield will actually be impacted with a great deal of kinetic energy, and the shield will (given the right trajectory) rebound all the way back to where it started.

Agents of the SSR founded SHIELD

IRL, the OSS was WWII-era spy organization that was decommissioned after the war, but several of its agent went on to found the CIA. Something similar happened in the MCU with the Strategic Scientific Reserve and SHIELD. Both have Strategic in their titles (as did the OSS) and have a spread-winged eagle against an oval as their logo, also like the OSS/CIA. Possible SHIELD founders are Dum-Dum Dugan, Gabriel Jones, Peggy Carter and Howard Stark.

• And their first director is probably Chester Philips. I would be shocked if this doesn't turn out to be 100% canon
• Howard Stark was already confirmed to be a founder in Iron Man 2, so this theory looks likely.
  • The deleted version of Steve meeting up with Nick Fury in Times Square pretty much confirms this theory.
• Well, following the war, it was absorbed by SHIELD.

Steve wasn't the only Captain America

After Erskine was killed, the Super-Soldier program was continued by Dr. Joseph Reinstein, who in the MCU is a completely separate entity from Dr. Erskine, and reverse engineered the serum in Steve's blood to create his own version. The serum he created eliminates the need for vita-rays and creates a more powerful super-soldier, but also drives subjects insane after a while. Someone volunteered for the experiment and Howard Stark created a shield for him made out of powerful plastic. The shield is the one seen in Tony Stark's workshop. And the serum is the one given to Blonsky.

Cap's posse came together due to sympathy magic from Thor's posse forming in Asgard at the same time, or vice versa

Both posses include:

• A Lady of War: Sif, Peggy.
• A husky gentleman of the ginger persuasion with impressive facial hair: Volstagg, Dugan.
• A classy, dashing chap: Fandrall, Falsworth.
• ....Guys who are/look Asian? Hogun, Morita.
  • Since Bucky returns as the Winter Soldier, then guys who started out as the hero's bros and turned evil: Loki/Bucky. Except Bucky has pretty much decided to stop being evil, while Loki...well, that's up for debate now.

Hydra (or by the time whats left of it) where in volved in summoning Hellboy.

The camera takes a close shot at a Gas Mask Mook when Red Skull explains that he and Hitler share an interest in the occult. The Gas Mask look very similiar to Karl Ruprecht Kroenen'S Gas Mask.

Bucky killed Howard Stark.

After he felt off the train, Bucky was rescued by a Soviet unit and turned over the years into the Winter Soldier. As revenge, some Renegade Russians sent him after Stark, one of the top men at SHIELD, which had played a hand in the end of the Soviet union, to kill him back make his death look like an accident.

• Jossed. While The Winter Soldier does confirm that HYDRA engineered Howard Stark's death, it is never explicitly stated if Bucky was one of those who actually participated, and it is jossed because Bucky doesn't defect and come back for revenge. Bucky, still-living but on the verge of death, is enhanced and brainwashed by Hydra like an assassin machine. Bucky wasn't ever in control and didn't kill them. Bucky's enhanced body did so, under Hydra's complete control. As of Captain America: Civil War, it was confirmed that Hydra sent him to kill Howard and Maria Stark. He assassinated them and set it up as a car crash, as we see in the files shown to Steve by Zola in Winter Soldier

Dugan receives the Infinity Formula.

In the 616 comics (mainstream universe), it's stated that the Infinity Formula keeps Nick Fury from aging and it's been implied that Dugan received it, too. So it's possible that he could still work for SHIELD in the MCU if they state this outright, since Fury is no longer a Howling Commando in this 'verse.

• Also, is it possible that the Infinity Formula could have been derived from whatever HYDRA was testing on Bucky?

Not only did Bucky survive his fall, but he was also on ice for a number of years (possibly continuing into the present) because of Hitler's vendetta against the Russian Front.

Hydra's experiment wasn't to use the Red Skull formula on him, but rather to prepare him as the perfect soldier to fight their neighbors to the East. Part of the experiment was to make a soldier who could survive freezing. They were only in the beta stage, so they managed to make him immune to death by frost, but not to cryopreservation. He's barely stronger than any other non-Super soldier, but he can survive freezing and take a lot of punishment due to the strengthened bonds of his cells and tissues that allow them to survive the crystallization of the water within them.

• Confirmed, by Winter Soldier, though Hydra actually joined with the Soviet forces sometimes.

The movie takes place in an alternate universe of A Matter of Life and Death.

There's the fact that Cap attempting to land the plane in the Arctic looks eerily similar to Peter Carter attempting to escape the burning Lancaster plane in Life and Death. And also how Peggy Carter from CA:TFA looks very much like June from Life and Death, and perhaps Peggy is an alternate gender-flipped version of Peter Carter, who's on the different end of the situation? Consider the fact that both Peggy & Peter are British and share a surname, while we never learn June's (who's an American, by the by...) last name. Who's to say that her surname is "Rogers"?

The English city names written on the flying bombs were just for propaganda purposes, filmed or photographed before flight.

Seemingly obvious enough conclusion to draw, though some reviewers seemed to take issue with that bit. Huh.

• Actually, American city names are written in exactly the same way in German as English.

The lady from the end IS Sharon, but...

She'll be recast in the sequel. Or if they want to bring back Hayley Atwell, she'll have been just some random SHIELD agent.

• Jossed. Steve doesn't show Sharon in Winter Soldier.

The movie takes place in both the Hellboy and Indiana Jones universes

Of course, there's the Red Skull's "Hitler's digging for trinkets in the desert" line, but take into account HYDRA's fascination with the supernatural side of things, and there's the possibility of a small sect within the organization focusing on the rather occult, like drafting demons and various creatures onto their effort. Then again, the pipe dream of seeing Hellboy, Cap, and Indy teaming up to kick Nazi ass is just too amazing to pass up.

Loss of the super serum led to the Weapon X program

Even without the super serum used on Cap, the government wanted to keep making super soldiers. Unfortunately, the scientists weren't able to recreate the original serum and came up with their own procedure. Namely, overlaying or replacing the skeleton with adamantium and introducing the regenerative ability in the subjects who didn't already have it (like Deadpool). Therefore, Cap is in the same universe as the X-Men movies.

Arnim Zola helped found SHIELD

After the war, the Government offered him the full Von Beaun deal.

• Considering the advanced tech that SHIELD has at their disposal, I could easily see Zola being at least an advisor to the group in its early days. His portrayal in the movie (not including the Super-Soldier game) doesn't seem to make him as gleefully villainous as his comic counterpart. It's implied he only works for Hydra due to his love for science, so this WMG is a possibility.
• Kinda-sorta confirmed in The Avengers — SHIELD has a whole stockpile of old HYDRA gear and at least one of their research goals is to reproduce the technology.
• Winter Soldier says Zola and many other Nazi scientists were recruited by the Allies as part of Operation Paperclip. Zola then absorbed Hydra into SHIELD by slowly convincing people to join Hydra and be pathetic Neo-Nazi jerkasses wearing black leather and kevlar.

Red Skull ended up as a joke in Asgard

As any Nazi, Red Skull is a racist and white supremacist. Heimdall in Thor is black. If Red Skull ended up at Bifrost while Loki was around with a recorder, he probably made him a memetic joke in Asgard by making public his reaction.

Sue and Johnny Storm are close relatives of Steve Rogers.

If the Fantastic Four movies do take place in the same Marvel Cinematic Universe, this could explain Steve and Johnny's resemblance.

• Can we just run with the idea that every comic book character played by Chris Evans is a clone of Steve Rogers? Pretty please?

That waitress who's grateful for Cap saving her in The Avengers will appear in Captain America The Winter Soldier as a potential love interest or confidant.

Which would present an interesting situation should they have Sharon Carter appear as a supporting character for Cap.

• Jossed.

Maria Hill will end up as a love interest for Cap.

Was anybody slightly reminded of Peggy by her competency and general badass-ery? Maybe if she defrosts herself a little.

• Jossed, so far.

That kid with the garbage can shield at the end is a young Phil Coulson.

This Tumblr posting gives a pretty damn good theory on possibly why.

• But wouldn't that make Coulson around 80?
  • Hey, if that serum turned a sickly young man into a frosted specimen of human perfection, then a copy of it could surely and reasonably shave off a few decades.

Agent 13 will be in the next movie, but instead of being Sharon Carter...

She'll be Sharon Coulson, Phil's daughter. Sure Coulson isn't married, but he could be divorced or widowed. She'll have been raised to admire Captain America, but will slightly betrayed that Cap couldn't save her father in the end.

• Alternatively, she'll be Coulson's niece or something.
• That seems unlikely, especially since they want to cast Atwell who played Peggy as Sharon Carter (the comics always said they looked alike).

• Jossed. She's Sharon Carter.

Since Hugo Weaving expressed unenthusiasm to return, Red Skull will get a new mask in a sequel.

It'll be the face of whoever is playing him.

The Red Skull didn't end up in Asgard

• After All, Loki ended up in Thanos's side of the universe, who's to say the same didn't happen to the Red Skull? Especially since the cubed opened a portal to the Chitauri's world. It's also possible he was transported forward in time or to another realm all together.
  • More than plausible; there are nine realms, after all. Odds are that a random teleportation would take him somewhere that's neither Asgard nor Midgard.
• He ended up on Vormir. If he passed through Asgard, we didn't hear about it.

The Villain for Captain America: The Winter Soldier will be Aleksander Lukin

• Since it's based on the Winter Soldier story and all.
  • Jossed

Steve always had a good eye, but the Serum improved it to superpowered-levels.

That's why he's able to memorize maps after single viewings accurately enough to make useable copies, and why he only has to perform the Captain America sales pitch once before he has it perfectly memorized, and why he has pinpoint accuracy with what is essentially a huge, heavy disc. Before that, he was going to art school, and probably had an artist's sharp eye, but since the Serum amplifies all of a person's traits, it gave him an eidetic memory and perfect depth perception!

• With the war bonds sales pitch, I'd always thought that, since it was done as a montage, Steve didn't memorize the sales speech overnight. He probably also has a number of little tricks up his sleeve that allowed him to perfectly remember the map with the locations of HYDRA's weapon factories.

Captain America's shield doesn't absorb vibrations, it reflects them.

If it absorbed vibrations, then all impacts would fall flat, not just when Cap defends himself, but when he attacks too. The shield wouldn't knock anyone down, it wouldn't bounce when he throws it, it wouldn't blow up a forest in Avengers when Thor hits it.

But if it reflects force, that would explain why it destroys a forest and sends Thor flying, why it sends mooks flying when Cap hits them, it even explains how it can be ricocheted off of numerous corners.

Or: it does both, the outside is coated with adamantium, allowing it to bounce off of walls and reflect Thors hammer blow, while the inside is made from vibranium which allows him to absorb the impact of jumping out of a plane.

The Red Skull lost his face because he didn't receive Vita-Ray saturation at the same time as the serum.

Suppose that, between the time when the tissue starts to enhance and when the healing factor kicks in, the serum causes irreversible, bright red scarring. The Vita-Rays' main (or only) purpose is to mitigate this damage.

• Confirmed.

Connie is Clara Oswin Oswald.

One of her "impossible" appearances through time and space.

All the Captains America from before Steve's awakening exist in this continuity, and one of them killed T'Chaka. They will all appear or at least be mentioned in the third movie

Like in the comics, Isaiah Bradley was one of the experiment subjects for the Super Serum. His survival without ill effects showed that the serum was complete and could be used for mass production, but due to rampant racism Erskine was forced to prove it again with Steve. Bradley fought in various covert missions and freed at least one lager, and destroyed the Reich's (as opposed to HYDRA) abilities to produce super soldiers. The latter mission was unauthorized and involved stealing some of Cap's equipment (including one of Stark's prototype shields), so he was imprisoned.
Before Steve, a general Saunders tries to impose the use of soldier Clinton McIntyre to be the first Super Soldier, but is rejected by Erskine and Philips for murdering a super officer. Saunders gives him the serum and the Vita Rays anyway, but has an heart attack and apparently dies. Saunders is sacked, Philips gets control on the project, and Steve, who has a fully healthy heart, is used as subject, while McIntyre's still alive body is placed in a refrigerator and, upon discovering he's still alive, left there.William Naslund and Jeffrey Mace joined the Howling Commandos after Cap's disappearance, with Naslund taking the Captain America codename for propaganda purposes. Naslund dies when a rocket explodes in his face as the Commandos finish off the last HYDRA remnant under Baron Zemo. Mace takes the codename for propaganda purposes, and retires after the war.
In the fifties a new Red Skull emerges, this time being a renegade Soviet agent who took the codename for terror purposes. To fight him the US and the Soviets form a joined squad including the Winter Soldier and a new Captain America, William Burnside. Differently from Naslund and Mace, Burnside has received a version of the Super Serum, derived from the Nazi one and perfected under the Weapon Plus project. Later Burnside went mad and started believing himself the original, and after he caused a diplomatic incident with Wakanda (namely killing the local superhero Black Panther not knowing he was king T'Chaka) to get the vibranium needed to recreate 'his' shield the military reactivated Mace and Bradley to take him down. Mace is killed, but Bradley successfully subdues him to be placed. Burnside is placed in the refrigerator alongside McIntyre, while Bradley is pardoned. There are no more experiments with the super serum after this, the codename Captain America is not used anymore, and the Winter Soldier later takes down the Commie Skull.
Years later (and the third Cap movie), Dell Rusk (come on, guess!), a member of the World Security Council, decides they need someone to replace Captain America after Steve retires in protest for their interference and Fury's less than moral actions, and he unfreezes of need power loss on the refrigerator frees Burnside and McIntyre. The first gets back the Captain America codename and his replacement shield (Steve kept his), and the other is given a pointy shield and the codename Protocide. And, given that the new Cap is mad, Protocide isn't too sane himself and who Dell Rusk actually is, the results are less than happy. Steve and Bradley come out of retirement, and are soon joined by the Black Panther, actually T'Challa, who has come to take down the mad Captain America. The final battle sees Black Panther versus Fifties Cap, Bradley versus Protocide, and Cap versus you know who.

• T'Chaka is killed by Zemo in Civil War.
• Confirmed.

Peggy Carter eventually went on to run MI-6

Her service during the war led to a career with the British Secret Service, and was eventually promoted to the head office. After all, Peggy is a diminutive of Margaret, and Daniel Craig's James Bond mentions in Casino Royale that her name starts with an M. No other reason for this than Rule of Cool, though. (Inspired by this fanficiton))

• Semi-confirmed. She became the founding Director of S.H.I.E.L.D.

Schmidt's appearance is due to the loss of his skin.

Dr. Erskine tells Rogers that the performance enhancing serum wasn't ready when Schmidt took it. Maybe, in that formula, it increased muscle size and dexterity, but didn't prepare the rest of the body for such a change. Schmidt's facial muscles grew, burst through his skin, and eventually his body was able to adapt and heal in such a way to give his exposed muscle a sort of skin-like outer layer. And then he was forced to somehow mold a latex skin mask to hide the injuries.

• And this may somehow extend to other parts of his body as well, since the face is the only part of Schmidt that is not covered by clothing at any point in the movie.

Howard Stark is this Universe's Walt Disney

Imagine if instead of a genius in the area of creative enterprise, Disney had instead been a genius in technological enterprise. In our universe, Walt Disney pretty much made animation what it is today with his smart business sense and inventiveness. Howard Stark is the same in many respects in that he achieves leaps and bounds, closing the gap in technological advancement decades ahead of our time. This WMG overlaps with Iron Man 2 when you consider the way he is depicted in that film. So much of his style and charisma matches that of the late Walt Disney. He developed a theme park around his inventions. And then there's the matter of Captain America. He is used to entertain children as a part of American propaganda for World War II. In our universe, Walt Disney cartoons played this role, but in the Marvel Film Universe, cartoons never elevated much higher than a niche form of expression without Disney, so a real-life "cartoon character" was used to sell war bonds and entertain the public.

• Combined with the fact that his theme song was written by the Sherman Brothers (and they were big composers for many Disney works like Mary Poppins) this is very plausible.

Peggy eventually marries James Braddock Sr

Making her children Brian and Elizabeth Braddock (Captain Britain and Psylocke).

The little boy with the trash can lid painted to look like Cap's shield is actually Phil Coulson...who was treated with a "failed" replication of the Super Soldier Serum.

The government wouldn't possibly be satisfied with just one Super Soldier like Cap. So they would inevitably try again. And Phil Coulson would step up and volunteer without batting an eye. They'd think their attempts at replicating it failed...insomuch as they wouldn't get the peak-of-human-physical-conditioning that was Captain America. But they got the longevity and enhanced reflexes parts down. Something else they got right was choosing people with strong moral character—someone with Coulson's loyalty and selflessness enhanced into something truly amazing.

• By extension, those vintage cards he "bought on eBay" were actually just filling in the last gaps in a collection that had been his from when he was a little boy; he never got rid of them.

Steve met Meredith Quill's grandmother on the war bonds drive.

• Sure it seems like just a coincidence that the same actress was in Guardians of the Galaxy (2014), but all it would take is a throwaway line in a future movie, or any Word of God, to establish this simple retcon.
• According to Word of God, it was her mother.

Steve Rogers was compulsorily sterilized due to his physical disabilities.

• READ THIS RIGHT FUCKING NOW.
  This makes all kinds of sense; Rogers remembers growing up in an America that called Hitler an ally, called the unspeakable thing that was done to him and thousands of others "reducing the burden of the human race." Of course when the US decided it wanted to fight against those ideas he wanted in. And having been judged completely worthless by those in power, he would be a man who refuses to acknowledge race, nation, religion... he's the guy who refuses to play "my eyes are up here" with a woman, he's the guy who threw his arms over Jones' and Morita's shoulders so they couldn't be cropped out of photographs... he's the guy who would die before he let the bullies win. He's the guy who knows that no-one is worthless, knows that every single person matters.

Everyone "killed" by the Tesseract powered weaponry HYDRA used were actually randomly teleported all over the universe.

• I mean, the Red Skull ends up being teleported after being exposed to the raw Tesseract(and the Space Gem) instead of outright killed like originally thought. What if the beam weapons, instead of vaporizing their targets like it seemed actually randomly sent their victims to random places in the Marvel universe? And think of the possibilities in story telling.

Zola had already started to brainwash Bucky into possibly killing Cap in Azzano.

During Bucky's capture and torture/experiment, Zola might have already started the process of making him into a superweapon and aiming it at the other superweapon, Cap. He only "failed" because he didn't have enough time to beat Bucky Barnes out and shove the Winter Soldier/Fist of HYDRA in. Bucky was still himself/coherent enough to remember his name, rank, and serial number by the time he was rescued (which is what soldiers are meant to do when captured). Details that support this:

• Bucky's sniper sight lingering on Steve's head a little too long.
• Bucky, after being rescued, has wounds on his face right where the memory suppression device goes in Winter Soldier. His dazed and blank stare also looks unnervingly like the Winter Soldier's default expression.
• Everything laid out in the Fridge page about the train job actually being Zola's mission to recapture Bucky.
• Zola's expression right after Col. Phillips revealed that Bucky was Steve's best friend. Creating a supersoldier and pointing him at another supersoldier to kill him is one thing. The sheer morale killer that is making a supersoldier fight his presumed-dead, brainwashed best friend will be quite another, as Captain America: The Winter Soldier will demonstrate.