Anthony Mackie wields the shield in Captain America: Brave New World trailer

It’s a brave new era for the shield in Captain America: Brave New World, premiering February 14, 2025. While Sam Wilson (Anthony Mackie) finally embraced the moniker by the end of the Disney+ series The Falcon And The Winter Soldier, we hadn’t seen him fully step into the role of Captain America. Now, the first trailer shows Sam charting his own path as the patriotic hero, and Mackie charting his own path as a Marvel leading man.

As noted by the now-President Thaddeus “Thunderbolt” Ross (Harrison Ford, taking over for the late William Hurt), Sam is no Steve Rogers (Chris Evans). But director Julius Onah brought us back to classic Captain America mode with a “paranoid thriller,” historically a successful subgenre for this corner of the MCU. Winter Soldier remains a top-tier Marvel offering, and the conflict presented in the Brave New World teaser is similar to that and Civil War. The government still wants to control the figure of “Captain America.” But as Sam has seen time and again—including in the story of super soldier test subject Isaiah Bradley (Carl Lumbly)—the government can’t be trusted to wield that kind of power.

The trailer brings Captain America back to America’s capital, Washington D.C. (the setting of Winter Soldier). There are even flavors of White House Down here because of, well, the exploding White House. But there are also deeper ties to the MCU and to Marvel Comics lore. For one, there’s a brief glimpse of someone who appears to be Samuel Sterns (a.k.a. the Leader, played by Tim Blake Nelson), who first appeared in 2008's The Incredible Hulk alongside “Thunderbolt” Ross. Then there’s the long-awaited appearance of Red Hulk, who in the comics is the alter-ego of Thunderbolt himself. From which we can conclude… Red Hulk is the freakin’ president!? Oh, Marvel really wants to get fans excited again.

The road to this teaser has been a long one, as Brave New World faced a variety of production challenges. The fourth Captain America film was originally subtitled New World Order, which was uncomfortably close to antisemitic conspiracy theories. That decision was more questionable because the movie is set to introduce Sabra (Shira Haas), the MCU’s first Israeli superhero. Sabra is a Mossad agent who has been depicted in the comics fighting stereotypically Arab villains. While Marvel Studios promised a “new approach” to Sabra, the inclusion of the character has only become more dubious in the wake of Israel’s ongoing bombings in Palestine. Haas is present in the trailer, though we never see her suited up, nor is there much context to her character in this very brief clip.

Then there’s the movie’s extensive reshoots, a process that Mackie said “isn’t a big deal” and happens on every Marvel movie he’s ever done. That may be true—as we’ve pointed out before, last year’s strikes gave the studio even more time to toy with the film’s direction. But shoehorning in an entire new villain played by Giancarlo Esposito during reshoots is a significant change, and one that may raise eyebrows about how well this installment is testing at that. Given the uneven reception Marvel’s gotten in its post-Endgame era, Sam Wilson’s Cap can hopefully rise to all these challenges.