Release Date: April 4, 2014
The story: Nick Fury reveals a plan to Steve Rogers: Three massive helicarriers, each with the ability to monitor threats and stop people before they do harm. Steve rejects the idea, seeing it as a menace to humanity. Fury is shot and killed by an assassin called The Winter Soldier, an agent of Hydra. Steve and Natasha Romanoff learn that Dr. Arnim Zola’s consciousness lives on in a computer, where he has been coordinating a secret takeover of S.H.I.E.L.D. by Hydra, including a top-down power grab by secret Hydra agent and senior S.H.I.E.L.D. official Alexander Pierce. Hydra plans to use the helicarriers to take out any potential future threats to Hydra, leading Steve and Natasha to recruit former military pararescueman Sam Wilson in an effort to stop Pierce and Hydra. Steve learns The Winter Soldier is his old friend Bucky Barnes, brainwashed by Hydra and given a robotic metal arm. After a struggle aboard a Helicarrier, Captain America, Black Widow, and The Falcon (with the aid of secretly-still-alive Nick Fury, surprise) foil Hydra’s plans. The Winter Soldier disappears, and we last see him learning of his past as Steve’s dear friend.
Who appears:
Steve Rogers/Captain America
Natasha Romanoff/Black Widow
Bucky Barnes/The Winter Soldier
Sam Wilson/The Falcon
Nick Fury
Maria Hill
Alexander Pierce
Brock Rumlow
Sharon Carter
Peggy Carter
Dr. Arnim Zola
Baron Wolfgang Von Strucker
Quicksilver
Scarlet Witch
Noteworthy events: By the end of the film, S.H.I.E.L.D. is in shambles, and will be officially disbanded shortly thereafter, as shown in Marvel’s Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D. Maria Hill goes to work for Stark Industries. The mid-credits scene reveals Baron Von Strucker and Wanda and Pietro Maximoff—referred to here as “the twins”—who will confront the Avengers in Age Of Ultron.