Captain America: Brave New World Stealthily Sets Up Two New Marvel Superteams

This article contains spoilers for "Captain America: Brave New World."

"Captain America: Brave New World" isn't Sam Wilson's (Anthony Mackie) first rodeo as Captain America. He started using the title on Malcolm Spellman's 2021 Disney+ show "The Falcon and the Winter Soldier," and has largely established his place as the new Cap when the movie begins. Since Sam has been in the Marvel Cinematic Universe since "Captain America: The Winter Soldier" (2014) and his Captain America origin story has already been told, the movie can afford to use some of the saved time to set up no less than two different MCU hero teams.

The first team-themed news is the long-awaited confirmation that a new Avengers pack is coming. President Thaddeus "Thunderbolt" Ross (Harrison Ford), of all people, is the man who proposes that Captain America should gather a new incarnation of the MCU's primary super squad. While Sam is initially hesitant to accept the task, he, too, comes around. By the end of the movie, he has accepted that he's worthy of the Captain America title, and immediately recruits his first Avenger: Joaquin Torres (Danny Ramirez), the current Falcon.

"Brave New World" isn't quite as explicit about its other major team tease, but it doesn't really bother to hide its X-Men references, either. Adamantium — the metal coating Wolverine's (Hugh Jackman) bones — plays a key role in this movie. By the time we hear a reporter talking about "the brave new world of adamantium," it's easy to start suspecting that the film's "Brave New World" subtitle stealthily refers to the rise of the MCU's mutants. There are also other, sneakier X-Men nods — notably, parts of Isaiah Bradley's (Carl Lumbly) brainwashed White House rampage seem suspiciously similar to Nightcrawler's (Alan Cumming) attack at the beginning of "X2: X-Men United."

Of course, we've known for a good while that the Avengers are about to reassemble, though the "who," "when," and particularly "how" of it have been up in the air. Marvel's Kang actor Jonathan Majors was found guilty of harassment and assault in 2023 and the MCU had already dropped him at that point, which cast a shadow of doubt over the fate of the planned, Kang-heavy Avengers team-up. Ultimately, Robert Downey Jr. was cast as Doctor Doom and 2026's "Avengers: The Kang Dynasty" was reworked into "Avengers: Doomsday," which set the Avengers' near-future course and opened the door on bringing (some version of) the old band back together.

Meanwhile, the X-Men have been creeping closer to the MCU since the Disney-Fox acquisition was completed in 2019. Mutants have slowly started making their way into the franchise over time, and their appearances have become more and more prominent. To date, Namor (Tenoch Huerta) and Ms. Marvel (Iman Vellani) are probably the most prominently-featured mutants in the main MCU universe, although legendary X-Men from Wolverine to Professor X (Patrick Stewart) and Beast (Kelsey Grammer) have been lurking around various timelines for a good while now. The new X-Men teases in "Captain America: Brave New World" only further reinforce the notion that the mutant super-team's official debut could be closer than we think.

If you pay attention to the post-credits scene of "Captain America: Brave New World" and are up to date with both Marvel lore and upcoming MCU projects, you may notice that Samuel Sterns' (Tim Blake Nelson) ominous words about superheroes from different worlds needing to fight for their existence teases one more super-squad's possible arrival into the main MCU universe. The upcoming event Sterns describes is almost certainly an adaptation of Marvel Comics' 2015 "Secret Wars" crossover event, in which different Earths' superpowered people have to face off to save their universes at the expense of their opponents' timelines.

With Sterns' words, 2027's aptly titled "Avengers: Secret Wars" (and possibly "Avengers: Doomsday") is now all but confirmed to focus on this incident, which is interesting since the MCU is about to introduce a third major super-team: the Fantastic Four. "The Fantastic Four: First Steps" (2025) will explicitly take place in an alternate timeline. As such, the "Secret Wars" event not only seems like the MCU's best bet to bring Marvel's first family in touch with the rest of its heroes, but it's practically an outright invitation for the franchise to do so.

"Captain America: Brave New World" is now in theaters.