Captain America soars into a fresh era

How New World Order will shake up the shield

IT’S A NEW dawn for Captain America. The fourth instalment in the super-soldier series isn’t just welcoming Anthony Mackie’s Sam Wilson as Steve Rogers’ official successor, but refreshing the saga with a near-reboot. Empire breaks down the characters and curveballs that make this a sequel worth getting excited about.

A NEW CAP

After Rogers took a permanent holiday to 1945 in Avengers: Endgame, Cap’s shield found itself on the unworthy arm of Wyatt Russell’s US Agent, before Mackie’s Falcon grudgingly took up the mantle and earned himself some natty new Stars-and-stripes-emblazoned wings in the process. New World Order picks up after Falcon And The Winter Soldier explored Sam’s relationship to Black superherodom and the systemic injustice that went with it. This will be the first time we see Sam operating without a team, fully embracing his new identity as America’s superhero poster boy. No pressure there, then.

A NEW DIRECTOR

The Russos — who helmed the past two Cap outings — are passing the baton to Julias Onah (The Cloverfield Paradox) in his Marvel directorial debut. Onah has cited his love of classic paranoid thrillers as a big inspiration for the film, which not only hints at Sam’s new collaboration with a certain head of government (see below), but the kind of moves he’s going to throw down. “We want to find action that is grounded, and tactile, and give him new things to do that you haven’t seen in those other films,” Onah revealed at Disney’s D23 event.

A NEW THUNDERBOLT

The film brings with it a huge new addition as Harrison Ford joins the MCU, slipping into the role of Thaddeus ‘Thunderbolt’ Ross, a part previously played by the late William Hurt from 2008’s The Incredible Hulk to 2019’s Avengers: Endgame. However, Ross has since risen from General to POTUS. How will Sam fare against his new boss? “They have a history together,” Kevin Feige teased when Ford’s casting was first announced. “But in this film, we’ll be seeing the dynamic between Captain America and the President of the United States in a way that is just incredible.” New World Order will set up Ford for Thunderbolts, which centres around a ragtag band of antiheroes including Florence Pugh’s Yelena Belova, David Harbour’s Red Guardian and Sebastian Stan’s Winter Soldier.

A NEW INCREDIBLE HULK?

With Tim Roth’s Abomination crashing into She-hulk, the MCU’S much-maligned second movie seems to be enjoying an unexpected renaissance at the moment, and Thunderbolt Ross isn’t the only Incredible Hulk character poised to make a comeback in New World Order. Liv Tyler’s Betty Ross (Thaddeus’ daughter) will also return, joined by Tim Blake Nelson as Samuel Sterns, aka The Leader, in what is rapidly starting to feel like a Hulk/captain America crossover. Nelson’s turn as The Leader was teased back in the 2008 Hulk movie, with his character on the brink of transforming into the green-skinned supervillain, and has since been spotted on set with some slime-coloured paint on his hands, suggesting that some smash-happy fists could soon be heading Cap’s way.

CAPTAIN AMERICA: NEW WORLD ORDER IS IN CINEMAS