Winter Soldier: Food For Thought

So I got the chance to see Captain America: The Winter Soldier over the weekend. Long story short, it was awesome. Great character banter, great action, and HUGE changes to the Marvel Cinematic Universe. It got me thinking on a few things, which I’d like to talk about today. Obviously that means spoilers. If you haven’t seen it, and you’ve been keeping up with the MCU, you should definitely do so before reading further.

I repeat: SPOILERS AHEAD.

SPOILERS.

AHEAD.

Okay, you’ve been warned. Here are some disconnected thoughts/questions brought up by the events in Winter Soldier.

  • Throughout the marketing buildup for this movie, it was touted as something that would “change the face of the MCU.” I mentioned this to my girlfriend on the way to the theater, commenting “What are they going to do, disband SHIELD?” Called it! I’m actually kinda surprised they had the balls to do this; we’ll see how much actually sticks before Age of Ultron.
  • Weaponized helicarriers using Stark’s repulsor technology? Man, he’s gonna be pissed. One of Tony’s big no-no’s is other people using Iron Man technology (repulsors, arc reactors, etc.) for weapons. Given his fragile state after New York and the “death” of Agent Coulson, I can’t imagine Fury is on Stark’s nice list.
  • Maria Hill working at Stark Industries? Oh man, this is going to be hilarious.
  • Black Widow released “all” of SHIELD and HYDRA’s secrets online, right? Would this include the fact that Coulson was resurrected? If so, the Avengers are not going to take that well.
  • Speaking of which, Captain America has Level 8 clearance. Does this me he knows Coulson survived? Or did Fury just not tell him, since Cap, being all trusting and straightforward, probably didn’t ask?
  • I’m pretty sure Zola had to have survived. After all, why would Pierce destroy a priceless artifact like Zola just to get at Cap and Widow? My guess is HYDRA copied Zola to new hardware without telling the original copy.
  • Speaking of Zola, there’s quite a few AI characters running around the MCU now. Zola, JARVIS, and of course Ultron and Vision in the next Avengers movie. Maybe Ultron is born from some combination of JARVIS and Zola?
  • So it looks like the Twins (Quicksilver & Scarlet Witch) are HYDRA projects. Given how they reconditioned Winter Soldier, does this mean HYDRA is going to have moles inside the Avengers?
  • How did HYDRA get Loki’s scepter after the events of New York? Oh right, it would haven been confiscated by SHIELD. And HYDRA is was well-ensconced in SHIELD.
  • Man, HYDRA scares me more than SHIELD now.

So I’d say that the movie was successful in changing the status quo of the MCU. I’m curious to see the fallout, especially on tonight’s Agent’s of SHIELD. Does Coulson’s team become something akin to Fury’s Secret Warriors?

I hope they do something cool.