The following contains spoilers from the Marvel Studios film Captain America: Brave New World, now in theaters. The Winter Soldier’s career has taken quite a turn since the events of TV’s The Falcon and the Winter Soldier.

Brave New World and why it felt so strange to me. It was meant to be an espionage thriller (spoilers follow) in the vein of The Winter Soldier, and yet there was no real conspiracy (no traitors, just a guy randomly mind-controlling people) and a twist that was given away in the first trailer (Ross turning into Red Hulk in the Rose Garden).

While stopping a conflict between the United States and Japan at Celestial Island, Sam Wilson/Captain America (Anthony Mackie) watches his protege, Joaquin Torres/Falcon (Danny Ramirez), get shot out of the air. He lands in the Indian Ocean, and luckily, a search team finds him.

In this film, Captain America is hunted by a new villain, only for him to learn that it’s his best friend, Bucky, back from the dead, and brainwashed. Most of the film is Cap trying to figure out why this has occurred, only to learn that the nefarious organization Hydra has its tentacles everywhere.

Given that two of Captain America: Brave New World's main characters were Sam Wilson and Joaquin Torres, and given that Bucky Barnes made a cameo too, the movie did have some obvious links to The Falcon and the Winter Soldier. However, there could undoubtedly have been more.

Brave New World director Julius Onah has explained why Harrison Ford's Red Hulk doesn't talk in the movie and reveals some of the other ideas thrown around for Bucky Barnes'

This timeline tells us that Thunderbolts* will happen either soon after the events in Brave New World or a little later down the road. Whatever the case, Congressman James Buchanan Barnes will be elected to office before he and the Thunderbolts become the New Avengers.

It may have been released seventeen years after the fact, but nevertheless Marvel's newest superhero extravaganza "Captain America: Brave New World", winds up as something of a soft sequel to 2008's "The Incredible Hulk".

Brave New World" then you know the movie has a post-credits scene featuring a confrontation between the titular hero (Anthony Mackie) and the gamma-irradiated Samuel Sterns (Tim Blake Nelson). If you were confused about what Sterns was referring to,