Captain America: Courageous New World has put plenty of emphasis on The Pink Hulk in its advertising and marketing. The prospect of seeing cinematic icon Harrison Ford flip into the enormous purple goliath and ship some traditional Hulk-smashing motion is actually engaging, however he is not the one intriguing character who turned up on this Captain America sequel. Actually, the arrival of 1 specific villain makes Captain America: Courageous New World really feel like The Unbelievable Hulk 2, because the movie lastly brings Tim Blake Nelson again as Samuel Sterns, who followers know higher as The Chief.
Nelson performed Sterns again in 2008’s The Unbelievable Hulk, the second movie within the Marvel Cinematic Universe. The film teased his transformation into the long-lasting Marvel villain, however because the MCU moved ahead and rights points round a solo Hulk film grew to become an element, this felt like one Marvel tease that followers must settle for would by no means repay. The arrival of The Chief 17 years later reveals that no plot level is ever actually off the desk for the MCU and that Captain America’s “endurance” lesson is essential. The arrival of the Chief in Captain America: Courageous New World has generated some combined responses from critics, however it’s really a becoming depiction of the character.
Captain America: Courageous New World
3.5
/5
- Launch Date
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February 14, 2025
- Director
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Julius Onah
- Franchise(s)
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Captain America, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Who Is The Chief in Marvel Comics?
The Chief was created by Stan Lee and Steve Ditko, and the character first appeared in Tales to Astonish #62 in December 1964. The query of who The Hulk’s arch-rival is actually up for debate, because it tends to be a debate between Thaddeus Ross/The Pink Hulk, The Abomination, and The Chief. In some ways, The Chief feels just like the true reverse of The Hulk. Whereas the Hulk was an excellent scientist, Bruce Banner became a rampaging monster. The Chief was initially only a easy janitor with intelligence past human compression. The Chief is as sensible because the Hulk is powerful.
On account of his superior intelligence, The Chief is ready to calculate and predict seemingly each possible consequence for an occasion to happen, giving him a grasp manipulator means to plan and anticipate his enemies. He tends to have low ranges of telekinesis and telepathy and might generally management folks’s minds. His genius thoughts additionally makes him an incredible inventor, in a position to make highly effective weapons.
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For the MCU, Samuel Sterns was modified from a janitor to a college professor who was secretly speaking with Bruce Banner beneath the guise of trying to assist him treatment his situation. Nonetheless, Sterns replicated the pattern of blood that Banner gave him with out his consent. Emil Blonsky then compelled Sterns to rework him with gamma radiation into the Abomination. Abomination throws Sterns throughout the lab, the place a pattern of Banner’s blood drips onto a reduce on his brow, and Sterns’s head begins to develop.
This was the final followers noticed of Sterns for 17 years on the large display screen. Nonetheless, The Avengers prequel comedian Fury’s Huge Week #6-7 reveals that shortly after the occasions of The Unbelievable Hulk, Natasha Romanoff/Black Widow captures him and takes him into S.H.I.E.L.D. custody. The MCU picks up on this plotline for Captain America: Courageous New World, together with the truth that Sterns didn’t have inexperienced pores and skin within the comedian.
Because the occasions of The Unbelievable Hulk, Thaddeus Ross had captured Sterns and saved him prisoner in a personal off-site facility, hoping to mine his mind, growing it by exposing Sterns to extra gamma. It resulted in Sterns’s pores and skin altering inexperienced and his cranium growing to a semi-comic-accurate design. After Ross reneges on his promise to free Sterns after serving to him win the Presidential election, Sterns begins to enact his revenge by orchestrating a collection of occasions that ultimately result in Ross’ status being broken when he turns into The Pink Hulk.
Whereas The Chief is primarily a Hulk villain, the mix of poor field workplace performances by the 2 earlier live-action Hulk motion pictures and the truth that Disney will not work with one other studio on one other film except it includes Spider-Man dominated a direct Hulk sequel out. On the floor, The Chief looks like an odd choose for a Captain America film since he’s a Hulk villain and has no dynamic with Sam Wilson within the comics.
Villains change their foes on a regular basis. Kingpin was initially a Spider-Man villain for about 20 years earlier than author Frank Miller made him Daredevil’s arch-enemy throughout the Nineteen Eighties. Sabretooth was initially a foe of Iron Fist earlier than turning into a mutant and a foe of Wolverine, the identical as Mystique, who was initially a Carol Danvers antagonist however is now primarily related to the X-Males. The MCU taking a Hulk villain and placing him as a Captain America foe is not as sacrilegious as some may suppose.
The Chief’s particular means to foretell likelihood and anticipate and manipulate occasions permits Marvel Studios to craft a villain whose superpower is a recurring trope in motion motion pictures: the villain who’s unrealistically ready for all the pieces.
There are many motion pictures that function evil villains who’re depicted as so highly effective and clever that they appear to have these giant, elaborate plans with numerous fail-safes, so it doesn’t matter what the hero does, the villain’s plan can nonetheless work. The traditional “I meant so that you can do this” or “you performed proper into my evil plan.”
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There’s The Joker in The Darkish Knight, whose personification of chaos has a number of plans operating whereas claiming he has no plan. Or Silva in Skyfall, which is simply crafting the Joker right into a James Bond film, the place he plans to get caught by 007 so he might be taken to London so Q will plug in his laptop computer, permitting it to bypass safety and free him so he can go into the London underground, derail a practice since he is aware of James Bond will comply with him, after which attempt to kill M. These peculiar people appear to have the omniscient talents of a screenwriter. But that means is basically The Chief’s superpower.
The Chief looks like a combination (or retread, relying on the way you have a look at it) of Arnim Zola from Captain America: The Winter Soldier and Zemo from Captain America: Civil Struggle. Like Zola, he has an underground bunker the place Captain America confronts him, and his mind permits him to anticipate possible outcomes and threats. In the meantime, like Zemo, he’s seemingly in a position to mastermind a large conspiracy, with the ability to anticipate the strikes of various characters to all play into his plan. Many criticized this aspect in Civil Struggle since Zemo was an peculiar individual who seemingly could not have predicted the actions of tons of of people from totally different nations. That’s the Chief’s superpower, although, so it feels extra plausible.
The Chief is the last word superpowered type of the paranoid conspiracy thriller menace. Regardless of not being a Captain America villain within the comics, his powers match the tone the MCU is in search of in Captain America: Courageous New World. The most important challenge is that the Chief looks like he needs to be greater in additional methods than one.
The Largest Situation With the Chief Is Marvel’s Unwillingness to Go Huge (Actually)
The most important challenge with The Chief in Captain America: Courageous New World is the truth that he feels small, actually. To maintain with the semi-grounded Tom Clancy-inspired tone that Captain America: Courageous New World needs to evoke, the design of the Chief himself tends to attempt to downplay his extra comedian book-like parts. They nonetheless give him inexperienced pores and skin and a brain-like cranium, nevertheless it looks like there may have been extra. In some ways, The Chief’s design appears to be invoking the concept of radiation poisoning, as he has a sickly look to him and virtually a zombie-like haze in his eyes.
Nonetheless, it could’t assist however really feel like The Chief’s design was chosen to downplay the character’s inherently foolish large head that has made him a fan-favorite. In some ways, it feels just like the poor response to M.O.D.O.Ok. in Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania made Marvel Studios hesitant to function one other villain with an enormous head. A lot in order that The Chief’s design might need been fully reworked, as promotional artwork for the film reveals a extra Silver-Age-inspired look to the Chief with a large head going up like a skyscraper. The filmmakers as an alternative opted for a downplayed model of the bulbous cranium look that grew to become common for the character within the Nineteen Eighties.
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But it is not simply the design of The Chief that feels small, but in addition his actual utilization. A typical criticism of the trendy MCU is the choice for the subsequent Avengers film to be Avengers: Doomsday, a large Infinity Struggle-level occasion with out having established a brand new workforce of Avengers within the MCU. The MCU Multiverse Saga wanted their variations of The Avengers and Age of Ultron to develop its new core gamers. Whereas there have been questions on what villain may warrant Earth Mightiest Heroes to reunite, The Chief seemingly may have been the proper Loki or Ultron-style villain to set the stage for Physician Doom.
The Chief’s means to anticipate and manipulate a number of key occasions, together with focusing on the President of the US and probably resulting in a world conflict, looks like a battle that might and may draw out extra Avengers. Captain America, certain, however it could be nice to see Samuel Sterns use his mind to be the power to anticipate a cosmic powerhouse like Captain Marvel, be prepared for the Shuri’s Wakandan expertise, and a face-off with Bruce Banner’s Hulk, presumably even forcing him to lose management. It looks like Marvel did not actually acknowledge how highly effective of a foe that they had with The Chief and will have gone greater with him.
The Chief’s MCU Future
On account of detrimental fan response to each Captain America: Courageous New World as a movie and the depiction of The Chief, it feels unlikely Marvel will revisit him. This can be a disgrace because it actually looks like there are extra tales to inform with The Chief. He may assemble the Masters of Evil, a well-liked Avengers villain the MCU hasn’t touched. Followers actually wish to see The Chief face off in opposition to The Hulk.
Captain America: Courageous New World has plenty of points, however The Chief is not considered one of them. He’s a foe that matches the story that Marvel got down to inform, and Tim Blake Nelson crafts a quiet, sinister foe that delivers on the promise from when he was first solid at first of the MCU. It may not be an Unbelievable Hulk sequel, however Captain America: Courageous New World did ship on The Chief… effectively, virtually. Subsequent time, let the pinnacle be large. Captain America: Courageous New World is in theaters now.