[MAJOR SPOILERS for Captain America: Steve Rogers #1 ahead.]

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Although Captain America has been around in the collective cultural consciousness for the past 75 years (that’s 1941, the year that America got swept up into World War II, for all those playing along at home), he has only become a dominant player in pop culture recently, with 2011’s Captain America: The First Avenger introducing him to the Marvel Cinematic Universe and making him much more of a household name than he ever was before.

A great deal of this credit, of course, goes to Chris Evans, the actor who portrays the chronologically challenged supersoldier on the big screen – and it’s Evans who now finds himself in the spotlight, following yesterday’s bombshell revelation regarding his patriotic alter-ego.

For all those who didn’t hear the Earth-shattering news: Steve Rogers, who was injected with a supersoldier serum during WWII to fight for truth, justice, and the American way against Hitler’s Nazi Party and the Red Skull’s Hydra, was revealed to actually be a top-secret, deep-cover Hydra agent all this time. It took Evans several hours to respond to the controversy, doing so in a short-but-simple (and decidedly funny) tweet:

Hydra?!?!? #sayitaintso— Chris Evans (@ChrisEvans) May 26, 2016

Which was, in turn, followed up by an even more appropriate response:

@ChrisEvans pic.twitter.com/yHYFDurMSE— gel (@marvehIs) May 26, 2016

The social media comments are funny and light-hearted, but they are just the tip of an iceberg that could ram into the good ship MCU and genuinely cause some serious ramifications in the coming years. It’s no secret that Marvel Studios boss Kevin Feige constantly looks to the comics to inspire the various films’ premises and major narrative beats (as well as a whole litany of Easter eggs, but of course). Seeing as how the Winter Soldier saga formed so much of the second Captain America film and the Civil War miniseries, the third Cap adventure, it’s doubtless that the filmmaking side of Marvel will be paying close attention to what is currently transpiring over at the publishing side (especially if Evans eventually opts to let his contract expire upon the completion of The Avengers: Infinity War, like he’s been talking of doing off and on over the past few years).

Then again, given that Marvel Comics and Marvel Studios have a back-and-forth relationship – let’s not forget that the current comic book lineup bears more than a passing resemblance to the MCU’s roster from both the big and small screens – it very well could be that New York is simply responding to what Burbank did to the venerable organization of SHIELD in 2014’s Captain America: The Winter Soldier – namely, decimating it and revealing that it’s secretly been home to Hydra over the past 70 years. What should be notable here is just how long both entities manage to maintain the new narrative status quo: SHIELD’s death has already gone on to inform the events of both The Avengers: Age of Ultron and Captain America: Civil War, and looks to continue to play a role heading into Infinity War two years from now. Marvel Comics has a less than stellar track record in sticking with these sudden, dramatic turn of events (Spider-Man’s Clone Saga, anyone?), with most guessing that Rogers’s Hydra reveal will be retconned out of existence within the next few years, at most.

Then again, this is the All-New, All-Different Marvel, one that not only has a new roster of characters, but that looks to have as much synchronicity amongst all of its various corporate entities as is humanly possible. If this new publishing initiative has already killed off Wolverine and replaced him, the Hulk, and, of course, Captain America with new iterations – and kept everything that way – then there’s at least some reason to believe that Marvel will stick with this new direction come hell or high water… and see where the various multimedia winds will take them.

All New, All Different Captain America: Steve Rogers #1 is now available. Issue #2 hits stores June 29, 2016. Marvel’s Civil War II event kicks off in June 2016 and is scheduled to run through eight issues of a limited series (with spinoffs and tie-ins) in 12 books.

Source: Chris Evans