Captain America: Brave New World is now playing in theaters in a number of regions, and one fairly minor subplot - that's certain to come into play in a much bigger way down the road - is the introduction of the unbreakable metal known as Adamantium.
If you've been keeping up with our coverage of the movie you'll probably know most of this already, but just in case, here's a spoiler warning.
Early on, President Ross explains that the precious substance was mined from Tiamut, the gigantic Celestial that was frozen mid-emergence towards the end of Eternals. The potential uses for Adamantium extend well beyond creating new weaponry, making it a highly sought-after commodity that leads to conflict that very nearly results in WWIII.
Of course, as any Wolverine fan will be aware, this is the metal that was fused to Logan's skeleton during the Weapon X initiative, and it sounds like Adamantium will ultimately "lay the groundwork" for the X-Men making their MCU debut.
While speaking with EW, producer Nate Moore revealed that it's taken so long for the studio to make progress on introducing the mutant heroes because there was a "cooling-off period" after Disney purchased the rights to the characters in the 2019 studio acquisition deal
"Now that we can build the path towards X-Men, we want to start sprinkling in these things so that it doesn't feel like you're going to drink from a fire hose when that movie comes, so that the MCU starts to lay the groundwork for what could come."
Moore also explained why the country-sized celestial being sticking out of the Indian Ocean wasn't addressed before now.
"What we didn't want was Tiamut to be popped in the background of a bunch of different movies without any context or story. So we wanted to make sure when we went back to that idea, we had a really good reason to do so. Merging Tiamut with the idea of it being the birthplace of adamantium we thought was really interesting because it's something that's only in the MCU. Obviously, we take our cues from publishing a lot, but we are building a massive story in the MCU and we wanted to start to layer on what we've done in the past to make it all feel like one cohesive story."
As for the long-awaited X-Men reboot, Moore indicated that plans are still very much in a state of flux.
"Our X-Men plans are still pretty fluid, but make no mistake, they are coming."
Have you seen Brave New World yet? If so, what did you think?
After meeting with newly elected U.S. President Thaddeus Ross, played by Harrison Ford in his Marvel Cinematic Universe debut, Sam finds himself in the middle of an international incident. He must discover the reason behind a nefarious global plot before the true mastermind has the entire world seeing red.
Captain America: Brave New World also stars Danny Ramirez, Shira Haas, Xosha Roquemore, Carl Lumbly, with Giancarlo Esposito, Liv Tyler, Tim Blake Nelson, and Harrison Ford. The film is directed by Julius Onah and produced by Kevin Feige and Nate Moore. Louis D’Esposito and Charles Newirth serve as executive producers.
Marvel Studios’ Captain America: Brave New World opens in U.S. theaters on February 14, 2025.