Captain America: Brave New World has been released, and the reaction is certainly not what Marvel Studios was hoping for. The movie scored a 51% rotten rating on Rotten Tomatoes and landed the worst CinemaScore in the entire MCU with a B- minus. Despite some positives, including Anthony Mackie stepping into his role as Captain America, strong performances by legendary actors like Carl Lumbly and Harrison Ford, and a star-making supporting role for Danny Ramirez as Joaquin Torres, the film has a lot of issues.
From some relatively poor green screen work done on scenes in reshoots to entire elements being thrown out, including the original design of The Leader, Captain America: Brave New World is one of the messiest MCU entries in a long time. However, unlike Iron Man 2 or Thor: The Dark World, which felt like isolated issues, Brave New World seems to only feed into the narrative that the MCU is starting to lose its luster.
For me, one of the biggest issues with Captain America: Brave New World is the handling of the Serpent Society. The characters were originally announced to be in the film, then rumored to be cut, only to get an emphasis when Giancarlo Esposito was added to the film’s cast for reshoots. His inclusion meant removing two other actors, Seth Rollins and Rosa Salazar, as members of the Serpent Society from the film. The team is reimagined as a military unit called Serpent, which feels like a missed opportunity for the MCU to grow. It might seem small on the surface, but it is a symptom of a larger issue with the MCU, one that has the franchise looking to the past instead of the future.

Captain America: Brave New World

3.5
/5

Release Date

February 14, 2025

Director

Julius Onah

Franchise(s)

Captain America, Marvel Cinematic Universe

Read Our Review
The Serpent Society in Marvel Comics

The Serpent Society first appeared in October 1985’s Captain America #310 and was created by writer Mark Gruenwald and artist Paul Neary. They were a continuation of the group Serpent Squad from the 1970s. The group took pre-existing snake-themed villains like Sidewinder, Anaconda, Black Mamba, Cobra, Death Adler, and Princess Python, along with newly created characters for the team, like Diamondback, Cottonmouth, Bushmaster, and Asp. They are a colorful group of snake-themed villains with unique powers that aren’t typically out for world domination themselves but lend themselves as henchpeople for larger villains, often with the expressed goal of ensuring every member is protected and taken care of financially.
The Serpent Society is often associated with Steve Rogers and Sam Wilson’s Captain America, so their inclusion in Captain America: Brave New World made sense. However, the MCU opted to reimagine them as an ex-black op turned mercenary group called Serpent. They remove all the colorful costumes and unique power sets, with their snake-themed code names now being call signs. The decision to reimagine the Serpent Society was touched on by director Julius Onah when he told Comic Book that “when you’re taking characters like Serpent Society from publishing, who, as you know, are individuals dressed up as snakes and have snake adjacent powers, you’re always iterating and trying to figure out the version that totally works best in a movie like this.”

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This decision might have worked better in the early era of the MCU, but after 17 years and 35 films, a more comic-accurate Serpent Society would have fit right into the more fantastical world of the MCU. There is plenty of room to reimagine The Serpent Society, but sadly, the MCU might have gone with the most boring option possible, one that seems pulled from an early era when superhero movies were more afraid of comic book elements.
The idea of the MCU being 100% accurate to the comics compared to the other non-Marvel Studios produced films has always been overblown. They pride themselves on capturing the essence of the material if not always doing a direct translation. When they did go off the path, it typically was in favor of reimaging a character for a specific story purpose. Yet the decision to reimagine the Serpent Society seems more rooted in a business one to make Captain America: Brave New World a repeat of Captain America: The Winter Soldier instead of finding its own identity.
Marvel Wants to Recapture ‘The Winter Soldier’ Vibe

The Serpent Society’s role in the film is primarily meant to follow the formula set by Captain America: The Winter Soldier and Captain America: Civil War, as having fight Captain America fight one of his villains from the comics in an opening action scene before leading the way to the bigger conflict. It was Batroc the Leaper in The Winter Soldier and Crossbones in Civil War, with the Serpent Society members Sidewinder and Copperhead now filling that role in Brave New World.
Captain America: Brave New World is trying very much to follow the formula laid out by Captain America: The Winter Soldier, to its detriment. Both begin with Captain America attacking a compound where a comic villain has been reimagined as a realistic mercenary (Batroc/Sidewinder) who has a hostage situation, having been hired by a mysterious benefactor (Nick Fury / The Leader) to begin unraveling a bigger conspiracy about a bigger villain played by a legendary actor from the 1970s (Robert Redford as Alexander Pierce/Harrison Ford as President Thaddeus Ross) and both movies second acts culminating in an underground bunker where Captain America confronts the true mastermind (Arnim Zola / The Leader).
Yet this is a problem as, instead of letting Sam Wilson’s Captain America get his own unique tone, he is playing in a retread of Chris Evan’s Captain America’s best film. Using the Serpent Society to recreate what worked for Batroc the Leaper in Captain America: The Winter Soldier shows a worrying problem with the MCU, where they recycle past hits to try and gain back audience appreciation after some perceived disappointments. MCU Phase 4 and 5 saw the franchise try a fair amount of experimentation by delving into television series tied directly into the feature films to give directors like Sam Raimi, Taika Waititi, Ryan Coogler, Chloe Zhao, and James Gunn a greater amount of creative control. They took big swings that sometimes paid off while others didn’t. This led to a rise in discourse about how “the MCU wasn’t as good as it used to be.”

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It seems after Marvel Studios suffered some true disappointments, like Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania or The Marvels, it got scared and learned the same wrong lesson that Lucasfilm did with Star Wars: instead of looking to innovate like they once did, they are now just repeating their greatest hits. Or, to put it another obvious way, the snake is eating its own tale.
Fans loved Captain America: The Winter Soldier because it took the Captain America franchise in a new direction. It was unlike Captain America: The First Avenger, and the spy-thriller espionage flavoring was very different from every other superhero movie at the time. Instead of finding a new genre or format for Captain America: Brave New World to occupy, they went to what worked for them in the past, which tends to make nobody happy. The best parts of Captain America: Brave New World is not when it is chasing The Winter Soldier, but instead following up on The Falcon and the Winter Soldier or putting Sam Wilson in The Incredible Hulk 2.
The Serpent Society Is Wasted in ‘Captain America: Brave New World’

The original Captain America: Brave New World cut featured Seth Rollins as Sidewinder, and Rosa Salazar was set to play Diamondback. Rollins confirmed he was cut from the movie when Giancarlo Esposito was cast. Salazar, meanwhile, seemingly was part of the initial reshoots and likely played a significant role in the film as she was part of the original McDonald’s Happy Meal toy line that debuted a year before the movie came out, and her role was removed entirely. Her character was going to keep the trademark comic book pink hair, which likely didn’t fit with the grounded mercenary group Marvel might have changed the Serpent Society into.
In the finished film, the Serpent Society is largely wasted. The fight with the character of Copperhead, played by Jóhannes Haukur Jóhannesson, is frustrating to watch. Nothing about this character identifies him as Copperhead. He feels like a generic heavy-hitter henchman that could have been anyone. Had Batroc not died in The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, it could easily have been him. Nothing about this character says a Serpent Society.
Giancarlo Esposito’s inclusion feels lackluster. He certainly brings gravitas to the role, but it does feel like a glorified cameo, and his inclusion in all of the marketing is misleading, mainly when he is essentially a glorified henchman for The Leader. Knowing that Esposito’s role was added in reshoots means that anytime he is on screen, the audience knows that this wasn’t part of the original movie. It gives context for how the movie changed.

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His attack on Sam’s car seems like a way to replicate the attack on Nick Fury’s truck in The Winter Soldier. At the same time, his scene later in the film, after he was captured, gives Sam Wilson the details on The Leader, which is all exposure to get the audience up to speed on the character, likely from a test screen note where audiences didn’t remember The Incredible Hulk. While the movie does leave the door for Esposito’s Sidewinder to be back to fight Captain America, with the primary focus being the Multiverse Saga, this plot point will take some time to pay off.
However, the bigger issue is that The Serpent Society is Marvel’s attempt to reimagine them, which might have robbed the film and the MCU of an interesting set of villains. They didn’t need to be reimagined as a by-the-numbers mercenary group of soldiers with guns and knives. They shouldn’t have been the opening act villains but the primary threat for Sam Wilson’s Captain America as they could have tied to a larger piece of Marvel mythology that would have set a new tone for the Captain America film series and also harkening back to the early days of the MCU.
The Serpent Society Could Have Been the Primary Villains

Captain America: Serpent Society was a joke title announced in 2014 as a red-hearing for Captain America: Civil War. Over a decade later, Captain America: Serpent Society would have made for an excellent concept for Sam Wilson’s Captain America movie. Giancarlo Esposito’s Sidewinder could have had a more significant role in the film than a glorified cameo meant to explain exposition. Rosa Salazar’s Diamondback could have been a villain turned anti-hero and potential romantic partner for Sam Wilson like Diamondback was for Steve Roger’s Captain America in the comics. Diamondback’s prominent role also could have avoided the controversy surrounding the character of Ruth Bat-Seraph.
Having Captain America fight a team of snake-themed villains might not seem like a blockbuster movie on paper, but one prominent storyline in the comics has them going after a mystical artifact called The Serpent Crown. The Serpent Crown is a magical item tied to the Egyptian god Set in the comics. The MCU could have reimagined the Serpent Society as a cult, one that believes finding the mystical artifact of the Serpent Crown would bring forth a new powerful being on Earth. That changes the film’s tone from the Tom Clancy-inspired tone the movie went for to the magical McGuffin hunt, which is more akin to a Dan Brown novel but set within the MCU.
Even the idea of Sam Wilson going after a magical artifact connected to a god feels like a throwback to Red Skull’s hunt for the Tesseract in Captain America: The First Avenger. Despite that seeming like giving Sam Wilson Steve Rogers’ leftovers, it wouldn’t be replicating the exact beats of The First Avenger the same way Brave New World wants to do with Winter Soldier.

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While The Serpent’s Crown is connected to Set in the comics and therefore could have connected The Serpent Society with Moon Knight, there is also an Asgardian named Col Borson who goes by the name The Serpent that tied in better. Like Captain America: The First Avenger, they could have also tied the Serpent Crown to Asgard and Thor’s mythology. If the Serpent Society was after the Serpent Crown, which is the avatar to unleash the Serpent, that ties these three different comic book elements together while merging Captain America: Brave New World with elements from the Thor franchise.
The idea of Captain America fighting an Asgardian like the Serpent might seem as wild as pulling the Red Hulk in, but there is a built-in-universe explanation for Thor not to be involved since Thor: Love and Thunder established he was off-world while the absence of The Hulk in Brave New World feels like a glaring omission. It also opens the door for Sam Wilson to visit his friends in New Asgard and get some details, further expanding the various foreign powers of the MCU.
Marvel Studios seemingly had a strong set of villains with The Serpent Society, and not only took out all the characters that defined the group in the comics, but seemingly made them a disposable generic mercenary group. We didn’t expect The Serpent Society to have a big role in the film, but we did expect Marvel Studios to do better by them and not waste them. This isn’t like Trevor Slattery’s Mandarin reveal in Iron Man 3, where it was a big joke about the nature of overly theatrical terrorists in films and a satire about the military-industrial complex…this was done for no greater point than being too nervous to have people wear snake costumes in a superhero movie. Captain America: Brave New World is in theaters now.