If you’re only just now crawling out from under a cozy rock, last night, Marvel dropped the first trailer for Captain America: Civil War. Adapted from the 2006 comic book storyline, the movie sees the eponymous Star-Spangled Avenger and his allies dealing with a new mandate from the world’s governments that superheroes must be supervised and held accountable for their actions. This sees Cap lead a group firmly against registering, while Iron Man leads the pro-registration forces. There was a lot to take in over this first two-minutes-and-26-seconds of action, but there were a couple things missing as well.
Captain America: Civil War feels just as large as an Avengers movie, which means there was quite a bit that the preview left out. With a little over five months to go until its release, more trailers will pull the curtain back on what we can expect from Steve Rogers’ third solo (I use that term loosely) adventure. In the meantime, we’ve gone through and highlighted the five big things we didn't get to see in this teaser trailer.
Baron Zemo
Captain America: Civil War may be focused on the heroes feuding with each other, but just like other superhero movies, there will be an evil mastermind plotting in the shadows. Antagonizing Captain America this time around will be Baron Helmut Zemo, played by Daniel Brühl, but we still don’t know what to expect from him. Is he connected to the world’s governments wanting to police superhumans, or is he just taking advantage of this situation to further his own goals? Only time will tell, but Marvel likely wants people to focus on the protagonists having out with each other before drawing attention to the main villain. That said, it would have been nice just to get a look at him, even if he won’t be wearing his trademark purple mask from the comics.
The International Incident
The teaser made it clear that the MCU’s heroes are about to deal with a status quo change, but it didn’t go into detail on how it will come about, aside from General Ross commenting on how these heroes are operating with "with unlimited power and no supervision." Like the original Civil War story, there’s already buildup in the MCU when it comes to distrust towards superhumans, but there will be one event that pushes things over the edge. All Marvel has said so far is that Captain America and the Avengers will get entangled in "another international incident that results in collateral damage." The D23 footage this summer strongly implied that Crossbones (who only barely saw in a shot alongside his minions) is behind this incident, and while he’s apprehended in the end, we still don’t know what he tried to accomplish. Whatever happens, it’s going lead to the Sokovia Accords being drafted, which will subsequently lead to friends turning against each other when they choose sides.
The Massive Fight
This preview gave us members of both teams facing each other down, and we even got a cool shot of Cap and his allies charging into battle. However, in terms of seeing the actual fight between the protagonists, all we got was Black Panther kicking Winter Soldier square in the face, and Bucky and Cap ganging up on Iron Man. That’s it. Now obviously Marvel shouldn’t have shown all of this fight. There have been way too many instances of blockbusters showing too many action scenes in their previews, to the point that hardcore fans have deduced how certain sequences will end ahead of time. While it would have been cool to see just a few more shots of this massive fight, whether it was Black Widow and Hawkeye exchanging blows, or Falcon and War Machine duking it out in the sky, we have to remember this was only a teaser. It’s likely we’ll see a few more shots in another trailer, so perhaps it’s for the best we’re still in the dark on how the big conflict will go down.
The Vision
The Vision debuted earlier this year in Avengers: Age of Ultron and most will tell you he was one of the best parts of the movie. He’s returning in Captain America: Civil War as a member of Team Iron Man, and Paul Bettany has said we will see the android exploring what it means to be human and loyalty trumping logic. That said, he wasn’t one of the many heroes seen in the teaser. Vision is definitely one of the most powerful heroes in the MCU, so if he has any new tricks up his sleeve, Marvel may want to keep him on the down low until another trailer is released in the coming months. When we do eventually see him in a preview, ideally we’ll get some background on why he’s allying himself for the pro-registration side.
Spider-Man
Captain America: Civil War sees two superheroes making their MCU debut. We saw a few shots of Wakanda’s king Black Panther, but his fellow newcomer, Spider-Man, played by Tom Holland, was nowhere to be seen (though some people seem to think so). We know that Peter Parker is going find himself torn between the different ideologies, but other than that, we still don’t know his exact role in the story. However, unlike Black Panther, it’s probably for the best Spidey didn’t drop in. Like Luke Skywalker in Star Wars: The Force Awakens, it's a good idea for Marvel to keep the Web-Slinger hidden from promotional material for as long as possible to preserve the element of surprise. Besides, just imagine the looks on the general audience’s faces (a.k.a. the people who don’t follow movie production news closely) when they’re watching the action and see the guy who’s been swinging across the big screen for more than 13 year suddenly pop up next to the other Marvel heroes.
