Avengers: Doomsday trailer sparks wild fan theories about Steve Rogers’ return
Overnight, the Avengers: Doomsday trailer sent Instagram into detective mode, after a blink-and-miss Steve Rogers detail set off a very specific comeback theory.
Marvel have been up to their usual tricks with the first trailer for Avengers: Doomsday, and the fans are not exactly buying what they're selling—at least not when it comes to Steve Rogers. The man who was once Captain America is looking rather different, and it's sent everyone into a speculative frenzy about what's actually going on.
Suspect Steve Rogers
The sticking point is Steve's new look. He's beardy, hair's grown out, and instead of that familiar star-spangled suit, he's just slouching about in gloomy civvies. There's not a trace of the supersoldier about him. It's enough to get Marvel obsessives scouring every frame, and one Instagram creator, @thedylanseek, managed to get more than 57,000 people clicking "like" on a post where he flat-out says, 'That is not Captain America. That is Captain freaking Hydra.'
Other accounts—like @smallscreenco and @thegeeksupreme—are right behind this theory. The thinking is pretty simple: the bloke with the beard in the trailer can't be the Steve Rogers we know, but some kind of Hydra-ified copycat, possibly from a parallel universe. That suspicion only ramped up because earlier glimpses from the film had shown Steve blissed out in full uniform, with his costume neatly draped nearby. Now, absolutely none of that.
Hydra Cap: The Comic Shock
If you weren't around for Marvel's 2016 comics debacle, quick refresher: Nick Spencer did a notorious about-turn in Steve Rogers: Captain America #1, revealing that the "real" Cap had had his history sneakily rewritten by the Cosmic Cube, making him a Hydra agent. It was divisive. This Captain Hydra was even able to pick up Mjolnir, but only after the hammer's magic rule about being 'worthy' got conveniently altered by Odin for plot reasons. The bona fide Steve did turn up eventually to wallop his doppelgänger, hammer included.
The new film lands on 18 December.
In the Doomsday trailer, Steve is shown summoning Mjolnir right in front of a thoroughly perplexed Thor. Which of course has set the forums alight with debate about whether the 'worthiness' test has changed again, since this iteration of the hammer was apparently rebuilt. As one fan put it, 'the dark clothes give it away.'
For the real conspiracy theorists, the plot thickens: if this is Hydra Steve, maybe he's been hand-picked by Doctor Doom himself to sneak into the Avengers—a move straight from the comics, where Kang the Conqueror used Tony Stark as his own unwitting double agent.
- Trailer dropped online mid-June
- Steve Rogers has a beard, longer hair, and normal clothes—no suit
- Instagram creator claims 'Captain freakin Hydra'
- Fans tie this to 2016's controversial comics where Cap turned Hydra
- Mjolnir summoning moment in trailer stokes 'worthiness' theories
- Film out 18 December 2026
Avengers: Doomsday opens in cinemas on 18 December.