What We Learned/What You May Have Missed In The Captain America Civil War Trailer

The Captain America: Civil War trailer was unleashed last night, and now that we’ve watched the teaser a few times we’re ready to assess the damages. Hit the jump to find out what we learned as we breakdown the details of the first trailer.

Captain America Civil War Trailer Breakdown

Thaddeus “Thunderbolt” Ross Returns

You might remember that William Hurt played Thaddeus “Thunderbolt” Ross in the 2008 film The Incredible Hulk where he posed as Hulk’s opposition in the US Military. Well, Hurt reprises this character, who seems to be the the catalyst for the superhero registration act that sparks this whole Civil War. And his appearance might have been a long-time coming. Remember the post-credits scene on that 2008 film? Here is it:

Thats General Ross meeting with Tony Stark, who makes a snarky joke before telling Thaddeus that “we’re putting a team together.” That scene is later explored in a Marvel One-Shot short film. Here is the official synopsis of that short film:

Agent Coulson walks into a restaurant where Agent Sitwell is eating breakfast, and informs him that the World Security Council wishes Emil Blonsky released from prison to join the Avengers Initiative. As they see him as a “war hero”, and blame his fight in New York City with Bruce Banner on Banner himself. They order S.H.I.E.L.D. to send an agent to ask General Thaddeus “Thunderbolt” Ross to release Blonsky into their custody. The two agents decide to send a patsy to sabotage the meeting, so Ross will refuse to release Blonsky. At Sitwell’s urging, Coulson reluctantly sends the consultant: Tony Stark. As partially depicted in the post-credits scene of The Incredible Hulk, a disgraced Ross sits drinking in a bar, when he is approached by Stark, who ends up annoying Ross so much that Ross tries to have him removed from the bar. In reply, Stark buys the bar, and schedules it for demolition. The next day at the restaurant, Sitwell arrives to Coulson eating breakfast. Coulson informs him that their plan worked, and that Blonsky will remain in prison.

But now Thunderbolt Ross returns to the Marvel Cinematic Universe to introduce into motion a bill that will spark this Civil War. And while Tony Stark and Ross have had an adversarial relationship thus far, it looks like they might be on the same side this time around. Ross tells Steve Rogers “You have operated with unlimited power, and no supervision. That’s something the world can no longer tolerate.”

The Sokovia Accords

We see Ross hand out a large piece of legislation called “The Sokovia Accords,” which is the Marvel Cinematic Universe equivalent of the Superhuman Registration Act from the comic book story ark. This piece of legislation is the result of the events of Avengers: Age of Ultron, where the unsupervised ungoverned work of Tony Stark and Bruce Banner created Ultron, which as you may remember, left Sokovia in a bit of a mess.

This isn’t the first time we’ve heard about “The Accords” as the bill is name dropped in the Ant-Man post credits scene (which yes, is a clip from later in this movie). In that scene, Steve Rogers (Chris Evans) and Sam Wilson (Anthony Mackie) have captured and are interrogating Bucky Barnes (Sebastian Stan), who it is revealed has been set-up (we also see this in the trailer). The duo want to go to Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) but they doubt will believe him because it is revealed that Stark has already sided with the government. Wilson comments “who knows if the accords will let him help,” to which Cap responds “we’re on our own.”

Apparently Stark has sided with the government because of all that has happened and another international incident that has occurred (which we have yet to see). Its worth noting that the scene in the trailer shows the Sokovia Accords being passed to Scarlet Witch (Elizabeth Olsen) who lived in the war-striker fictional Eastern European country of Sokovia and has a very personal connection to the Sokovia incident which resulted in the death of her brother Quicksilver.