So who was that Guy at the End of Winter Soldier?

MAJOR SPOILERS FOR CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE WINTER SOLDIER

I suppose I should just do one of these for every Marvel movie. So back in November, Thor: The Dark World ended with a crazy mid-credits stinger that required a bit of explanation for non-comics fans. Now with Winter Soldier out, Marvel has hit us with another crazy stinger teasing future events that's making some go, "What the hell was that and what did it mean?"

Admittedly the Winter Soldier stinger is far less bizarre and obscure than Dark World's, but I think there's a few of you out there still confused. So allow me to use my vast store of useless comics knowledge to enlighten you as to what that all meant & what it could mean for the future of the MCU.

Last warning, to do this I'm going be describing a huge twist from the movie so there be spoilers ahead.


All right, let's talk stinger. The big twist of Winter Soldier was that Hydra, the mad science Nazis from the first Captain America, didn't dissolve after the Red Skull's sort-of death and the end of WW2 like we thought. Its surviving scientists were actually brought over to the US after the war so their technology and secrets wouldn't fall into the Soviets' hands (Something that happened in real life too). Most of them ended up working for SHIELD and secretly rebuilt Hydra within the spy organization. Yes, SHIELD the heroic agency that brought the Avengers together has had a cancerous strain of villains inside it since its creation. The plot of Winter Soldier was about Hydra revealing themselves after all this time and attempting to take over the world. Captain America stopped them of course, but not without SHIELD having to completely disband to stop the Hydra threat.

Baron von Strucker in the comics

Except it didn't. The mid-credits stinger reveals that while SHIELD is gone, Hydra is alive and well. Their attempted coup just one plan of many. This is told to us by Thomas Kretschmann, playing Hydra leader Baron von Strucker. As a scientist informs him of the coup's failure, Strucker says it's of no concern. They walk and talk, revealing that Hydra has gotten its hands on Loki's spear and they're running experiments on it. But then they round a corner to see two plastic cells, containing two people Strucker calls "The Twins". One is a boy moving at superspeed, beating the walls of his cell. The other is a girl who's absent-mindedly levitating blocks. Strucker says they've entered an age of miracles and the girl smashes the blocks together with some red energy. Black out. 

So what does this mean exactly? Let's start with Von Strucker. Baron Wolfgang von Strucker is the classic leader of Hydra and a longtime foe of Nick Fury. One of many Nazi supervillains who survived the war, he's basically a classic Bond Villain (which is how Kretschmann plays him) with crazy henchmen and a gimmicky look. In his case, the bald head and monocle. And the Satan Claw, a red gauntlet that sucks out people's lifeforce which is how he's kept alive since WW2. Now Kretschmann's casting was announced not too long ago, but we weren't expecting him to show up until Avengers 2. Given Hydra's resurgence in Winter Soldier, his popping up here wasn't as much of a surprise. But the fact that he has Loki's Spear, and is experimenting with its mind control powers, definitely was. Glad to see that loose thread tied up.

Quicksilver

But the stinger's big shocker was the twins Pietro and Wanda Maximoff, or as they're better known Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch. Again, we knew these two were going to appear in Avengers 2 but it's still cool we get a tease of them here. They're classic Avengers members with cool powersets. Quicksilver has superspeed like the Flash and Scarlet Witch has weird telekinetic powers. But what's interesting about them is that they're Mutants. Yes, Mutants as in X-Men. In fact, they're Magneto's kids. 

Now this is actually kind of an issue for Marvel Studios. See, technically Sony has the movie rights to anyone associated with the X-Men and the concept of Mutants. But because they're just as associated with the Avengers, Marvel can use Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch but no other Mutants. They can't even reference Magneto or they violate Sony's contract. This is why Quicksilver is showing up in both Days of Future Past for Sony and Age of Ultron for Marvel. There's been a lot of speculation about how Marvel would handle "The Magneto Problem" but this stinger at least let's us know The Twins will stay true to their comic origins. They actually started out as villains there and it appears that they'll be working for Hydra in the movies, if only under mind control. 

Scarlet Witch

It's a credit to Marvel that even in these brief few seconds they convey the two's characters. Quicksilver has always been an angsty fucker in the comics, quick to anger and over-protective of his sister. So his bashing himself against the walls of his cell, trying to break out, is right in character for him. Scarlet Witch is also conveyed well, sitting on the floor completely zoned out and mesmerized by her floating blocks in a childlike way. See Wanda is one of those characters who is incredibly powerful but has very little control of her abilities, she's ended up drugged, locked in asylums, and generally lost her mind on several occasions. So her personality tends to swing back from strange and out of it (think River Tam) to destructive outbursts of anger (think Tetsuo from Akira). Her doll-like expression watching her blocks followed by her violently smashing them for seemingly no reason is also right on the money. 

Still no word on how Marvel plans to address where their powers come from, seeing how they can't say they're Mutants. I'm assuming they were still born with their powers instead of getting them later, going off Strucker's line about miracles. From what Aaron-Taylor Johnson (Quicksilver's actor) has said their origins as gypsy orphans from Eastern Europe is still intact, so if I had to guess I'd say that they accidentally displayed their powers at some point as kids. Some Hydra agent then caught word of it, the two got kidnapped and Hydra has been experimenting them ever since. Probably trying to figure where their powers came from and turning the two into Hydra agents. 

Dr. Strange, Sorcerer Supreme

That's all for the teaser but there's one more thing I want to talk about. Earlier in the film Agent Sitwell rattles off a list of people Hydra considers threats and one name he mentions is Stephen Strange. As in Dr. Strange, the Sorcerer Supreme. To those who don't know, Dr, Strange is Marvel's premier magic hero. Any Marvel hero with a magical problem goes to him. His movie was announced as part of Phase Three, the movies planned for after Avengers 2, but his mention here confuses the timeline. I'd assumed that Dr. Strange's movie would be his origin story, following him going to Tibet and learning how to do magic. But if Hydra knows of him and considers him a threat then we can assume he's already the Sorcerer Supreme. So is his movie not going to be his origin? Or will it be set before the Battle of New York? Like if during Dr Strange's movie we see Tony Stark at the end of the first Iron Man, when he announces he's Iron Man, on TV to establish when this is happening with the other movies. Just some random speculation on my part. 

I know this won't be the last time I have to do this. Marvel digs deeper into their lore with each new movie. Not that I mind, playing the guessing game and sifting through the comics is half the fun of these movies. Who knows what kind of insanity Guardians of the Galaxy has in store for us in August?