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The return of Steve Rogers to the MCU in December’s first Avengers: Doomsday trailer delighted a lot of fans, but also left many of them wondering… what has the former Captain America been up to all these years since we last saw him in Avengers: Endgame? Turns out, we know the answer to that — because Avengers: Doomsday (and Avengers: Endgame) director Joe Russo told us years ago.

In a 2019 interview with a Chinese outlet, Russo was asked about what happened to Steve at the end of Endgame, between his mission to return the Infinity Stones across the timeline and returning as an old man to pass on the shield to Sam Wilson. “To me, [Steve’]s action in the end wasn't the fact he wanted to change anything, it's more like me has made a choice,” the director explained. “He chose to go back to past and lived with the one he loved for the rest of his life. The time travel in this movie created an alternate reality. He lived a completely different life in that world. We don't know how exactly his life turned out, but I'd like to believe he still helped many others when they were needed in that world.”

Russo then added an interesting detail that might play out in Doomsday, but wasn’t fully explored in Endgame itself.

“Yes, there were two [Captain Americas] in that reality, it's just like what Hulk said, what happened in the past has already happened. If you go back to [the] past, you simply create a new reality. The characters in this movie created new timelines when they went back to the past, but it had no effect to the prime universe. What happened in the past 22 movies was still canon.”

So, which Steve Rogers did fans actually get to see in the Doomsday trailer: the one they’ve followed through the MCU so far, or a second Cap native to the alternate universe we find him in? Or does having two Captains America in the same reality make it easier for “our” Steve to retire, knowing there’s another him out there to keep the world safe when necessary…?

Avengers: Doomsday will be released December 18, 2026, ideally answering some of these questions in the process.

Keep up to date on Popverse's Marvel coverage, with these highlights:

• The MCU needs Anya Taylor-Joy's Magik in it (and not just for the X-Men connection)
• How Disney+'s What If...? is the moonshot for the next 50 years of Marvel Studios & the MCU
• Marvel Studios has accidentally created a new Phase that predates Phases 1 - 6: the MCU Phase Zero
• Overgrown children of the atom: Marvel's X-Men can't evolve past their '90s commercial peak
• The biggest outstanding questions of the Marvel Studios' movies & TV shows
• Donald Trump is the landlord for Marvel's House of Ideas
• Marvel Studios swapping out Doctor Doom for Kang offers the chance to jettison the Multiverse Saga
• What Marvel Studios boss Kevin Feige is saying (and not saying) about the MCU X-Men franchise says a lot about the future of the Mutant Saga
• If Marvel is going to bring Loki back for Secret Wars, it's time to give him an upgrade
• In 2021, Sony's boss said people won't miss Spider-Man in its Spider-adjacent movie. Turns out, they do.