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When Sidewinder steps onscreen in 2025’s Captain America: Brave New World, it won’t just be the introduction of a new villain into the MCU — and a chance for Giancarlo Esposito to have fun chewing the scenery of a fantastic new playground. It’ll also be an unexpected shoutout to a practical joke Kevin Feige played on fandom all the way back in 2014.

Picture the scene: it’s October 2014, and Marvel Studios has announced a mysterious press conference that no-one outside of the company is entirely sure about. After all, it had only been a handful of months since that year’s Marvel panel at San Diego Comic-Con, where the studio had confirmed release dates and information for Avengers: Age of Ultron, Ant-Man, and Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, while also confirming that Josh Brolin would, in fact, be playing Thanos. (Admit it; all of that seems so much longer ago than just a decade, right?)

It turned out that the October press conference was the reveal of Marvel’s complete Phase 3 plans, up to and including what at the time was called Avengers: Infinity War Part II, and would later be retitled Avengers: Endgame. The line-up as presented in that press conference went through a couple of changes — the Inhumans movie never actually happened, and a second Ant-Man movie (and first Spider-Man MCU movie) were slotted in to the calendar — but what many people don’t remember was that the press conference started with a lie.

In order to end the press conference on a big reveal, 2016’s Captain America: Civil War was the last movie title announced during the event… but it was also the first movie chronologically on the timeline Kevin Feige was working through onstage. So, to maintain the surprise, Marvel seemingly announced an entirely fake movie for the May 2016 date: Captain America: Serpent Society.

“We couldn’t be happier with what Joe and Anthony Russo… the directors of Captain America [did],” Feige said, indicating that the Russos were in the audience. “They reinvented the franchise of Captain America, they shattered and changed everything going forward from that movie, and they are back for Captain America 3.” Note that he very purposefully didn’t say anything about the title of the movie, which was on-screen behind him as he spoke, very clearly reading Captain America: Serpent Society.

The first time he did reference the title was at the very end of the press conference. “I’m having buyer’s remorse on that Serpent Society subtitle for Captain America 3,” he said, gesturing at the screen. “It feels like there must be… there must be a better title somewhere.” As he said that — removing his cap in public, no less! — the lights dimmed, and an animated graphic revealed the real title of the movie: Captain America: Civil War to cheers from the crowd… just as Robert Downey Jr. and Chris Evans can on stage to fake fight in front of everyone, making those cheers even louder.

The Serpent Society, then, became a symbol of an MCU that never was — and a “What If…?” that seemed destined to never be addressed ever again… until Sidewinder, the leader of the Serpent Society, was announced as one of the villains of Brave New World. Apparently, when it comes to Marvel Studios, it pays to have patience and a long memory… and to expect the unexpected.

Captain America: Brave New World is released February 14, 2025.

Want more? Make sure you've read our list of all the best Marvel Comics stories of all time, and get ready for all the free Marvel comics coming as part of this year's Free Comic Book Day / Comics Giveaway Day events.