On Monday, news broke that Chris Evans was returning to the MCU as he was cast in “Avengers: Doomsday.” It was a puzzling bit of casting since Evans’ Captain America/Steve Rogers was very old at the end of “Avengers: Endgame,” and subsequently replaced by Anthony Mackie.
It turns out that Evans won’t be playing Captain America, and instead will be portraying Nomad (via The Hot Mic). This casting comes after Evans’ fellow MCU alumni, Robert Downey Jr, was also cast as a completely different character, Doctor Doom.
Given that I’m somewhat illiterate when it comes to comic book history, I dug up some info on Nomad, and apparently he’s the alternate identity that Steve Rogers takes on in the Captain America #180 comic (1974). In the story, Rogers abandons the Captain America moniker after losing faith in the U.S. government and becomes a man serving no country.
A few years ago, Evans signed a fan's shield and included the words “Cap” and “Nomad,” and that’s when speculation started to arise that he might be taking on the character.
‘Avengers’ director Joe Russo tackled the rumors by implying that his approach to the Captain America character in ‘Endgame’ was “to deconstruct him, to take him in a different direction” (via Flickering Myth)
Obviously you can't deal with a character called Captain America without dealing with the thematics behind that, so we wanted a relevancy to it and we wanted to put him in a position where he was questioning the chain of command.
So, Marvel is clearly desperate, they don’t want to make another Avengers movie without Evans and Downey, but will this gamble pay off? Movie audiences are accustomed to seeing these two actors play Cap and Iron Man, and seeing them portray completely different characters is certainly a risky decision on the part of Kevin Feige.
As expected, Snyder's latest is being torn apart by TIFF attendees. No mercy given. The film, which had its world premiere this evening, is being called by some one of the worst movies to ever premiere at the festival.