Who is Nomad, exactly?
He’s not Captain America, that’s for sure, as Steve Rogers became totally disillusioned with the Powers That Be circa Captain America #180, and ultimately ditched his famous moniker – temporarily, we might add. Instead, Nomad is the Marvel equivalent of a lone wolf, someone who operates on the fringes of society as a masked vigilante. Ring a bell?
It’s by no means the most original arc in comic book history, but it’s one that will weave its way into Avengers: Infinity War and its untitled sequel, as Joe Russo recently reaffirmed to MTV’s Happy Sad Confused podcast (h/t ComicBook.com) that Chris Evans’ Phase One Avenger is ready for a change.
Yeah, he’s in, I think we had mentioned this previously, it’s no surprise and I think you see it in the trailer is that he is embracing the spirit of Nomad. It was always our intent from the moment we got involved with that character to deconstruct him. That’s what we like, that’s what we find interesting. It’s what Soderbergh responded to in our initial work.
Not that you can blame him. In Civil War, Captain America began questioning his closest allies (and himself!), ultimately leading to the most destructive battle in the MCU’s 10-year history…so far. With Infinity War looming large, the Russo Brothers are ready to take things to a whole new level, and Joe Russo believes the events of Civil War still play on Cap’s fragile mind:
You look at Arrested Development or Community, we are constantly either deconstructing genre or tone or playing with, we like to say it’s like being a Mad Scientist, you get to play in the laboratory and experiment with narrative. With a character called Captain America, you have to address the concept of who he is because his identity is tied to his country. So we thought it would be a really compelling narrative if he got into conflict with his identity, with the country, so the notion, the path that he’s following is the same path that we left him in at the end of Civil War, which is he’s a character without a country.
A character without a country – and without a cause, perhaps? All will be revealed when Avengers: Infinity War touches down on May 4th.
