‘Captain America: Brave New World’s key cameo that the MCU must use to move into a new era of the Avengers

2024 might be an unusually barren year when it comes to Marvel movie releases — although hopefully Deadpool 3 will be special enough to make up for that — but 2025 will treat us to four full films. Fantastic Four, Blade, and Thunderbolts are coming, but the year’s first offering is Captain America: Brave New World.

The Captain America trilogy is arguably the most consistent of all the MCU’s trilogies, so it’s a bit of a gamble in resurrecting the franchise for a fourth go-around. And yet letting Anthony Mackie’s Sam Wilson have his own starring vehicle is a must, following his ascension to Sentinel of Liberty in The Falcon and the Winter Soldier. What’s more, Cap 4 might be even more important to the Multiverse Saga than it at first appears.

On top of Harrison Ford likely hulking out as Thaddeus Ross, it’s thought that Brave New World could see Sam form a new Avengers team, ahead of Avengers 5 (not The Kang Dynasty, remember) and Avengers: Secret Wars. Before the new era for Earth’s Mightiest Heroes is ushered in, though, the film would be wise to bring together an all-too-brief duo from TFATWS.

Captain America 4 must reunite two Avengers, before one of them potentially disappears from the MCU forever

As r/Marvel Redditors have pointed out, Brave New World would benefit from bringing back Don Cheadle as Rhodey for at least a cameo, in order to build on the short meeting the two had in Falcon. While the pair have had limited shared screentime in the MCU, both Sam and Rhodey have a lot in common — as two ex-military men who are having to uphold the legacy of their best friends’ in the wake of their loss. So it’s easy to see how Rhodey’s return could be folded into the narrative as part of Sam’s character arc.

What’s more, it would also tie into the upcoming Armor Wars film and do its best to redeem the wayward depiction of War Machine in Secret Invasion. That much-maligned series infamously revealed that Rhodey had potentially been a Skrull for years, but the idea was too MCU-breaking to be accepted by fans. Having Colonel Rhodes show up in Cap 4 and clarify that, nope, he was only replaced by Skrulls for a little while would do wonders to reset the status quo ahead of Armor Wars.

As for Armor Wars itself, the currently undated film sure feels like it could be Cheadle’s final bow in the MCU, as he’s been hanging around Earth-616 since 2010’s Iron Man 2. There aren’t many places left he can show up, then, so Captain America: Brave New World has the perfect opportunity to be one of them once it frisbees into theaters on Feb. 14, 2025.