Secret Wars Should Redeem Tim Blake Nelson’s Samuel Sterns

Captain America: Brave New World has hit theaters to mixed reviews from critics and fans alike. The 35th movie in the Marvel Cinematic Universe sees Anthony Mackie’s Sam Wilson taking on the Captain America mantle, following in the footsteps of Chris Evans’ Steve Rogers, as a mastermind emerges operating in the shadows and threatens global security. That mastermind is a character unseen in the MCU for 17 years: Tim Blake Nelson’s Samuel Sterns. The character last appeared in 2008’s The Incredible Hulk, when his blood was inadvertently cross-contaminated with Bruce Banner’s. It caused a mutation in his brain that gave him superhuman intelligence, presenting Wilson with a different threat than he’s used to dealing with.

Unfortunately, Nelson’s return to the Marvel Cinematic Universe wasn’t glorious. Although the actor did his best with the material provided, his character’s scope and role in the story of Captain America: Brave New World was underwhelming, and the practical effects used to create his cranial mutation, with his brain heavily exposed, were almost laughable. However, the MCU’s Samuel Sterns is far from irredeemable, and 2027’s Avengers: Secret Wars could be the movie to finally do him justice (albeit almost two decades after his first appearance).

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The Practical Effects Of Samuel Sterns’ Mutation Could Improve

Avengers: Secret Wars provides Marvel Studios an excellent opportunity to make amends for Sterns’ terrible look in Captain America: Brave New World.

The beauty (for want of a better term, given its grotesqueness) of Sterns’ mutation is that it can keep changing, so an appearance from the character in Avengers: Secret Wars could drastically improve the cheap-looking practical effects used to portray it in Captain America: Brave New World. Seriously, they were tragic. Rather than looking like a villain in a $180 million blockbuster movie, he resembled something that would look more at home in a 1980s episode of Doctor Who or as a pathetic underling of Lord Zedd in Mighty Morphin Power Rangers.

Tim Blake Nelson requested practical effects in Captain America: Brave New World so he and the rest of the cast could see firsthand how Sterns looked and interact with the character more authentically. It backfired, so there’s a chance he could be convinced to go down the CGI route if he was to reprise his role as the character in the MCU going forward, allowing Marvel Studios to make amends for the presentation of Sterns in the recent movie. The budget for Avengers: Secret Wars is likely to be monumentally big, so there’s no reason Sterns’ appearance couldn’t be dramatically improved if he appeared in the film.

A Better Role For Samuel Sterns

Avengers: Secret Wars would present a perfect opportunity to give Sterns a more significant part than his Captain America: Brave New World role.

Perhaps most importantly, Samuel Sterns appearing in Avengers: Secret Wars would present a perfect opportunity to give him the meatier role that, quite frankly, his Captain America: Brave New World appearance denied him and that MCU fans deserve. Sterns operating in the shadows meant Nelson’s screen time was limited, to say the least, but if the story of Avengers: Secret Wars is anything like the 2015 “Secret Wars” comic book arc, he could play a much more prominent part.

In that story, Doctor Doom — who Robert Downey Jr. will play in the movie — lords over a patchwork landscape called “Battleworld,” which comprises territories from different universes after a mass incursion. Each territory is led by a different baron working as an agent of Doom. That’s where Nelson’s Sterns could come in.

Sterns’ expertise in mind control would make him a brilliant candidate to oversee a territory, ensuring its residents behave in a way Doom approves of (thematically, it would be great if it was a Hulk-themed island with Sterns in control of an army of rage-fueled brutes). It would also allow Nelson to be on the screen more, showcasing the acting talent that earned him a Critics’ Choice Television Awards nomination for Best Supporting Actor in a Drama Series for his role in Watchmen in 2020.

Of course, ultimately, as cool a role as that would be for Nelson, he’d still be working for the more powerful Doctor Doom, and having Doom manipulate a character as intelligent as Sterns would be a tremendous way to convey just how smart and powerful he is in the MCU. Think of it as similar to how Thanos beat the heck out of the Hulk at the start of Avengers: Infinity War. That didn’t make anyone lose any respect for the Hulk; it simply highlighted the Mad Titan’s might.

There’s no doubt Marvel Cinematic Universe fans will find out in due course whether Tim Blake Nelson’s Samuel Sterns will appear in Avengers: Secret Wars alongside countless other characters in its massive ensemble cast. The movie is scheduled for release in theaters on May 7, 2027.

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