Captain America’s round shield has been forged, fought over, given away and argued about for most of the MCU’s history. Nobody on screen has ever been fully sure who it belongs to. That question is back now. “Avengers: Doomsday” arrives on December 18th, and its latest trailer has Ant-Man (Paul Rudd) tripping over which Captain America he means.
Here is a guide to the hands that have held the shield and what each one did with it. Most of the handoffs are clear. One of them still is not. Warning beyond this point there are spoilers for “Captain America: The First Avenger”, “Captain America: The Winter Soldier”, “Captain America: Civil War”, “Avengers: Infinity War”, “Avengers: Endgame”, “The Falcon and the Winter Soldier”, “Captain America: Brave New World” and the “Avengers: Doomsday” trailers.
Nobody on screen has ever been fully sure who it belongs to.”
Howard Stark (Dominic Cooper) builds it in “Captain America: The First Avenger”. It is not the first shield Steve Rogers (Chris Evans) carries. Inverse describes that one as a prop from his USO show, and Inside the Magic says it is heavily damaged in the fight to free his captured unit. In Howard’s workshop Steve asks about an unassuming round shield, and Howard waves it off as “just a prototype.” It is vibranium, he says, “stronger than steel and a third the weight.” Howard adds that it is “the rarest metal on Earth” and that this one piece is all they have. Peggy Carter (Hayley Atwell) then fires at it to test it. ComicBook.com says Marvel’s own shield timeline dates the build to 1943. In “Captain America: The Winter Soldier” a masked assassin catches the shield and throws it back at Steve, and that assassin is Bucky Barnes (Sebastian Stan).
Peter Parker (Tom Holland) takes it from Steve at the airport in “Captain America: Civil War”. Looper quotes him bragging to his camera in a “Spider-Man: Homecoming” video, “I stole his shield and I threw it at him”, before he is called away. The film’s last fight is the real break. It takes place in a Hydra facility in Siberia, where CinemaBlend says Steve and Bucky use the shield together against Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.). Tony ends up beaten and shouts, “That shield doesn’t belong to you. You don’t deserve it. My father made that shield!” Steve drops it and leaves it behind. Empire quotes Anthony Russo: “Dropping the shield is a rejection of the Captain America identity and a choice to embrace the Steve Rogers identity.”
Steve has no shield in “Avengers: Infinity War”. CinemaBlend says the real one wound up with Tony. T’Challa (Chadwick Boseman) tells his people to “get this man a shield”, and Wakanda answers with vibranium arm shields. In “Avengers: Endgame” CinemaBlend places Tony handing the original back about 45 minutes in. It says he does it partly as a joke to keep it away from his daughter, who would use it as a sled. Den of Geek notes that the main theme from “Captain America: The First Avenger” plays. The reunion does not last. Steve fights Thanos (Josh Brolin) with Mjolnir in one hand and the shield in the other, Inverse says. Thanos shatters it anyway. ComicBook.com adds that the trailers were digitally edited to hide the break. Steve then goes back in time with Mjolnir and the Infinity Stones and no shield.
That makes the next scene the one gap in the chain. An elderly Steve sits on a bench and gives Sam Wilson (Anthony Mackie) a shield that is whole. Sam says it feels “like it’s someone else’s.” Steve answers, “It isn’t.” CinemaBlend notes that Marvel’s own shield timeline jumps from the break straight to an intact shield in Steve’s hands. It finds “a sizable gap in the history of the shield” in between. Joe Russo has explained the trip and not the shield. He told the podcast Lights Camera Barstool that Steve had to return to the main timeline from a branch reality to hand it over, ScreenCrush reports. At a Q&A in China one of the Russo brothers said Steve “had to make another jump back to the main universe”, SlashFilm reports. Marvel prop master Russell Bobbitt told Phase Zero that he read the design tweaks as Steve saying “I’ve made some improvements”, as ComicBookMovie.com reports. Inverse says it is a shield from another reality. ComicBook.com guesses that “Avengers: Doomsday” and “Avengers: Secret Wars” will answer the question with a shield from another timeline. Most answers on the table need a second timeline.
Sam does not keep it long in “The Falcon and the Winter Soldier”. He hands it to the Smithsonian for a permanent display on Steve. By the end of the same episode the Department of Defense unveils John Walker (Wyatt Russell) as the new Captain America with the shield in hand. The Ringer notes that the Dora Milaje briefly end up holding it. Walker then kills a Flag Smasher with it in front of a crowd filming on their phones. Sam and Bucky take it back by force, and TVLine says Sam then trains with it back home in Louisiana. Walker hammers out a homemade shield of his own. Inverse reports that Bucky tells Sam neither of them understood “what it felt like for a Black man to be handed the shield” when Steve explained his plan. Looper says Sam fights the finale with Steve’s shield in a new Wakandan suit and that onlookers start calling him Cap. Every handoff comes with an argument about what the shield means.
Sam finally gets the shield to himself in “Captain America: Brave New World”. Variety says he has no super-soldier serum and leans on a shield and wingsuit that are both vibranium. In the climax Sam faces Red Hulk, the transformed President Thaddeus Ross (Harrison Ford). Popverse says Sam loses the shield partway through the fight, and TechRadar adds that Ross shrugs off its hits. One more round shield sits outside this chain. Peggy’s Union Jack shield in “What If…?” and “Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness” belongs to a Peggy Carter from another universe. GamesRadar and TVLine both describe her that way.
That leaves “Avengers: Doomsday”. Disney’s own page for the film lists both Chris Evans and Anthony Mackie. Its press photos caption Sam as “Sam Wilson/Captain America” and Steve as “Steve Rogers/Captain America”. The studio itself is using the title twice. The first teaser in December showed Steve at home with a newborn and ended with a title card that read “Steve Rogers will return” and the film’s release date. Empire noted that the card named Steve Rogers rather than Captain America. The July trailer has Steve calling Mjolnir to his hand. In the October trailer Ant-Man says, “Then it’s settled. Right, Cap?” and looks at Steve, then catches Sam’s eye and corrects himself, Syfy says. Hypebeast and tbreak quote Walker as saying, “I was also Cap for a minute.” Mackie told Syfy the film has Sam “getting the Avengers back together” months after “Brave New World”. Anthony Russo told Empire, “We can’t see this narrative without his central role in it basically.” Marvel has not said who carries the shield. Disney’s synopsis puts “beloved heroes from three distinct universes” on “a deadly collision course” with a threat none of them has met before. A shield from somewhere else would fit right in.
What Do You Think? Where did the shield Steve gave Sam really come from? Should Sam keep it in “Avengers: Doomsday”, or does Steve have a claim? And which handoff was the hardest one to watch?
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