5 Ways Marvel Could Bring Back Chris Evans For Avengers: Doomsday

Marvel Studios

And we thought "Avengers: Doomsday" bringing back Robert Downey Jr. (not as Iron Man, but Doctor Doom) was Marvel Studios hitting the red emergency button.

Now, it's confirmed that "Doomsday" will also feature the MCU's second anchor lead: Chris Evans, last seen as Captain America back in 2019's "Avengers: Endgame." (This feels like a bad omen for "Captain America: Brave New World" and Anthony Mackie/Sam Wilson holding down the franchise, but we'll see.) 

Evan's post-Cap career hasn't exactly been envious. He was a riot in "Knives Out" and got some good buzz for the Apple TV+ mini-series "Defending Jacob," but since hanging up the shield he's mostly been in sloppy action movies like "The Gray Man," "Ghosted," and "Red One." Compare this to how his Bucky, Sebastian Stan, who is challenging himself with risky roles in films like "The Apprentice," or Chris Hemsworth giving the villain performance of the year as Dementus in "Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga," or Downey Jr. pulling in an Oscar for "Oppenheimer."

Now, Evans has previously said he'd be resistant to revisiting Captain America after his original run wrapped up so cleanly. With some distance from Cap and lack of any new roles that stuck in the same way, though, he might be feeling nostalgic. (The money surely doesn't hurt either.)

But how will Evans' return as Captain America play out — assuming it even is the Captain America we know?

Marvel Studios

This is the most obvious and most likely to happen: Chris Evans returns as a young and able Steve Rogers who puts the Cap costume back on. Marvel is not going to bring Evans back and then not use him to his full potential; you only get to do a grand return for him once.

Yes, "Avengers: Endgame" ended with Captain America going back in time to retroactively grow old with Peggy Carter (Hayley Atwell). But, presumably, the Avengers still have access to the reality-hopping tech they pulled the "time heist" off with.

The set-up would be pretty simple: the MCU faces a greater threat than ever before (it being "Doomsday" and all), so it needs its greatest hero back. It would also fit how Marvel is calling back Evans because the MCU needed a shot in the arm. "Deadpool & Wolverine" did just turn Disney's buyout of 20th Century Fox into metatext about different universes colliding.

After Hugh Jackman's Wolverine died in "Logan," that film used a technicality to bring him back: the Logan from "Logan" remained dead, and Deadpool (Ryan Reynolds) found a different Wolverine from an alternate universe — but one still played by Jackman and close enough to the one we knew. "Doomsday" could probably pull a similar move with a "close enough" Cap variant, thereby technically letting Cap's send-off in "Endgame" stand.

Marvel Studios

At the end of "Avengers: Endgame," Falcon talks with a centenarian Cap (played by Evans in digital old age make-up), who passed on the shield to him. This is, naturally, a consequence of Cap taking the long way around back to the present. Old Man Cap — and Falcon as his successor — goes back to a 2014 comic storyline from writer Rick Remender, where Steve Rogers lost the super-soldier serum and rapidly aged into an old man.

"Falcon and the Winter Soldier" didn't provide clarity on what happened to Cap from there, beyond him being "gone." We've yet to learn if "Brave New World" will offer any answers either (but given Evans' return is now locked in, some last minute reshoots for a cameo are possible). Perhaps "Doomsday" will reveal where Steve Rogers has been spending his secret retirement. This could even be combined with the first suggestion, where Steve begins the film as an old man and then is restored into his younger self later in the film.

If Evans is up for it, maybe Marvel will keep him around playing Captain America until he actually looks like he did in the last scenes of "Endgame."

20th Century Studios

When the news of Evans' return in "Doomsday" first broke, /Film's own Ryan Scott wrote that it seemed "inevitable." One reason why is that Evans already came back to Marvel Studios in "Deadpool & Wolverine" — just not as Captain America. Instead, Evans reprised his role from the 2000s "Fantastic Four" films as Johnny Storm/The Human Torch. The nostalgia well is so deep that now we're homaging movies that most people didn't like in the first place!

Will Evans' Johnny be back again? Maybe, but this is less likely than him just playing Cap again. Evans' "Deadpool & Wolverine" cameo was built around the fake out of the audience (and Wade) expecting him to be a Captain America variant. His Johnny also met a grisly end at Cassandra Nova's (Emma Corrin) hand in that movie. On top of all that, Joseph Quinn will be playing the MCU's new Johnny Storm starting in "The Fantastic Four: First Steps" — do "Doomsday" and "Avengers: Secret Wars" need two Human Torches?

Marvel Comics

Robert Downey Jr.'s return in "Doomsday" is built on the twist of a hero transformed into a villain. Could Marvel be pulling the same move with Chris Evans? There is precedent for Captain America going bad.

One of the most talked-about and infamous comics of the 2010s was "Captain America" #1 by Nick Spencer and Jesús Saíz. Steve reveals himself to be a villainous sleeper agent for the Nazi-originated terrorist group HYDRA; the final page of Captain America declaring "Hail Hydra" drew out a lot of headlines.

Of course, it all turned out to be the result of some reality-warping shenanigans and the proper, good Captain America was restored after the 2017 event "Secret Empire." The HYDRA Cap (sometimes known as HYDRA Supreme) has stuck around as a villain, though, having taken the name Grant Rogers (as in Cap's full name, Steven Grant Rogers).

Will Downey Jr.'s Doctor Doom be partnering up with a HYDRA Supreme played by Evans? Photoshoppers all over the world would be vindicated.

Fred Duval/Shutterstock

HYDRA Supreme doesn't have to be the only (potential) Captain America variant in "Avengers: Doomsday." "Deadpool & Wolverine" featured a multiverse-hopping montage where Deadpool encountered Wolverine from various different comic storylines (Old Man Logan, Weapon X from "Age of Apocalypse," the Humphrey Bogart-inspired Patch, etc.).

If the Avengers need all the Captain America they can get, they've got a whole multiverse to pull from. What about a harder-edged, more bullheaded Captain America like the one seen in Ultimate Marvel. (For another solid representation of this idea, see Jensen Ackles' Soldier Boy in "The Boys.") Maybe we can even get some cameo from Cap variants previously glimpsed during "What If...?", like the zombie Captain America or the Steve Rogers who never got the Super-Soldier serum, instead piloting a "HYDRA Stomper" mech in support of Captain Carter.

Captain Britain in the comics is a completely separate character from Captain America, one tied to the complicated astral mythology of Avalon and the Otherworld. Of course, the MCU isn't shy about making changes; imagine Captain Britain as a Steve Rogers variant, draped in a Union Jack and with a Cockney accent. (You could say in that universe, the U.K. won the Revolutionary War.)

Captain America is admittedly not as flexible a character as Wolverine, but if Evans wants to have some fun with the part, this could be it.

"Avengers: Doomsday" is scheduled for theatrical release on May 1, 2026.