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Captain America: Brave New World is part of Phase 5 of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. The film comes on the heels of some major shakeups to the franchise’s status quo, such as Steve Rogers’s retirement at the end of Avengers: Endgame, and Sam Wilson coming into his own and eventually succeeding Steve as Captain America by the end of Disney+’s Falcon and the Winter Soldier.
Captain America: Brave New World picks up on many of the plot threads of the Disney+ series and brings him into conflict with Thaddeus Ross, a ruthless general who’s now become President of the United States. However, the true puppet master behind the film’s events is none other than The Leader, a mutated form of Samuel Sterns, who was introduced all the way back in 2008’s The Incredible Hulk.
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The Leader debuted in Marvel comics as a member of the Hulk’s rogue’s gallery. Unlike Bruce Banners, an accomplished scientist, the Leader was originally Samuel Sterns, a janitor. However, Samuel also obtained his powers, like the Hulk, thanks to gamma radiation exposure.
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While the Hulk was defined by his aggression and brutality, the Leader is defined by his advanced cognitive abilities thanks to his mutated and enhanced brain. After getting transformed by gamma radiation, the Leader immediately begins plotting to take over the United States government by any means necessary, establishing him as a villain for the Hulk to thwart.
The Leader’s debut in the Marvel Cinematic Universe also happened with him starring alongside the Hulk in 2008’s The Incredible Hulk. The MCU variant of Samuel Sterns is a University professor who works with Bruce Banner to find a cure for his condition. However, by the end of the film, he’s forced to help out the villain, Emil Blonsky, who transforms into the Abomination. As a result, Samuel gets a head injury, which is subsequently contaminated with one of Bruce Banner’s blood samples, setting the stage for his fall to villainy.
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The Leader didn’t make any further appearances in MCU films from this point, although his character was elaborated on in supplementary materials such as the tie-in comic Fury’s Big Day, where he was captured and imprisoned by SHIELD after fully going off the deep end.
In Captain America: Brave New World, Samuel Sterns would finally debut fully transformed into the Leader. With the trauma of the events of The Incredible Hulk, alongside the effects of Bruce’s blood sample, the Leader begins plotting a coup of the United States Government, spurred on by the discovery of the high-value mineral, adamantium, off the coast of Celestial Island.
It’s eventually revealed that Sterns’s ultimate goals involve destabilizing the United States Government by traumatizing President Thaddeus Ross and secretly dosing his heart medication with gamma radiation. This culminates in Ross eventually going on a rampage as the Red Hulk, setting the stage for the climactic confrontation between him and Sam Wilson’s Captain America.
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