Avengers: Doomsday: Sam Wilson assembles the team, says Mackie

Anthony Mackie has a new quote about exactly where Avengers: Doomsday picks up with Sam Wilson's Captain America after Brave New World. I think it reveals quite a bit about scenes that haven't shown up in any plot leaks, and it could add to the texture of what to expect from the first act.

The quote arrives alongside a new Avengers: Doomsday promo that has appeared on social media but hasn't yet been posted to Marvel's official YouTube channel. It features the actors, and it amounts to them telling you to go ahead and grab tickets.

Anthony Mackie says Cap is getting the Avengers together after Brave New World

I'll issue a warning before getting into this: Mackie may be off on his timeline here. What he says about what's going on with Sam Wilson still stands, though. He knows what he filmed for the movie, and he knows what we're going to see. In his most recent quote, with sci-fi.com, he said: "You find Cap coming off the heels of Brave New World, getting the Avengers together to fight this mortal doom. You find him literally months after coming into his new expedition and getting the crew back together."

I'd dismiss the hard timeline part of this. I'm not sure exactly what he's referencing, because by my understanding Doomsday should take place in 2027, and Spider-Man: Brand New Day was the most recent project, which would have taken place in 2028. So I'm setting that aside.

What matters is where we pick up with Cap, regardless of how much time has passed in real life, in the MCU or in his head. He's getting the crew back together. You find him on the heels of Brave New World, embracing the Captain America role, now on his own and unsanctioned by the government after what happened. He's righteous in that, and he's putting the Avengers together to fight Doom.

Who could be in Sam Wilson's Avengers, from Falcon to Ant-Man

The members of the crew he's referring to are pretty obvious: his sidekick, the new Falcon, plus Shang-Chi and Ant-Man. By extension, I think it may also include a couple of characters Marvel has sandbagged, like Wong, Captain Marvel and She-Hulk. Before the events of Spider-Man: Brand New Day, Banner was probably part of this contingent as well.

Shang-Chi is our big clue. If he's included, that most likely means the whole group from his post credits scene, with Wong, Captain Marvel and Banner welcoming him to the circus, would probably also be involved or at least aware that Sam is putting together the Avengers. That doesn't mean they all join. Wong has never typically joined an Avengers team, and there's no real reason for him to now. Banner has been removed since he put himself in a bunker and was then collected by Doctor Doom. Captain Marvel may still be working with S.W.O.R.D. or off world, so she may not be joining Sam's Avengers either.

Shang-Chi, however, Sam can pick up, and you can picture him approaching characters like that and saying he needs a team.

She-Hulk and Captain Marvel could still be in Avengers: Doomsday

We reported last year that She-Hulk may be a part of Sam's team. We also pointed to the mention in the Thunderbolts post credits scene that Sam had moved to copyright the name. That's a play straight out of the She-Hulk playbook, based on what we saw on screen.

It'll be interesting to see whether Tatiana Maslany filmed for this. I guarantee that if she's not in this film, she's going to be part of Secret Wars. The same goes for Captain Marvel, but I still have an inkling that both of them are in Doomsday.

First act scenes of Sam assembling a team that no plot leak has mentioned

None of the plot leaks we've had mention any first act action where Sam Wilson is compiling an Avengers team after he finds out about Doom or the incursions. Remember, though, that in the Thunderbolts post credits scene, Yelena says out loud that there's now a space crisis and nobody is telling them anything. So Sam may have already been clued in.

From the sound of Mackie's quote, it seems we might get some scenes of Sam doing exactly that: getting an Avengers team together after he learns the threat is Doctor Doom. If this is first act action, I think it tells us the heroes are going to figure out fairly early in the film that Doom is not the ally he presents himself to be at the beginning.

Marvel may be correcting its mistakes with Brave New World and Shang-Chi

The second level to this is that it appears Marvel Studios is looking to correct two huge mistakes. The first is Brave New World. It should have been Sam putting together his new Avengers team to unite against a lesser threat than Doom, giving them some practice at being an Avengers team. The Thunderbolts have had more practice, taking on Sentry in the Void, than these Avengers have. That's not what happened, and with that storyline lost, it looks like Marvel may be making up for it a bit.

The second is Shang-Chi. He should easily have appeared in the Multiverse Saga at least four times if Marvel had prioritized the character and given him a second movie. He could have been one of the major point of view characters, given that Tony Stark was killed off and Steve Rogers wasn't part of the Multiverse Saga. Things are the way they are, and now we're going to get some of these story arcs that remain undeveloped. Sam Wilson should be nowhere near the end of his arc as Captain America, and Shang-Chi's arc has barely begun when it comes to superhero action, especially as part of a team.

Look at a project like Secret Invasion, which was technically a Nick Fury show with the name Secret Invasion slapped on it. It could have been a way to involve these characters in TV in a meaningful way, give them screen time and have them fight Skrulls together. We could have seen Sam Wilson already fighting alongside Shang-Chi. It would have been nice for some of Sam's Avengers to see action in the MCU before everything becomes a complete Fantastic Four, X-Men and Avengers team up.

The Thunderbolts have technically had more work as a team than the Avengers. So when they call themselves the New Avengers, it makes more sense than the Avengers using that title, even though Sam thinks he gets it first because he's Cap.

Will Avengers: Doomsday give Sam Wilson and Shang-Chi meaningful dialogue

There are still some regrets when you think about how many characters won't show up in this and probably never will again. I'm looking directly at projects like Eternals, and at Hulk's son Skaar, who has been noticeably absent every time we've seen Hulk in the MCU since. The list goes on.

Marvel has a lot of work to do on some very young arcs for these characters, and you have to wonder how much time it can possibly give them when Doom is going to be the majority of this. Then there are the other second leads, like Steve Rogers and Thor, who are going to take up a majority of the dialogue. Think back to Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame, where Sam Wilson, who was Falcon at the time rather than Cap, had minimal dialogue. I'm hoping they make up for that here and give all of these characters at least some meaningful lines.

I hate to say it, but so far, other than the new promo, Shang-Chi has been standing behind other characters, smiling and saying nothing. Unfortunately, that's the nature of these films. During the Infinity Saga, especially in that Wakanda scene, we saw many characters in the same place at the same time, but we never saw them talk on screen.