Captain America: Brave New world (2025) and the Vagaries of State Violence
And when we disagree on how to manage a situation…what happens then? - Sam Wilson/Captain America
We figure it out together. - President Ross
I finally got around to watching Captain America: Brave New World (2025). And while I think the film is just OK as far as MCU (general) and Captain America (specific) films go, I think it raises some interesting questions concerning state violence. To be fair, this can be said about superhero films more generally. Yet, I think this film approaches these questions from a unique vantage point. One related to similar questions about the features of sovereignty, a topic thoroughly explored in Curtis’ (2016) Sovereignty and Superheroes.
In a 2024 paper comparing and contrasting the superhero missions of Black Panther, Luke Cage, and the X-Man Bishop, I briefly discussed connections between considerations of sovereignty in light of the broader relationship between law and morality. Reflecting on the film and this discussion, my current thinking regarding the social functions of superheroes revolves around three areas: how they (1) help others in terms of welfare and justice, (2) protect the public sphere (Miczo, 2016), and (3) serve as a check on state violence when it is characterized by illegitmacy, overreach, and a lack of accountability.
State Violence Through Cap’s Eyes
Since it has been nearly a decade since the last Captain America film and the mantle has changed hands, while watching Brave New World, I had to remind myself that this is first and foremost a Captain America film. Thus, in many ways, it is a continuation of the larger Captain America perspective on these questions and the issues they raise. A perspective that started with Steve Rogers’ origin in Captain America: The First Avenger (2011), the exploration of his distrust in the state or state-like actors such as S.H.I.E.L.D. in Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014), and culminating in defending this distrust to the point of friend and team-fracture in Captain America: Civil War (2016). The above quote and the film’s overall theme, I suggest, should be viewed as a continuation of Steve Rogers’ perspective concerning the relationship between superheroes and the state. A perspective encapsulated by this exchange in Captain America: Civil War (2016):
If we can’t accept limitations, if we’re boundary-less…we’re no better than the bad guys. - Tony Stark/Iron Man
Tony, someone dies on your watch, you don’t give up. - Steve Rogers/Captain America
Who said we’re giving up? - Tony Stark/Iron Man
We are if we’re not taking responsibility for our actions. [The Sokovia Accords] just shifts the blame. - Steve Rogers/Captain America
I’m sorry, Steve. That is dangerously arrogant. This is the United Nations we’re talking about. It’s not the World Security Council, it’s not S.H.I.E.L.D., it’s not HYDRA. - James Rhodes/War Machine
No, but it’s run by people with agendas, and agendas change. - Steve Rogers/Captain America
That’s good. That’s why I’m here. When I realized what my weapons were capable of in the wrong hands…I shut it down and stopped manufacturing. - Tony Stark/Iron Man
Tony, you chose to do that. If we sign this, we surrender our right to choose. What if this panel sends us somewhere we don’t think we should go? What if there’s somewhere we need to go and they don’t let us? We may not be perfect, but the safest hands are still our own. - Steve Rogers/Captain America
I recalled this exchange while watching the film, and when viewed in relation to Sam Wilson’s concern about what happens when the Avengers—if he restarts them—disagree with the president, I am reminded of two things important to not only popular discourse surrounding superheroes, but scholarly explorations of these discourses. To me, at least (I have not done a historical deep dive on this topic), statehood often seems to be synonymous with violence. And as superhero scholars like Curtis (2016) and Bainbridge (2020) point out, this usually means that states can legitimize the use of violence for the maintenance of social order and decide which situations necessitate the use of violence in ways that (may) infringe on or violate citizens’ civil and human rights. But if superheroes can also do these things, what could co-existence look like in these hypothetical worlds, if it is even possible?
State Violence and Its Vagaries
My discussion of sovereignty in the 2024 paper and experience teaching the latest morality and marvel class, which focused on Mark Millar’s Civil War (2006-2007), has given me a new idea to explore. Although I am not yet sure in what capacity. Basically, I am interested in exploring what some form of constitution or shared normative structure would look like in these fictional worlds, as it would address an important consideration I think is missing from Civil War discussions regarding how superheroes should relate to the state. This conflict, as it currently stands, relies on laws, principles, and norms based on social arrangements that no longer characterize the normal state of affairs. There is only so much a constitution or shared normative structure for and by humans can do to address the social fact of superheroes, as they are metahumans. So if working together, as President Ross asks Sam Wilson/Captain America to do, is really possible, it would need to be under a new constitution or shared normative structure that updates what it means—for humans, metahumans, and the state—to have responsibilities, rights, and recourse.
Without a new shared understanding of how to govern these new social arrangements, robust problems will inevitably arise—as the Captain America films aptly illustrate. In terms of the state or state-like organizations, S.H.I.E.L.D being compromised by Hydra (Winter Soldier), President Ross’s treatment of Samuel Sterns (Brave New World), Sterns manipulating Ross into violent conflict (Brave New World), and questions regarding the efficacy of Ross’s treaty involving the Adamantium recovered on the Celestial Island (Brave New World) all highlight the vagaries of state violence in service of personal considerations or for illegitimate reasons. To be fair, superheroes, including Captain America, who are also state-like, often do not fare much better. Examples include the risks associated with Steve Rogers’ all-out support of Bucky (Civil War), his inability to see that superheroes can also have arbitrary agendas (Civil War), and the destruction both precipitating the creation of the Sokovia Accords and resulting from superheroes’ disagreement on whether to sign them (Civil War).
Toward New Shared Norms
In many ways, the constitutions (in the U.S. and abroad) and similar documents preceding them, can be understood as attempts among individuals to work out person-state social arrangements where people believe they need (e.g., in the case of protecting the public square and maintaining social order) yet does not completely trust (e.g., the checks on state power) the state. In terms of guiding principles, what from these constitutions would remain if individuals came together to form a new constitution that attempted to work out person-state-state social arrangements, since coexistence requires that all parties are responsible for and accountable to one another? And of the principles that remain, will their meaning be the same or transformed to better account for this new social reality?
In my view, Captain America films and other superhero films with similar themes, encourage reflection on these questions in some way or another. Questions that, as suggested in the 2024 paper, can stimulate inquiry, activities, and investigations in both pedagogical and research contexts across the humanities (e.g., philosophy, theology) and social sciences (e.g., political science, sociology, psychology). Wouldn’t that be super?