Four Captain America Movies Later, Kevin Feige Has Forgotten Marvel’s Deadliest Twist Character — The Perfect Doomsday Wildcard
She was Captain America’s ally and brief flame, but Sharon Carter’s biggest twist arrived late — a turn that finally propelled Emily VanCamp’s character from background player to game changer.
Sharon Carter made one of the sharpest pivots in the MCU and then vanished. After that very loud heel turn at the end of The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, a bunch of us expected Emily VanCamp to pop right back up in Captain America: Brave New World. She didn’t. So where is she, and what thread is Marvel quietly saving her for?
Quick refresher: Sharon’s last big move
Sharon has been circling the Captain America orbit since The Winter Soldier, helping Steve when it was very much not HR-approved, and yes, there was that brief love-interest detour in Civil War. But her real character switch happened in The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, where she was unmasked as the Power Broker running Madripoor’s black market. After she got a full government pardon, she walked out with access to the good stuff — tech, intel, secrets — and immediately started lining up buyers. In other words: she went legit on paper and more dangerous in practice.
About that Brave New World no-show
Despite that setup, Sharon is nowhere to be found in 2025’s Captain America: Brave New World with Anthony Mackie. I don’t buy that Marvel forgot about her; this feels parked on purpose. Which leads to the current (very spicy) theory about who she might be circling and why.
The theory: Hydra, US Agent, and a twisted shield
Hydra has been conspicuously quiet on screen for a while, same as Sharon. The idea floating around is that Hydra is cooking up something big aimed at John Walker — the U.S. Agent — and the endgame is to bend him into a 'Captain Hydra' figure. It’s a riff on the comics twist where Steve Rogers got turned, except this time the candidate is Walker, which frankly makes more sense given his baggage.
Where does Sharon fit? The read is that she’s not teaming with Hydra, she’s profiting off the chaos. As the Power Broker, she can sell access, tech, and secrets to the highest bidder while keeping an arm’s length from whoever is pulling the strings. If there’s a shadow 'Captain Hydra project' in play, she’d be the one quietly taking a cut while pretending to just be moving merchandise.
If Marvel is really steering toward a bigger crossover built around Doctor Doom, you can see how this dovetails. Rumor mill has thrown around an Avengers movie centered on Doom — sometimes labeled 'Avengers: Doomsday' — and a corrupted U.S. Agent makes for a very clean secondary threat to stack against the team. None of that is confirmed by Marvel, to be clear. It’s just where the breadcrumbs point.
Madripoor, Wolverine, and the mutant breadcrumbs
Sharon’s base of operations matters here. Madripoor is straight out of the Wolverine playbook — the 80s era where Logan lurked there under the alias Patch is deep-cut Marvel lore, and that city’s criminal ecosystem is exactly the kind of place the Power Broker would thrive. The MCU has already winked at Wolverine’s existence via a She-Hulk in-universe news blip about a guy with metal claws. Connect the dots and you get a plausible path where Sharon knows more about Madripoor’s most famous mutant than the Avengers do, setting the table for the Mutant Saga and, eventually, whatever flavor of X-Men the MCU calls 616.
Where things stand right now
- Sharon Carter is the Power Broker, runs the Madripoor black market, and now has government clearance after her pardon — a nasty combo.
- She does not appear in Captain America: Brave New World (2025), despite that post-credits setup in The Falcon and the Winter Soldier.
- The working fan theory: Hydra is targeting John Walker to twist him into a 'Captain Hydra' figure; Sharon isn’t Hydra, she’s monetizing the scheme.
- Big-picture speculation links this to a future Avengers event potentially involving Doctor Doom, with 'Avengers: Doomsday' floating around as a rumor title.
- Madripoor ties Sharon to Wolverine’s comic history; the MCU has already teased Wolverine via She-Hulk, which nudges us toward the X-Men era.
- Current scores (subject to change): The Falcon and the Winter Soldier — IMDb 7.1/10, Rotten Tomatoes 85% Tomatometer | 80% Audience. Captain America: Brave New World — IMDb 5.6/10, Rotten Tomatoes 46% Tomatometer | 75% Audience.
Reality check
This is all theory territory. Marvel has not announced Sharon’s next appearance, a Hydra comeback, or an Avengers movie built around Doom. But the pieces do fit: Sharon’s Power Broker upgrade, Walker’s volatility, Madripoor’s mutant pipeline. If Marvel wants a cleaner bridge from street-level espionage to the X-Men while loading the board for a new Avengers crisis, this path is neat, mean, and very on-brand.
If you want to revisit the setup: The Falcon and the Winter Soldier is streaming on Disney+. We’ll see if the next time Sharon Carter calls a buyer, it’s not just for weapons — it’s for war.