Thoughts:

  1. So the title is definitely a mislead, eh? It’s all “THE WINTER SOLDIER” and then it turns out that while TWS is in the movie and has a plot point or two, mostly this isn’t that movie, this is a movie about SHIELD.

  2. This is a Captain America(tm) Brand Movie, but it sure as hell was a lot of Cap ‘n’ Widow, and a bit of Cap ‘n’ Falcon. At this point, if they don’t actually have a Widow movie, they’re idiots, because they’ve got one all cued up and ready to go. (And after Captain America 3, they’ll probably be ready to go with a Falcon movie, I reckon.)

  3. Which is a great way to handle the long-term health of the MCU, honestly. Probably few stars want to stick around to make Captain America 23: Even More Cap’ning, but if you use the movies to expand and set up spin-off movies, well, now you can keep a vibrant set of movies alive that are kinda sequels, but still fresh and original.

  4. So obvs the Hydra Skynet thing is going to be related to Ultron in the next Avengers, I assume. Still really curious about how everything is tying together with Thanos and Ultron and all that in the long run.

  5. Nick Fury’s tombstone: pure awesome.

  6. So in the HIMYM-verse, Robin was never seeing her friends because she was always off traveling with her “news job.” Good cover story, so HIMYM is officially the best Marvel TV show out there.

  7. I wondered why they made a big deal about Random Corrupt SHIELD/Hydra Agent dude surviving until I googled “Brock Rumlow.” OH, THAT GUY. I am apparently not hardcore enough to know the names of third-tier villains.

  8. Speaking of which, I would like to reiterate that BATROC THE LEAPER appeared in a movie. BATROC THE LEAPER. He even leapt around a lot!

  9. Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver are going to defs be in the next Avengers film, then. Refresh my memory, though: Who was the Nazi dude in charge of that facility? I assume he was a guy from the first movie.

  10. This movie seems very presciently Snowdenian. I mean, basically the Widow is the MCU’s Snowden in a literal sense.

  11. I liked how they really ramped up Cap’s superheroic nature. In the first movie, there was a sense that he was just a really fit dude, like the supersoldier serum basically put him up at the top end of the regular human capability; but here, it’s clear that he has genuinely superhuman abilities.

  12. OH YEAH, it was a very well done movie, and now the MCU encompasses “conspiracy spy thriller” as a genre that comic book movies can also do, so that’s cool. I am really seriously impressed with the body of work that the Marvel people have put together so far.