While many characters got new looks for this year's Avengers: Infinity War, perhaps the most striking was Captain America's. Gone was the clean-cut and brightly colored marketing machine from the 1940s. Instead we saw a Cap who was bearded and grizzled, with a muted costume that was more function than form. Yet it turns out Captain America almost didn't wear a costume at all in Avengers: Infinity War. Check it out:
It looks like Steve Rogers almost left the stars and stripes behind entirely for Avengers: Infinity War in favor of a more militarized look with camouflage colors of green, black and brown replacing red, white and blue. Of course, he's still Steve Rogers, so while he doesn't retain any of the visual cues of Captain America in this design, that doesn't stop him from looking like a total badass.
As Marvel Studios Head of Visual Development Ryan Meinerding said in his Twitter post, this was one of the initial ideas for Captain America in Infinity War and given his story going in to that film, you can see why.
The last we saw of Captain America prior to Infinity War was in Captain America: Civil War, and that film ended with him as a fugitive, broken from the Avengers and the U.S. government over the Sokovia Accords. So as a disillusioned soldier, it would have made sense in theory for him to also leave behind his uniform entirely and go for a purely functional look.
That said, the story of Infinity War itself, while not necessarily needing Cap to have a costume, would seem to rule out this specific costume-less look. The Cap in this image, with the military style Shemagh scarf, looks like he belongs in a desert warzone, and the film's story didn't take him to such a place.
Wakanda didn't look especially sandy and neither is Edinburgh. Perhaps if Wanda and Vision had been sneaking away to the desert somewhere it would have worked. Plus with him not having his shield in Infinity War either, Marvel might have wanted for him to retain some of the visual iconography of Captain America.
Ultimately what we got in the film was a Captain America who still had the stars and stripes on his costume, but the costume itself was dark blue and grey. The muted colors made sense given his status as a fugitive that no longer represents any government. Yet what the stars and stripes represent to Steve Rogers is a higher ideal and maybe that's why he kept them as a part of his costume.
Perhaps Cap will get another all-new costume in Avengers 4, especially if it has a major time jump as has been speculated. Hopefully we won't have too much longer to wait to find out either. We are eagerly anticipating the trailer (and title) for Avengers 4, which may arrive before the end of the year (or maybe not).
Keep an eye on our guide for everything going on in the MCU and head over to our Holiday Movie Preview to get the rundown on the blockbusters and prestige flicks still to come in 2018.
