10 Big MCU Revelations That Didn’t Come From The Movies

2. How Hydra Got Hold Of Loki's Scepter

The scepter The Avengers
Marvel Studios

At the end of The Avengers, Loki is defeated, the Chitauri ship has been blown up, and the sky portal is closed. Loki's scepter - which was a crucial part of his plan - can be seen in the hands of Black Widow, which presumably meant that it would be carefully safeguarded and kept out of the wrong hands.

But the next time we see it, it's randomly in the possession of Wolfgang von Strucker - one of Hydra's top-tier big-bads - during the mid-credits scene of Captain America: The Winter Soldier.

captain america the winter soldier mid-credits scene hydra loki's scepter
Walt Disney Studios

So what happened to the scepter between those two movies?

The answer lies in Avengers: Age Of Ultron's prelude, This Scepter'd Isle. In the comic, the scepter is being studied by SHIELD scientists Nicholas Cooper and Mark Smith. However, Mark hates his position and becomes disgruntled with SHIELD's higher-ups, which gives him a motive to turn against them.

avengers age of ultron prelude loki's scepter
Marvel Comics

Hydra gets to Mark and exploits this motive, persuading him to kill Nicholas and steal the scepter, which is then delivered to Strucker at the Hydra base in Sokovia.

At the end of the comic, we see The Winter Soldier's mid-credits scene re-created on the page, which leads directly into Age Of Ultron.

Contributor
Contributor

Danny has been with WhatCulture for over ten years, and is currently Doctor Who Editor and WhoCulture Channel Manager, overseeing all of WhatCulture's Whoniverse coverage. In 2022, he took charge of WhoCulture and has grown it into the biggest Doctor Who channel on YouTube, and one of the biggest Doctor Who communities on the web full-stop. He has been writing and video editing since his early teens, and first got a taste for content creation after making his own Doctor Who trailers, off the back of a burning obsession with the Matt Smith era of the show. Like many his age, he first got into Doctor Who with the 2005 revival, but has since gone back and fallen in love with the classic years too. If you need someone to recite every Doctor Who episode in order, or to give you a random factoid about the making of Gridlock, Danny is the person to ask!