Avengers: Endgame - 13 Things It Actually Took From The Comics
8. "Hail Hydra"
Marvel Comics
If you wanted to find a more controversial story-arc in Marvel's recent history, look no further than Secret Empire.
Nick Spencer's much-maligned dive into Captain America was ill-timed and needlessly overwrought, with the writer having revealed that Steve Rogers was actually a secret agent of Hydra his entire life. Throughout the event, Marvel maintained that this was the 'real' Captain America and that there wouldn't be any easy answers to resolve the story.
*Cue theme from Curb Your Enthusiasm*
In the end, it was revealed that Steve had been remade by Kobik, a force from within the cosmic cube. Everyone let out a collective sigh of "what was even the point?", and Marvel immediately followed the event with a Captain America series that showcased a more traditional version of the character.
How does this tie to Endgame? Well the way Secret Empire revealed that Rogers was a Hydra agent involved him pushing an agent out of a plane before proclaiming "Hail Hydra." The panel was mocked endlessly online, and though the whispering of the phrase in Winter Soldier was pretty memeable in and of itself, having Cap recite the infamous phrase in the film worked both as a cheeky dig at Secret Empire and as an effective callback to the Russos' first Marvel feature.
WhatCulture's very own resident movie guy, Ewan has been working in the content creation biz for over 10 years now, having started as a freelance contributor to WhatCulture Gaming all the way back in 2015. After graduating with a First-Class Honours in History from Northumbria University in 2017 (where he won a prize for a totally killer dissertation on the Watergate years), Ewan took on the role of Comics Editor at WhatCulture and quickly developed WhatCulture Comics into one of the biggest superhero-focused channels on YouTube. He followed this with a brief hiatus at Screen Rant in 2021, where he worked across the Gaming and Film sections as a writer and editor, before returning to WhatCulture as a Senior Content Producer / Presenter in 2023. He started his own podcast, We Love Dad Movies, in 2022, and has contributed several written pieces to the Eisner-nominated comics website Shelfdust as well.
In his current role, Ewan incorporates his love of cinema, comic books, and history into written pieces and video essays for WhatCulture's Film & TV channel, as well as WhatCulture Gaming and WhatCulture Horror, with a particular focus on nineties-era Dad Movies, old school Westerns, and Golden Age Hollywood Noir. John Carpenter is his fave, and he thinks Batman Beyond should never have been cancelled. If that's your vibe, you'll probably like his stuff.
