Tim Blake Nelson is back to a place he never thought he would be: The Marvel Cinematic Universe. Nelson was there from the beginning, during the debut year of the franchise in its second film, The Incredible Hulk. Nelson appeared as Samuel Sterns, who is an ally to Bruce Banner, but comic book fans know he becomes one of the Hulk’s greatest enemies, The Leader. That film teased Stern’s transformation into The Leader, but due to the mild box office performance of that film and rights to The Hulk being tied up with Universal, fans figured this would be a plot point never addressed again.

Yet now, Tim Blake Nelson is set to return as The Leader in Captain America: Brave New World, which opens in theaters on February 14, 2025, over 16 years after the release of The Incredible Hulk. During the San Diego Comic-Con panel, he teased his character for not sitting around since fans last saw him. Then, speaking with GamesRader+ after the panel, he talked about how excited he is to return to the franchise. Nelson said:

“I had given up on getting to play this character again and had despaired on that. I was astonished frankly when they said, ‘We’re bringing you back as The Leader, and it’s going to be in the Captain America franchise.’
I love Anthony Mackie, we’ve worked together before, we went to the same drama school, so I was all in
.”

Nelson, who is both an iconic actor (O Brother, Where Art Thou?, Minority Report, Syriana, Lincoln, Fantastic Four, Colossal, The Ballad of Buster Scruggs) and a great director (Eye of God, O, Leaves of Grass) continued:

He hasn’t been sitting around […] You can go and look in the comics for hints of what we’re up to. I think that the expansion of that into film language is going to astonish.

The Leader’s Long-Awaited Return

The Leader was created by Stan Lee and Steve Ditko and debuted in Tales to Astonish #62 in December 1964 as one of the archenemies of The Hulk. In the comics, he was a janitor who was exposed to radiation, which gave him super-intelligence, but the MCU version of the character was a cellular biologist who worked with Bruce Banner to help cure his Hulk condition while secretly replicating his blood for further studies.

While the Marvel Cinematic Universe has grown, and The Hulk has become an Avenger and a major public figure, fans have been wondering what happened to The Leader after a bit of Bruce Banner’s radioactive blood dripped into his head during The Incredible Hulk. The 2012 Avengers tie-in comic Fury’s Big Week did show that Sterns was captured by S.H.I.E.L.D. shortly after his mutation, but how much of that will be acknowledged in Captain America: Brave New World remains to be seen.

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The trailers for Captain America: Brave New World teased The Leader but did not show his full appearance. Nelson already spoke about how he wanted to portray the character with prosthetics and makeup instead of motion capture. Marvel Studios might be hiding The Leader’s full appearance until the movie hits theaters, making fans wait. The details of this villain’s plans remain to be seen, but he is likely responsible for turning President Ross (Harrison Ford) into the Red Hulk. The Leader is a villain fans have been waiting nearly two decades to see on screen, so anticipation is high, and hopefully, the payoff is worth the wait.