March saw the release of Captain America: The Winter Soldier, the latest instalment of Marvel’s ongoing Cinematic Universe, and it pretty thoroughly shook things up. The end of that movie will have some serious ramifications for the future of Marvel’s amalgam mega-franchise, and I’m going to write words about those ramifications now.

MAJOR SPOILERS FOR CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE WINTER SOLDIER AND THE REST OF THE MCU AHEAD.

SERIOUSLY.

SPOILERS.

OK, DON’T SAY I DIDN’T WARN YOU.

First, a caveat: these predictions are all total speculation. Nothing has been officially confirmed, unless specifically stated otherwise. Just because it’s written on the Internet, that doesn’t make it true.

1. Agents of…Huh.

Let’s get the big one out of the way. In The Winter Soldier we learn that – pretty much from the start – S.H.I.E.L.D. has been infiltrated and eventually taken over by Hydra. Remember the evil Nazi Super-Science Cult from The First Avenger? yeah, those guys are now secretly running the world, under the watchful eye of Robert Redford. Much exploding ensues and the movie ends with S.H.I.E.L.D. disbanded, Nick fury ‘dead’ and the major S.H.I.E.L.D. players either in new jobs or on soul-searching holidays. All well and good for those guys, but what happens to Marvel’s first foray into TV – Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.?

I’m sure we’ll find out by the end of the season, but here’s some idle speculation anyway. What if one of the main cast is a Hydra agent? We saw in The Winter Soldier that S.H.I.E.L.D. was rotten with the little bastards, so why not find one on Phil Coulson’s Magic Schoolbus? Judging by the end of the last episode to air (Yes Men), that agent is most likely to be Melinda May, the badass pilot/name-taker. Finding out that one of the core team members is an evil pseudo-Nazi would certainly make for some interesting personal dynamics.

But in the long-term, what’s going to happen to a show called Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. now that S.H.I.E.L.D. is no longer a thing? It’s more than likely that the now legally dead, eyepatchless Nick Fury is going to set up a secret underground spy network – nu-S.H.I.E.L.D., perhaps – run and recruited solely by him. Because that’s the kinda shit Nick Fury does for fun. It’s also likely that Coulson and his team will be the first guys Fury recruits, especially since Fury moved heaven and earth (and Kree blood) to bring Coulson back to life.

2. Bucky Gets a Promotion

Bucky Barnes – Cap’s former bestie and current Hydra super-assassin, the eponymous Winter Soldier – ends the movie a free man. No more cryo-freeze and no more Hydra brain-wipes. So what’s he going to do now? Go to Disneyworld? Probably not. In the comics, he does some soul-searching (read: revenge killing) and eventually comes back as a good guy. Then, when Steve Rogers gets ‘assassinated’, Bucky eventually takes up the shield and becomes Captain America.

So does this mean Marvel will film the ‘Death of Captain America’ stuff? Actually, it’s entirely possible. Chris Evens has recently said that he’s quitting acting as soon as his Marvel contract is up, which would probably be capped off by Captain America 3 and The Avengers 3. To get around recasting Steve Rogers with someone younger and more willing, maybe Marvel will kill off the character, leaving Bucky free to take over in the inevitable Captain America 4. We’ve already seen Sebastian Stan wield the shield several times on screen.

3. Everyone’s Favourite (Mildly) Incestuous Twins

The mid-credits tag on The Winter soldier introduced us to The Avengers: Age of Ultron under-villain Baron Wolfgang von Strucker who now seemingly runs Hydra, taking the organisation squarely back to its creepy Nazi-esque roots. Oh, and he has Loki’s staff from The Avengers, hooked up to some crazy science gear. And he has Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch locked up in adjacent cells!

It’s well-publicised that Marvel shares the rights to these two characters with Fox, but with a couple of provisos: they’re not allowed to call them mutants or make reference to their daddy being mutant super-terrorist Magneto. So how are Marvel going to handle these characters? There’s been a lot of online speculation over the past months, but from this snippet it looks like they might have been experimented on by Strucker, and perhaps given powers – or had existing powers amplified – by exposure to the staff. If this is true, it’s a little anticlimactic, but makes some kind of sense in the universe Marvel have created.

Also, they get bonus points for making the twins look pretty fucked in the head.

4. Arnim Zola’s Patented McGuffin Algorithm

The Winter Soldier found a pretty interesting way to re-introduce Dr Arnim Zola in his robotic, CCTV-faced form and the algorithm he developed to predict future threats to humanity was central to the plot.

So what happens to that algorithm now? It’s highly doubtful that it was totally wiped from existence during the Rain of Exploding Helicarriers, so who has a hold of it? Obviously Nick fury has a copy, because… Nick Fury. And he’ll eventually crack Hydra’s encryption, perhaps using it to set up missions of his own. Maybe even to form a team of Secret Avengers?

A more intriguing possibility is that Zola – and his algorithm in particular – might have something to do with the creation of Ultron, the big bad in The Avengers: Age of Ultron. Maybe the list of targets generated by Zola’s program is the impetus for Ultron declaring war on mankind, given that it apparently predicts some pretty bad shit? Or maybe Zola’s electronic consciousness will have something to do with creating Ultron himself? Or maybe THEY’VE ALL BEEN DEAD THIS WHOLE TIME AND THE ISLAND IS HEAVEN?

Honorary Mention: Get Some Strange

So Agent Sitwell straight up dropped the name Stephen Strange into the mix. I guess this is Marvel confirming that the Sorcerer Supreme will be making an appearance in Phase 3.

Well… colour me erect.