Captain America Still Deserves A Howling Commandos MCU Movie

The World War II exploits of Captain America (Chris Evans) and the Howling Commandos were rushed through in Captain America: The First Avenger, but this is a story that deserves its own standalone film. Directed by Joe Johnston and released in 2011, Captain America: The First Avenger brought fans back to the 1940s era of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and it was the last stop before the MCU’s Phase 1 culminated with The Avengers in 2012.

Captain America: The First Avenger is a pivotal film for the MCU as it introduced numerous characters and concepts that would become hallmarks of several MCU films and spinoff TV series, including the next two Captain America sequels, the next three Avengers movies, Agents of SHIELD, and Agent Carter. The First Avenger laid the foundation for the formation of SHIELD, introduced Steve’s best friend Bucky Barnes (Sebastian Stan) aka the future Winter Soldier, Agent Peggy Carter (Haley Atwell) and her eternal romance with Steve, Johann Schmidt aka the Red Skull (Hugo Weaving), Arnim Zola (Toby Jones), Hydra, and the Tesseract aka the Space Infinity Stone. The First Avenger also transitioned Steve Rogers to the modern era so that he could join the Avengers but the bulk of the film is set in the 1940s and the MCU version of World War II remains fascinating to revisit.

While Captain America: The First Avenger intriguingly depicted how Steve Rogers was chosen as the test subject for the experimental Super-Soldier Serum because he was “a good man,” arguably the best part of the film — Captain America and the Howling Commandos battling Hydra in the European theater of World War II — was unfortunately reduced to a montage in the third act. The Howling Commandos were formed from a group of POWs that Captain America liberated from a Hydra prison when he went to rescue Bucky, who was captured and experimented on by the Red Skull and Arnim Zola. Despite the doubts of Colonel Chester Phillips (Tommy Lee Jones), Rogers lived up to his potential as America’s finest soldier and brought their boys back to safety, impressing Agent Carter in the process.

The Howling Commandos, comprised of Bucky, Dum Dum Dugan (Neal McDonough), Gabe Jones (Derek Luke), Jim Morita (Kenneth Choi), Jacques Dernier (Bruno Ricci), Happy Sam Sawyer (Leonard Roberts), Pinky Pinkerton (Richard Short), and Junior Juniper (James Austin Kerr) then joined Captain America as they attacked every Hydra base they could find. But these intriguing missions were reduced to a series of action clips that only hinted at bigger MCU stories left untold. The First Avenger rocketed past them to get to the pivotal plot points of Bucky being lost and presumed dead and Rogers getting frozen in the ice. But Captain America’s missions with the Howling Commandos deserve their own movie because their battles against Hydra were easily as compelling as Steve’s origin story.

The moment in Captain America: The Winter Soldier when Steve visited the Captain America exhibit at the Smithsonian only served to remind fans that they were shortchanged by The First Avenger glossing over the Howling Commandos’ WWII adventures. Dugan and the boys did appear in one episode of Agent Carter season 1, but this was well after the war was over. As it stands, Marvel’s version of World War II remains the most fascinating era of the MCU that has only been touched upon but could sustain an entire film of its own. Fans have also justifiably griped that The First Avenger glossed over one of Marvel Comics’ greatest rivalries: Captain America vs. the Red Skull.

It’s also not too late to return to World War II and showcase Captain America, Agent Carter, and the Howling Commandos in their fighting prime. The MCU is already doing a prequel with Black Widow, which neatly circumvents the inconvenient fact that Natasha Romanoff (Scarlett Johansson) died in Avengers: Endgame. Captain Marvel was also a period piece that filled in Nick Fury’s (Samuel L. Jackson) early days with SHIELD.

A Captain America and the Howling Commandos prequel film could bring Chris Evans and the cast back to elaborate on what fans only glimpsed in The First Avenger. It could tell heretofore unknown missions against Hydra while also satisfying fans’ desires to see more of Cap vs. the Red Skull — all without violating the happy ending Steve and Peggy received in Avengers: Endgame. There’s so much story about Captain America and the Howling Commandos left to be told and this would be the way to bring Chris Evans back to take up the shield for one more round of saving the world.

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