Over the weekend, Marvel concept artist Mushk Rizvi dropped a bunch of cool concept art from various MCU projects on ArtStation including a look at Avengers: Doomsday.
Whether it was an accidental slip or a strategic plan from Marvel, the reveal stirred up plenty of excitement. But tucked away in the mix was something just as interesting… concept art for Captain America: Brave New World that showcased the film’s original plan for the Serpent Society.
At one point, this supervillain team was meant to take on Captain America and The Falcon, and possibly even Isaiah Bradley in the movie’s opening. Rumors suggest they were tied to a different version of The Leader, one envisioned as more of a mastermind rather than a victim, who powered them up as part of a larger scheme to steal Adamantium and trigger a global crisis.
The concept art reveals various designs for the team, and based on earlier set photos, it seems Marvel Studios initially leaned into full-fledged supervillain costumes.
One detail remains consistent across the different looks is the cybernetic enhancements in their arms, boosting the abilities of characters like Diamondback, Cobra, Mamba, and Constrictor.
Rosa Salazar and WWE star Seth Rollins were cast as Diamondback and Cobra, respectively, but both were ultimately cut from the final film. Salazar even had a Happy Meal toy released for the movie before her character was removed.
Director Julius Onah addressed the decision to remove the Serpent Society, explaining how reshoots shifted the film’s tone from “heightened” to “more grounded.”
“I think it gets a little deceptive in ‘a whole new character was added,’ because Serpent Society was always a part of the story, so the story function that Serpent Society serves in the film has never changed…we were deviating probably a bit too much from the grounded tone that we wanted the movie to have with how we had created Serpent Society at first.”
Onah elaborated on why the villains didn’t fit the final version of the film:
“You know, they are people dressed like snakes in comic books, and they have snake-adjacent powers and stuff that’s really, really heightened, and you wanted an actor who could really help us lean, or gesture towards the fantastic, but without losing that sense of grounding. So it’s not like Serpent Society or the character changed. It was just, let’s really introduce a version of them that fits into the tone of the movie.”
Essentially, Marvel had to choose between embracing the wilder comic book elements or keeping Brave New World more in line with the grittier, political-thriller tone. The Serpent Society didn’t make the cut.
The concept art offers a glimpse at what could have been. Take a look at the designs below and let us know what you think!
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