Marvel’s Captain America: Brave New World might have brought Tim Blake Nelson’s Samuel Sterns aka The Leader back to the big screen after a 15-year wait, but his return landed with a thud.
Now, thanks to The Artbook Collector, we’re getting a look at what could have been, and almost every version of The Leader left on the cutting room floor looks more more interesting than what made it into the movie.
The new concept art showcases a wide range of alternate designs for Sterns, some that lean hard into the comic book roots with oversized green heads and villainous flair, and others that… well, go totally off the rails.
One version features a grotesque, Xenomorph-like mouth splitting open from his mutated skull, straight out of a nightmare. Another plays with body horror elements, turning The Leader into something closer to a Cronenberg creation than a traditional MCU baddie.
These designs came from a deliberate effort to push the character into more memorable territory. Concept artist Ian Joyner explained his creature-focused approach:
“My favorite stuff is creature work. One of my favorite movies is The Thing. So whenever I get to play in that world, I have a lot of fun.
“We don’t necessarily want to lean into the full-on body horror, but I was delighted with the more recent comic-book interpretation of the Leader in the Immortal Hulk run – where he literally absorbs people’s brains, intelligence, and souls and everything.
“My idea was, like, could we actually just do something that crazy? I was considering that The Leader might be able to control minds with his brain and even sucking the brains out of other people.”
That kind of craziness clearly didn’t survive the reshoots. Marvel reportedly softened Sterns to make him less of a menacing mastermind and more of a tragic figure. The end result? A zombified, brain-shaped… thing that some fans think missed the mark.
It’s hard not to feel like Brave New World left a more interesting version of its villain on the table. These concept pieces tease a version of The Leader that could’ve been unsettling. Instead, we got a muted, muddled take that didn’t capitalize on the potential Nelson brought to the role back in The Incredible Hulk.
If you’re curious to see the madness Marvel almost unleashed, head over to The Artbook Collector to check out the full gallery of alternate Leader designs.
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