Serpent Society: How a 2014 Marvel fake-out led to the new ‘Captain America’ villain

The year is 2014, and Kevin Feige, the president of Marvel Studios, gets up on stage at the El Capitan Theater in Los Angeles in front of a bunch of fans to announce the next slate of movies in what we now know to be the Infinity War Saga. A graphic of untitled films with release dates appears on screen. Feige clicks a button, and the first one is revealed. It reads: Captain America: Serpent Society.

We all know now, in hindsight, that this was a ruse to throw fans off the scent of the real title, Captain America: Civil War. But comic book enthusiasts didn’t forget that moment — and neither, it seems, did the makers of the most recent Captain America film.

“That was certainly a fun fake-out,” says Julius Onah, who now directs this month’s Captain America: Brave New World, which officially introduces the characters to the MCU. “Serpent Society has pretty much always been there from the first conversations about this film.”

Longtime Marvel producer Nate Moore confirms that the Serpent Society became a serious topic of conversation when the team sat down in earnest to build out Brave New World. The problem was they didn’t want the organization’s introduction to be a joke — not like that 2014 gag. “The Serpent Society is one of Cap’s all-time Hall of Fame villain groups,” Moore says, “but in publishing, they can be very goofy.”

The Serpent Society of Marvel comics are a group of villains all with serpentine aliases and costumes. Black Mamba, Death Adder, Anaconda, Asp, Cottonmouth, Diamondback, Princess Python, Rattler, and Viper were some of the members at various points. Sidewinder, a.k.a. Seth Voelker, became team leader. They are very much not depicted in the same way in the MCU.

Want more movie news? Sign up for Entertainment Weekly‘s free newsletter to get the latest trailers, celebrity interviews, film reviews, and more.

During an opening scene, Sam Wilson (Anthony Mackie), now fully in his tenure as Captain America, heads to Oaxaca, Mexico. He and the newly minted Falcon, Joaquin (Danny Ramirez), fight against the clock to thwart the Serpent Society, a violent special-ops team that stole a sample of the indestructible metal called adamantium from a Japanese mining site for an unnamed buyer. Giancarlo Esposito describes his take on Sidewinder, who’s holding clergymen hostage in a church, as a “very delicious and powerful character.”

“I wanted to be able to show people how physical I am,” the Breaking Bad and The Boys alum says in a separate conversation with EW. “I’m an athlete at heart. I’m a runner, I’m a swimmer, I’m a cyclist, and now I’m becoming a Pilates master to be able to control my body in a certain way.”

Moore explains they approached these characters in the same way they did with Batroc the Leaper, another comics character with a look that could become comical if made in live-action. Former mixed martial artist Georges St-Pierre played Batroc in Captain America: The Winter Soldier with a less comic-accurate suit and persona.

“You take something that seems inherently ridiculous, and you figure out what the context of it could be,” he says. “And then we just got to work with a really talented actor.” Esposito felt involved in the creation of Sidewinder, even on the look of the character. “I went back to the comic. I figured out what the guy looked like. I didn’t want to look like that,” the actor recalls of Sidewinder’s reptilian cowl and snake-skin costume in the source material. “[Onah] wanted a groundedness of what I’m going to bring to it, but I wanted to borrow some color, the lining of the coat color, different subtleties from the original comic so I knew I could be channeling Seth Voelker.”

Esposito suggests fans pay attention to his eyes in the movie. “If you go back to Seth Voelker, leader of the Serpent Society, he’s 158 pounds, just about my weight, and he has blue eyes,” he points out. “So I went, ‘I got to go there.’ Julius was open.” It’s not the exact same blue from the comics, but he notes there’s “a hint of that blue.”

Onah praises Esposito, whom he knows through fellow filmmaker Spike Lee, for bringing “a grounding and a gravitas to the Serpent Society through Sidewinder.” He also notes, “It’s just a great setup for more adventures first with Sidewinder and with Serpent Society going forward.” No fake-outs this time around.

Captain America: Brave New World opens in theaters on Feb. 14.