The Captain America: Civil War teaser has arrived, rife with Avenger-on-Avenger violence

Listen, the Marvel movies are a lot of fun — no argument here on that. But the last big tentpole, this past summer’s Avengers: Age of Ultron, was a bit underwhelming, heavy on bloat and lacking a concise raison d’être. It had problems. It was fun in many ways — James Spader’s voice! Vision! —  but it didn’t have the “gotta see it again” imperative of its predecessor, and felt more like a cinematic holding pattern as we all wait on the Infinity Gauntlet shenanigans a few years down the line.

Another problem was that the already announced Captain America: Civil War was just over the horizon, promising an adaptation of the past decade’s memorable showdown between the titular hero and his erstwhile co-Avenger, Iron Man. It’s an Avengers-lite movie, featuring many of the established MCU players with roles of varying length, even comedic newcomers like Ant-Man, while introducing heavyweights like the Black Panther and, oh yeah, Spider-Man, returning to the fold from his Sony exile. No offense to Ultron, but we’re really dealing with some big stuff here. It feels like there are genuine stakes involved.

And now we have our first teaser, showing how it’s Steve Rogers’ relationship with Bucky Barnes that’s the crux of the matter. Takeaways? The welcome return of William Hurt as a suit-wearing Thaddeus Ross. The Black Panther, moving like a black panther should. Fighting. The Winter Soldier trying to rip the Arc Reactor right out of IM’s chest. And Tony Stark’s final line, a touching, almost heartbreaking “So was I.” The Winter Soldier was the best of Marvel’s Phase II efforts, and maybe the good Captain can come through again. It’s hard to tell that’s going to be the case from the first promo, but hey, we’re off to a good start.

(And yes, I’m going to get this blog up and running again at some point.)