WARNING: The following article contains spoilers for Avengers: Endgame, in theaters now.
Avengers: Endgame concluded with Captain America getting his happy ending alongside Peggy Carter, even if it did raise a ton of questions regarding time travel and altering the past. Directors Joe and Anthony Russo tried to clarify what really happened when Steve Rogers took on the task of returning the six Infinity Stones to their proper place in the timestream, revealing a divergent timeline was created.
While all of this potentially sets up another Captain America movie down the line, we believe an important part of Cap's Infinity Stone journey was severely overlooked, and it involved the planet Vormir and the Keeper of the Soul Stone.
Avengers: Infinity War saw Thanos collecting the Infinity Stones, with the whereabouts of the Soul Stone a secret only known to Gamora. However, once Thanos began to torture Nebula, Gamora agreed to take Thanos to Vormir to retrieve the cosmic artifact. What they didn't bargain for was the price required to obtain the Soul Stone, or the person who had spent decades safeguarding it: Red Skull.
The former leader of Hydra hasn't been seen since debuting in 2011's Captain America: The First Avenger. Obsessed with the Tesseract (which we now know contained the Space Stone), Red Skull used it to aid in his efforts to spread Hydra's influence across the globe during World War II. Of course, Captain America was able to defeat him, with the power of the Space Stone teleporting Red Skull away in a flash of light, right before Captain America crashed into the Arctic.
Fans held out hope he would pop back up again in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (the character is a massively popular antagonist for Steve Rogers in the comics), possibly in another Captain America movie. Red Skull's surprise appearance on Vormir opened a world of possibilities for future confrontations, but Endgame should have reignited the heated rivalry between the villain and the Sentinel of Liberty when the Soul Stone was returned.
With five years passing since Thanos' Decimation, it'll have been over 80 years since Captain America fought the Red Skull in The First Avenger. Are we really to believe Cap landed on Vormir and simply handed the Soul Stone over to Johann Schmidt? Red Skull had no problem revealing himself to Thanos, Gamora, Black Widow and Hawkeye, but when he comes face to face with the man responsible for exiling him on an alien planet, was there silence? Did they fight, or decide to call a truce?
Perhaps we'll have to wait for whatever plans Marvel Studios has involving the alternate timeline Steve Rogers created when he stayed in the past with Peggy Carter. Considering how Hydra played such a large role by infiltrating S.H.I.E.L.D. in Captain America: The Winter Soldier, and Steve's long history with Johann Schmidt in the comics, fans deserve to see a Round 2 in the MCU. Too bad it didn't happen before Old Man Steve passed the Vibranium shield on to Sam Wilson.
Directed by Joe and Anthony Russo, Avengers: Endgame stars Robert Downey Jr. as Iron Man, Chris Evans as Captain America, Mark Ruffalo as Bruce Banner, Chris Hemsworth as Thor, Scarlett Johansson as Black Widow, Jeremy Renner as Hawkeye, Brie Larson as Captain Marvel, Paul Rudd as Ant-Man, Don Cheadle as War Machine, Karen Gillan as Nebula, Danai Gurira as Okoye and Bradley Cooper as Rocket, with Gwyneth Paltrow Pepper Potts, Jon Favreau as Happy Hogan, Benedict Wong as Wong, Tessa Thompson as Valkyrie and Josh Brolin as Thanos.