Cosmic, and the antagonists
Samuel Sterns
the Leader
Alive, imprisoned
- Appearances
- 2
Along the chronological spine
Where the guide talks about them (5)
Samuel Sterns, a fellow researcher, is involved. Both facts pay off decades later.
Ross hunts him relentlessly, partly because Banner is dating his daughter Betty. Ross's chosen operative, Emil Blonsky, receives a serum derivative and demands more, eventually becoming the Abomination. Banner contacts a scientist he knows only as "Mr Blue" — Samuel Sterns — for a cure; Sterns is instead fascinated, and gets Banner's blood in an open head wound during the finale, causing his skull to deform.
How he got elected isn't dwelt on: he ran on a strongman platform of protecting America from unprecedented threats, and Samuel Sterns — a gamma-enhanced supergenius — was secretly engineering the campaign as part of a decades-long revenge plan.
The mastermind is Samuel Sterns — the Leader — from The Incredible Hulk, seventeen years earlier. Ross imprisoned him at a black site, publicly blamed him for the Abomination, and promised release in exchange for his help winning the presidency and treating his failing heart. Ross reneged. Sterns has spent years engineering revenge, including the gamma pills Ross has been taking.
| Character | Premiered | Appeared in | Status now |
|---|---|---|---|
| Thanos | Avengers (2012, post-credits) | Guardians, Ultron, Infinity War, Endgame | Erased from existence by Stark. Both versions |
| He Who Remains / Kang | Loki S1 (2021) | Loki S1–2, Quantumania | Dead, and the character is retired — Jonathan Majors was fired and not recast |
| Ultron | Age of Ultron (2015) | Age of Ultron | Destroyed — and returning in VisionQuest |
| The Collector | Dark World (2013, post-credits) | Dark World, Guardians, Infinity War | Dead, killed by Thanos offscreen |
| The Grandmaster | Ragnarok (2017) | Ragnarok | Alive, deposed, not seen since |
| Arishem | Eternals (2021) | Eternals | Alive — took three Eternals for judgment and never came back |
| Mephisto | Ironheart (2025) | Ironheart | Alive, now loose in the MCU |
| Carol Danvers / Captain Marvel | Captain Marvel (2019) | Captain Marvel, Endgame, Shang-Chi, The Marvels | Alive, mostly in deep space |
| Monica Rambeau | Captain Marvel (2019, as a child) | Captain Marvel, WandaVision, The Marvels | Stranded in another universe — the one with Beast and Charles Xavier |
| Shang-Chi | Shang-Chi (2021) | Shang-Chi | Alive, holding the ten rings. D |
| Xialing | Shang-Chi (2021) | Shang-Chi | Alive, running the Ten Rings organisation |
| Thaddeus Ross | The Incredible Hulk (2008) | Incredible Hulk, Civil War, Infinity War, Endgame, Black Widow, Brave New World | Alive, imprisoned at the Raft by his own choice |
| Samuel Sterns / the Leader | The Incredible Hulk (2008) | Incredible Hulk, Brave New World | Alive, imprisoned |