When something builds as much hype as Captain America: Civil War, wild speculation is par for course. Eventually you end up getting fan theories that spring from fan theories, and the whole thing just spirals out of control until the internet is convinced that Steve Rogers is Red Skull’s illegitimate child and Tony Stark has secretly been an alien robot the whole time.

Still, there are plenty of theories and rumors floating around that would cause the fandom to rejoice, should they be confirmed as true. Here are some of the best Civil War rumors that would amp up the hype even more. These are the Rumors About Captain America: Civil War That We Want To be True.

MCU TV Cameos

It’s understandable how Marvel have chosen to intertwine their movie and TV universes; that is, not all that much. Comics are already esoteric enough that DC and Marvel are rebooting their entire universes to create fresh slates, so the occasional mention of "the big green guy" on Jessica Jones is all we’re going to get in order to keep people watching.

Still, devoted fans have been crying out for references and cameos from the very start, and Civil War might just be the perfect place to provide a bit of connection. It’s long been rumored that characters from Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D may cameo in some way, and while none are confirmed in the cast list, that doesn’t mean much in the long stretch. These are the kinds of details that would be kept secret until the movie is released.

Civil War is about the regulation of powered people and unsupervised crime-fighting; Agents deals with the former quite a bit, while Daredevil is all about the latter. There’s little-to-no chance that any TV characters will become major players this early (and if they do, it’ll be treated almost as a brand new introduction), but many fans would rejoice at, say, an opening montage featuring Matt Murdock taking down some bad guys while Daisy and Coulson try to stop a rogue Inhuman. Is it too much to hope that someone will pick up a newspaper featuring a picture of Daredevil? Probably. But we can hope for it anyway.

A Rough, Inexperienced Spider-Man

We’ve yet to see anything other than shaky concept art and tweeted pictures of Tom Holland’s hair in regards to Spider-Man appearance in Civil War. We know he’s in the movie, we’ll be spared another tedious origin story as he’s already a superhero and he’ll probably be conflicted about what side to join. Still, Tom Holland’s Peter Parker has been kept out of the marketing thus far.

As many have speculated following the release of a hoodie (no, really), it’s very possible that the Spider-Man we see in Civil War will be a much rougher version than those seen in the past. Both Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield’s Spider-Men started off their careers with perfect super-suits that never creased, fit perfectly, allowed for a full range of movement and just looked kind of amazing (except for Maguire's initial suit, which didn't last long). While it was great to see comic-accurate suits, it stretched credibility to see them just pull these flawless garments out of the air.

If the rumors are true, it looks like Tom Holland’s version will be sporting a more realistic version of his superhero gear, consisting of mostly an altered hoodie and nothing else particularly elaborate. In other words, exactly the kind of crime-fighting gear that a high school kid with no experience in fashion design would come up with. As the rumor goes, associating himself with one faction in the movie will see Peter Parker gaining his true Spider-Man costume…as opposed to just stitching together an outfit in his bedroom that would put the world’s greatest cosplayers to shame.

Ant-Man Goes Giant

This one has been all but confirmed, but we’re leaving open the chance that they could’ve just been screwing with us. Remember the intense speculation about whether Spider-Man would be showing up in Age of Ultron? Yeah, nah.

We already know from the comics that Ant-Man is capable of reversing his growth and becoming Giant-Man, and not "Giant Ant-Man" because that would require him to be some kind of human/ant hybrid to begin with. His debut film had Scott Lang going from man size to ant size, and briefly subatomic, but the possibility of going giant was never addressed… that is, except when that totally happened to other stuff. We all remember the Thomas the Tank Engine toy grown to the size of an actual tank, while the movie ends with a dog-sized ant acting as a pet and somehow managing to look adorable.

A Lego set and a Pop! vinyl figure has already shown Scott Lang growing to giant proportions to fight War Machine, which makes sense in-universe; shrinking might make him harder to hit, but against heavy artillery it might make sense to take on a stronger form. Whether Lang does this on purpose or it’s a result of him screwing with the technology is unknown, but given that the technology has the potential, it’d make for some impressive visuals to see Giant-Man in action. In fact, you could say that we'd really see some…character growth.

I’ll let myself out.

Which Avengers Will Die

Age of Ultron had fans buzzing about who was going to bite the bullet long before its release. Eventually, the only one to meet that fate was Quicksilver, a.k.a. the one of the two Quicksilvers we got that year that we didn’t mind losing.

Meanwhile, with the Civil War storyline from the comics ending with the death of Steve Rogers, plenty of rumors have surfaced about who won’t be making it to the end. At this point, it looks as if fans will go nuts if everyone makes it out alive - and admittedly, showing that The Avengers aren’t invincible will serve the franchise well - but a few candidates take the top spot on the list. Both Tony Stark and Steve Rogers are strong candidates, as the leaders of their respective factions. Meanwhile, War Machine is seen in the trailer broken and battered, while it’d certainly be an emotional blow to see Hawkeye go down after he’s been established to have a wife and a family. New characters with their own movies coming up are more or less immune (Black Panther and Spider-Man, mostly), while others seem like they’d be fair game.

Still, the rumors of either Stark or Rogers ending up dead would be the ones to serve the narrative the most, snapping the assembled heroes out of their in-fighting in time for Infinity War and providing an emotional climax. Or, if OTHER rumors turn out to be true…

A New Captain America

Again, this one already happened in the comics with the conclusion of the Civil War storyline, in that instance because Steve Rogers was well and truly dead. For a while, anyway. The iconic role of Captain America was left unfilled until Bucky stepped up and took on the role.

Civil War will see the return of both Bucky Barnes/The Winter Soldier and Sam Wilson/Falcon, both of whom are rumored candidates to fill the Captain America boots. With Steve Rogers out of the picture (in whatever way that happens), the Avengers will be in need of a leader. Everyone knows that’s not a job for Stark (who might be dead anyway), while anyone else other than the actual Captain America just doesn’t seem right. Thus, either Bucky will redeem himself by taking on the role, or Falcon will step up and become a winged version of the character, which somewhat makes up for the fact that he’s not an enhanced super-soldier.

Chris Evans has had a great run with the character, but for a while at least, it would be good to get some fresh blood in to take his place and give a different take on the iconic hero. At some point, Marvel will need to replace characters - because actors, believe it or not, age and get tired of their jobs like normal people- and this seems like the perfect time to pass on the role of Captain America to someone else and see how people react.

HYDRA Are Behind the Accords

HYDRA have already established themselves as the premier villainous organisation of the MCU, having their fingers in a number of pies and even managing to bring down S.H.I.E.L.D. in Winter Soldier. Captain America has clashed with them in both of his films so far, so it’s been anticipated that they’ll somehow be involved in Civil War, even if they’re not the main villains.

Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. has portrayed HYDRA’s downfall, with most of the leadership eliminated, but it’s now experiencing a renaissance under the leadership of Grant Ward (or whoever will take over now that he’s an evil space zombie corpse). They’re still up and running, and they’ve always been interested in powered/enhanced people, hence the rumors that HYDRA will be the ones behind the Sokovia Accords.

The movie is hopefully more complex than "Cap and Iron Man disagree, they all punch for a bit, someone dies, they agree to stop punching," and having HYDRA hiding in the shadows would insert them as the villains in a more subversive way than ever before- plus it fits in with their M/O of constantly recruiting and controlling enhanced humans for their nefarious experiments and wholesale villainy.

The Movie's True Villain

The trailer for Batman V Superman caused widespread dismay when it shoved the central villain right in our faces, supposedly ruining the end of the movie and cheapening the main conflict (which, as you might have guessed, was supposed to be Batman fighting Superman). It still remains to be seen if the movie has any surprises left, but rumors have suggested that Civil War has done the opposite.

The original comic story was complex and featured scads of characters, but it still ended with a massive fight between two sides as the climax. The movie, on the other hand, is speculated to take things in another direction, with a larger threat revealing itself and uniting the factions. Speculation has run rampant as to who this might be, from Red Skull, Galactus or all the way to Thanos himself, though three announced villains stand out as candidates: Baron Zemo, Crossbones and Thunderbolt Ross. None have their roles properly disclosed as of yet, meaning that fans have had a field day speculating which of them might be pulling the strings.

On the other hand, inserting a main villain could be a risk. Even if the true villain isn’t blatantly revealed in the marketing, it could easily take away from the main story and rivalry if not done right; and "done right" might just be the villain controlling things from afar, HYDRA-style. After all, we’d be pretty happy with the climax just being Cap and Iron man punching each other loads, even if they were manipulated into doing it in the first place.

The Second Red Skull

The last time we saw Red Skull he was being flung into a portal created by the Tesseract. This being the absolute definition of a comic book "death," fans have since refused to accept that he died and are now waiting for him to return in all his Hugo Weaving-esque glory to be socked in the jaw by Captain America once more, or possibly several times.

It doesn’t look like he’ll be returning for Civil War (from what we know), but rumors about Red Skull have been gaining traction, such as those who believe that HYDRA will spend the movie trying to resurrect him with the Tesseract. However, one stands out even more, and that’s that there’s going to be a new Red Skull in town. After all, he’s an iconic Captain America villain and Civil War is a Captain America movie (easy as it is to forget that it isn’t Avengers 3), so having another villain take up the Red Skull mantle would be appropriate for Cap’s latest outing.

Speculation has pointed to Crossbones, particularly since the last time we saw him he looked like he’d been crispy fried by the destruction of the Triskelion. More specifically, the explosion he was caught in burned his skin and gave him an all-round searing red appearance, which fans have pointed to as evidence that he’ll be swayed towards becoming the second Red Skull. Still others have said that Baron Zemo (portrayed by Daniel Brühl) is no random villain, and is actually a setup for Red Skull’s return.

Black Widow is a Triple/Quadruple Agent

Natasha Romanov has more than proved herself a worthy member of the Avengers, managing to trick the actual god of trickery and holding her own against waves of murderbots without any superhuman abilities.

Civil War artwork has placed Black Widow on the side of pro-registration, an interesting choice considering that she and Steve Rogers supposedly grew closer during Winter Soldier and she has no real strong connections to anyone on Team Stark. The most obvious option here is that she’s acting as a double-agent, something very much within her skillset. Naturally, fans have decried that as way too obvious, and when he isn’t inviting supervillains to attack his home and doing nothing to make it more secure, Tony Stark isn’t a complete idiot. Thus, her role is rumored to be as either a triple agent (working with Stark, reporting to Rogers, really still working with Stark all along) or quadruple agent (don’t even bother- but she’s good enough to pull it off). Not that we need any more proof, but Black Widow would have yet another chance to show her worth in amongst all the super-soldiers and flashy alien robots.

Still others have said that Romanov is simply doing her best to keep the entire affair from turning into all-out war, working with her own agenda or (more likely) for a third party. With Scarlet Witch on Cap’s side, Spider-Man possibly switching sides and Black Widow working for herself, this leaves Iron Man with a dwindling set of followers. However, no matter how things turn out, Romanov’s skills in espionage will surely come in handy for whoever’s calling her shots.

Or, she could just be on Team Stark with no strings attached. That’d probably blow people’s minds more than anything.

The Vision Heads Off Into Space

As portrayed by the polite tones of Paul Bettany, The Vision made his debut near the end of Age of Ultron and later joined the New Avengers under Captain America. It makes sense that he’d side with Tony Stark, given that Stark created him and he has an objective view of what could happen if superheroes are allowed to run rampant.

Provided he isn’t killed off, it’s been rumored that The Vision’s story will end with him losing his faith in humanity and leaving Earth to seek out greener pastures. This isn’t likely to last, especially since he’s carrying one of the pivotal Infinity Stones in his forehead, but many have speculated that Vision will cross over into another branch of the franchise in Marvel’s Phase 3. Having him flying off into space to knock around with the Guardians of the Galaxy could set up the events of Infinity War, with Vision acting as the bridge between the two teams; there’s also the unhealthy possibility that he’ll run into Thanos on his travels.

Other rumors point to Vision appearing in Thor: Ragnarok, forming a trio of sorts with Hulk and Thor. Again, the Mind Stone that Vision carries could be part of the reason, as Ragnarok shifts the entire cinematic universe closer to Infinity War. Whatever the reason, Paul Bettany is signed on with Marvel for the long run, and his relative faithfulness in look and personality to his comic book counterpart might just mean his popularity has him teaming up with characters outside of Earth.

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Know any more theories that should've been on the list? Let us know in the comments!