‘Stranger Things’ Viewers Are Diving Down A Rabbit Hole And Emerging With MCU Crossover Dreams

On Friday morning, Stranger Things 4 teased and confirmed the return of David Harbour as Chief Hopper, who had seemingly evaporated while battling Russians. This wasn’t a massive surprise, since we never saw Hopper’s body, but what is more revealing is that Hopper’s (also seemingly) now imprisoned in Russia, where he’s doing forced labor.

What’s eerie about the whole thing, though, is that David Harbour’s also starring in the upcoming Black Widow movie. He will portray Red Guardian, a character whose identity was basically tweaked into the Soviet version of Captain America. Obviously, the trailers have showed that Red Guardian has let himself go, so to speak, although he can still “flex” while making ridiculous noises, and he can still make this tremendous face, so there. Basically, Harbour and Mother Russia are joint-representing like crazy this year.

Naturally, people are starting to throw out wild prospects, so Red Guardian is now trending on social media because it didn’t take long for someone to wisecrack about Stranger Things 4 being a Red Guardian origin story.

— Parris (@vicious696) February 14, 2020

From there, fans of both franchises began to dream up wild ways about how Hopper may have changed his name and emerged as the second Red Guardian, possibly having been brainwashed in the process, and then wed Natasha Romanoff. Naturally, it’s all fiction, so fans can faux-theorize however they’d like to do so, but people really want to connect the MCU and Stranger Things right now. I say, “Let them have it.”

— ًVernadette (@ENTlCEDT) February 14, 2020

I’m not saying that Hopper is brainwashed and becomes Red Guardian, but my head canon is going with it. https://t.co/FUzt6aqnG2

— Scott Colesby (@ScottColesby) February 14, 2020