The Huge Marvel Comics Easter Egg You Missed In The Falcon And The Winter Soldier's Premiere

Contains spoilers for The Falcon and the Winter Soldier episode 1

It's been a fair old wait for The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, but it finally arrived on Disney+ on March 19, giving us the first look at how Sam Wilson (Anthony Mackie) and Bucky Barnes (Sebastian Stan) are coping with the aftermath of Avengers: Endgame. More importantly, the first episode of The Falcon and the Winter Soldier quickly addresses how Sam doesn't feel like he's up to the challenge of picking up the Captain America mantle, which Steve Rogers (Chris Evans) wanted him to do. 

The action-packed premiere of The Falcon and the Winter Soldier is crammed with references to the wider Marvel Cinematic Universe, both literally and figuratively, with the entire opening sequence riffing on the fight with Batroc the Leaper (Georges St-Pierre) in Captain America: The Winter Soldier. But a conversation after that pulse-pounding fight includes a surprising Easter egg to a cosmic Nick Fury story that might've flown under the radar for many fans.

When Sam returns to the ground following his explosive mid-air mission against Batroc, he has a quick catch-up with Torres (Danny Ramirez), a soldier who was guiding him along the way. The pair briefly talk about Steve Rogers and the conspiracy theories about where he's really disappeared to in the wake of Thanos' attack on the planet. Torres suggests that some people think Steve is hiding on a secret base on the Moon. Could this be a reference to where Nick Fury ends up in 2014's Original Sin?

The Marvel Comics storyline sees Nick Fury and members of the Avengers investigating the murder of Uatu the Watcher. The big bald cosmic voyeur is training Sam Alexander, aka Nova, on his base of operations on the Moon when a mysterious individual attacks him. Spoiler alert: An aging Fury shoots the Watcher to take his eyes and gain a limitless amount of knowledge about the universe. The shadowy secret agent does so because he wants to find an unknown team of villains who had attacked him so he can get revenge. As Brooklyn Nine-Nine's Jake Peralta says, "Cool motive — still murder."

In the end, Fury forces one of his attackers to overload on the Watcher's power, which causes a devastating explosion. All the heroes are left thinking the former S.H.I.E.L.D. director died in the blast. But alas, this wasn't the case. The other Watchers decide that Fury should be the one to replace Uatu as the new Watcher of Earth since he was so obsessed with learning secrets. They trap him in chains and leave him on the Moon, branding him as "the Unseen." Be careful what you wish for.

It's interesting that The Falcon and the Winter Soldier references a Moon base, especially when we know Samuel L. Jackson's Nick Fury is, at this point in the MCU timeline, up in space working with the Skrulls — and he's going to star in the upcoming Secret Invasion series. We have one question for Marvel boss Kevin Feige: What do you have planned for us — and, more importantly, Nick Fury?