After making their debut in 2021's Black Widow, one MCU star just made their surprise return in Phase 5's Secret Invasion series.
Since its inception, Marvel Studios has had a soft stop for the political thriller genre.
This is a legacy that dates back to Captain America: The Winter Soldier, with films like Black Widow being passed the baton as time went on.
The franchise's latest in this long line of paranoid "espionage thriller[s]," Secret Invasion, is streaming now on Disney+ and just made a major crossover with one of these other politically-tinged MCU properties.
Warning - The rest of this article contains spoilers for Episode 5 of Secret Invasion.
Rick Mason Is Back in the MCU
Secret Invasion Episode 5 featured the shocking return of Black Widow's Rick Mason (played by O.T. Fagbenle).
Mason appeared in Nick Fury's private jet to offer the former SHIELD director a new set of papers to get him through the Finnish border.
Fagbenle's mercenary and international smuggler gives Fury a new passport and some mysterious device that was later revealed to be the digital mask Samuel L. Jackson's MCU hero uses to get through an airport security checkpoint.
This brief yet impactful cameo marks the first time Mason has been seen or heard from in the MCU since Black Widow's ending in which he provided Scarlett Johansson's Natasha with a new Quinjet she would use to break Steve Rogers and the other Avengers out of the RAFT prison with.
Rick Mason was first introduced in 2021's Black Widow as a friend of Johansson's Avenger and someone who aided her as she ran from General Thunderbolt Ross after the events of Captain America: Civil War.
A return for the character had been teased by Fagbenle, as he previously remarked his Black Widow appearance "wasn't a one-and-done." So this Secret Invasion cameo very well could be just the beginning of Rick Mason's return to the MCU.
Where Will Rick Mason Appear Next?
Seeing O.T. Fagbenle back as his charming former SHEILD agent was an exciting surprise in a series, that has - for the most part - not lived up to its potential as of yet.
But surely, this is only just the beginning of a full-on Mason-aissance that Marvel Studios has planned. While a Rick Mason solo movie or series feels like a bit of a pipedream, that is not to say he could not appear in a number of upcoming MCU projects.
Of course, the most obvious place for Rick to pop up again would be in the Secret Invasion finale. Marvel has already proven he seems to have a longstanding relationship with Fury, so perhaps he comes back to help take down the nuclear threat that Gravik and his Skrull underlings pose to the world.
The next two spots a Rick Mason appearance would make sense would be either The Marvels or Captain America: Brave New World.
It has already been revealed that Nick Fury will play a part in the upcoming Captain Marvel sequel, and given Mason and Fury seem to be connected, a cameo in that film could make sense.
As for Captain America 4, this is yet another MCU project to fall into that "espionage thriller" bucket. If Anthony Mackie's Captain America were to need some foreign papers or procure some crazy comic-book tech, Rick Mason would be the guy.
Secret Invasion's final episode streams on Disney+ on Wednesday, July 26.
