You can also check out an alternate cover of the February issue here.

EmpireOnline.com — The February issue of Empire is almost upon us, and we take great pleasure in unveiling this month’s cover movie, Captain America: The Winter Soldier, leading an action-packed preview of 2014 and kicking off our 25th birthday year.

That’s right, your favourite magazine turns 25 in 2014 – old enough to hire a car abroad and (theoretically) not be asked for ID when buying alcohol. We’re planning a bumper set of celebrations throughout 2014, beginning with this issue’s preview of the 25 must-see movies of next year. Marvel’s Captain America sequel is one of them, but you’ll have to pick up the issue (or keep your eyes on the site over the next few days) to discover the rest.

As you can tell from this cover, the new adventures of the First Avenger will be a bit darker and more morally confused than its Stars-and-Stripes waving predecessor. This time, Steve Rogers (Chris Evans), aka Cap, discovers something rotten in the state of SHIELD, and also has to deal with the reappearance of his old friend Bucky (Sebastian Stan), now brainwashed and cybernetically modified and transformed into the titular Winter Soldier.

The new issue of Empire will be on sale on December 31 in both physical and digital formats. For the full film of Captain America: The Winter Soldier, however, you’ll have to wait until March 28, 2014. Yes, we asked if they could possibly just give it to us for Christmas instead, but apparently that wasn’t possible for some reason.