![]() ![]() Sam Wilson can’t erase the racist history of Captain America. Despite the wishes of both Sam and Steve himself, America chose a Captain America in an effort to maintain America’s supremacy. That the government crowned John Walker (Wyatt Russell) as a new Captain America - an individual Steve Rogers never knew, and selected based on Walker’s physical abilities, military record, and let’s face it, his looks - isn’t merely betrayal to Sam and Steve’s wishes. Throughout The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, Sam felt unworthy of being Captain America, hence his willing surrender of the shield. Or, as Isaiah tells Sam, “Them stars and stripes don’t mean nothing good to me.”īut Sam exists. For Isaiah, no justice can be achieved because justice simply does not exist. “You think I wouldn’t be dead in a day if you brought me out?” challenges Isaiah, when Sam suggests going public. But for Isaiah Bradley, Captain America is a nightmare, a reminder of a hell where Isaiah suffers alone. He’s the literal face of public service announcements in schools. The only survivor was Isaiah, who spent 30 years being poked and prodded “trying to figure out why the serum worked” while languishing in a jail cell.įor most of the world, the story of Captain America is an inspiring underdog dream memorialized in museums. Not long after Steve went in the ice, hundreds of enlisted Black soldiers - soldiers like Isaiah - were subject to serum injections disguised as tetanus shots. In an adaptation of the Marvel Comics limited series Truth: Red, White, and Black from 2003, the truth of Captain America is that Steve Rogers was not the only Super Soldier. In The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, Isaiah Bradley (Carl Lumbly) lives as the forgotten cost of the Super Soldier Serum. “Them stars and stripes don’t mean nothing good to me.” That’s precisely why Sam Wilson has to be Captain America. Neither Steve nor Bucky knew this about Captain America. A metaphor for America itself, Captain America wasn’t a wonder of science but state-sanctioned murder in which Black men were expended to perfect the serum in secret. ![]() It’s that Sam, as a Black man, is fundamentally and righteously capable of correcting the reprehensible, unknown history of Captain America. ![]() Sam becoming Captain America isn’t simply a matter of Sam being better suited morally than Bucky (who has a history of HYDRA-assigned assassinations as the Winter Soldier). It’s a point the MCU can make with Sam Wilson, not Bucky Barnes. In rooting the image of Captain America on the sacrifices of Black bodies, Marvel makes its most salient point about not just superheroes, but truths we only tell ourselves are self-evident (and rarely uphold). While the story of The Falcon and the Winter Soldier probably wasn’t drafted until after Avengers: Endgame - whose screenwriters even admitted they did consider Bucky to take the shield instead - the MCU has chosen a path of most resistance. Anthony Mackie is finally accepting the shield in The Falcon and the Winter Soldier. ![]()
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