“They will never let a Black man be Captain America. And even if they did, no self-respecting Black man would ever want to be.” – Isaiah Bradley, The First Captain America
On April 23rd, 2021, Disney+’s second Marvel Cinematic Universe centered show, The Falcon and the Winter Soldier had its season finale. The show centered on the aftermath of Avengers: Endgame (itself a culmination of over twenty movies worth of storytelling) and the question on America’s mind after Steve “Captain America” Rogers heroically travelled back in time to place the Infinity Stones (cinema’s most name dropped McGuffin) back to their rightful place and keep the timeline in a straight line, to prevent divergence caused by the time travelling shenanigans that occurred in the film. Steve opted to stay in the past and marry his military sweetheart Agent Peggy Carter. In the film’s conclusion he appears old and withered in front of Sam Wilson, the eponymous Falcon of the show, and Bucky Barnes (an assassin codenamed the Winter Soldier) and hands Sam the vibranium shield, representative of Captain America himself and the values the position holds.
Bucky muses, during the show’s six episode run, that he and Steve could have never predicted what giving this shield to a Black man would entail. They couldn’t have predicted it, because while both Steve and Bucky are men who came to live in our present, they were fully grown adults during World War II (… it’s complicated) – their values were always higher than the average American male of their era, and as such they weren’t privy to the nuances of racism, let alone institutionalized racism. And yet, here we are, in 2021, trying to convince an audience (both inside the MCU itself and our post-pandemic world) to accept a Black man as Captain America. That’s a tall order. Sometime in the 2010’s Marvel had already tried this experiment with their mainstream comic titles for Captain America and the Falcon, in which, just as the show, Steve Rogers succumbs to old age and to side-effects of his Super Soldier serum. As such, he is unable to keep the title and be a leader for the Avengers, so he nominates Falcon as his successor. To say that comic book fans didn’t take this well is an understatement so vast that there’s no amount of written hyperbole that could do it justice.
In the past decade or so, a lot of characters have received this treatment. Be it by comic book companies, movie studios, or franchise holders, the push for more diversity in media has been massive. Riri Williams, a young Black woman who dons the Iron Man suit of armor. Amadeus Cho, a Chinese science student that becomes the new Incredible Hulk. Nick Fury (originally based on David Hasselhoff) being played by Samuel L. Jackson. One of my personal favorites, Puerto Rican-born Miles Morales becoming the new Spider-Man. The list goes on and on. But where these changes seemingly failed was in the contextualization of the passing of the torch. In most of these cases, diversity for diversity’s sake seemed to be the general intent. One could argue that having a Muslim woman become the writer for one of Marvel’s most critically acclaimed new heroes, the Muslim teenager Kamala Khan (superhero name: Miss Marvel) was one of those rare instances of a story saying something about our society and our need to accept those who are different (see also: the entire thesis of the X-Men franchise), especially those who have been victimized by it.
Much of the plot in The Falcon and The Winter Soldier concerns a terrorist group, former Captain
merica: Civil War villain Baron Zemo becoming an uneasy ally (with the Wakandan force in pursuit of him, leading to one of the greatest stunt battles in the show), and John Walker, a blonde-haired, blue-eyed military captain being given the shield and becoming Captain America after Sam decides he is not ready to take the role. We fast forward to episode five (Truth), where Sam, at the behest of his sister, talks to a man called Isaiah Bradley – The First Captain America. See, Steve’s Super Soldier Serum (say *that* three times real fast) was the product of testing and experimentation on humans. Specifically, Black men in the military. One of those men was Isaiah Bradley, who confides to Sam the horrors he experienced after he, too, dropped the mantle and was imprisoned and experimented on for decades. Isaiah even chimes that he, like many other Black men, fought for this country only to be erased from its history. No monument for the first Captain America, not if he’s Black that is. He even goes as far as to tell Sam not to take the shield back. To not engage John Walker (a Super Soldier, unlike Sam) in battle, and much less to take away his title as Captain America. Because America won’t accept him. Because it just can’t. By the end of the series, Uncle Sam (as he is called by his nephews) is no longer the Black Falcon. He wears red, white, and blue. He soars through the sky like an eagle, wings spread. He has the shield. “That’s the Black Falcon!” an older Black man cheers in as the crowd howls for Sam’s heroics. “No… that’s Captain America!” a younger, more enthused, Black youth immediately corrects him. MCU’s America is ready.
It is, by no stretch of the imagination, a perfect series. Far from it. Some comedic timing is off, the chemistry between Sam Wilson and Bucky Barnes is hit or miss (although the flirting between Bucky and Sam’s sister is definitely a lighthearted break from all the government conspiracies and terrorist acts) and the plot steadily trudges (painfully sometimes) until the show reaches the thetic crescendo: “Will Sam, a Black man, become Captain America?” The introduction of Isaiah Bradley and the contextualization of the Black experience in America through the lens of a beaten hero is heart wrenching. Isaiah Bradley is a broken man. Not because he lacks strength or spirit or even character; he has become this way because a system allowed him to be nothing but broken. By the season finale, Bradley gets a monument and his story is shared to the world. Sam is now the leader of the Avengers (whenever they decide to team up again in a few years or so), and John Walker slithers into the dark ops territory by becoming a bastardization of Captain America called “U.S. Agent.” Lots of loose threads, lots of movies we will have to consume to understand where it all goes.
But I know this much.
Not even two days before the series finale, Derek Chauvin, the police officer who murdered George Floyd (itself the catalyst for Summer 2020’s “Black Lives Matter” protests worldwide) was found guilty on all of his charges. American Justice was served to George’s killer, a killer emblematic of the systemic oppression that haunts minorities in this country. Two days later, we got a Black Captain America. Maybe this America is ready after all. It only took a “mindless comic book film franchise” to be able to sit down and have this conversation out in the open, with all of their fans. And I thank them for it.
I’m a Black man carrying the stars and stripes. What don’t I understand? Every time I pick this thing up, I know there are millions of people out there who are going to hate me for it. Even now, here, I feel it. The stares, the judgment. And there’s nothing I can do to change it. Yet, I’m still here. No super serum, no blond hair, or blue eyes. The only power I have is that I believe we can do better.”
“Uncle” Sam Wilson
Captain America
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