Anthony Mackie Says Falcon and the Winter Soldier Is About Who Will Be Captain America and Uh … It’d Better Be Him

We’re back on the conversation about who is going to be the next Captain America, and the answer is Sam Wilson. I know that, in theory, The Falcon and the Winter Soldier is going to toy with the idea that Steve Rogers didn’t have the right to just give away the title of Captain America, and now that Anthony Mackie is making it clear that the show is taking on that storyline, there are way more questions about what the future holds for Sam Wilson and Bucky Barnes.

Mackie spoke to The Rich Eisen Show about Disney+ series, and … okay I have theories.

“See, at the end of Endgame, Sam didn’t accept the shield. If you remember, he told Steve [Rogers], ‘It doesn’t feel right because the shield is yours.’ So, the show is a long way of figuring around who’s gonna be Captain America. Where’s the shield gonna end up. And, who is going to be Captain America, and is that moniker going to come back. Is someone going to hold that moniker again?”

As I’ve talked about before, this just confirms that Falcon and the Winter Soldier is probably going to heavily focus on the John Walker storyline from the comics—one that leads to Sam Wilson telling the world that he is Captain America and to get over it. (It’s truly a beautiful panel and one that I think would hit in an incredible way on the series if they chose to do it.)

But this interview does also frighten me a bit because … what if they don’t make Sam Wilson Captain America? In the comics, there were plenty of other men who took on the mantle but I was under the impression that we would, eventually, get Sam as our Cap in the overall Marvel Cinematic Universe.

Could this just be a setup so we don’t have expectations that Sam is instantly going to be Cap? Or is there more to this than I’d like to believe? Honestly, I think it’s Disney/Mackie’s way of trying to distract those who know the John Walker/Sam Wilson storyline. Despite the fact that we know that Wyatt Russell is playing U.S. Agent, I think they’re trying to just make it more of a mystery since we do know the most about Falcon and the Winter Soldier over any of the other MCU shows.

At least, that’s my hope because I’m excited to see Sam Wilson take on the mantle and I wouldn’t really want anyone else to have it. Sure, they could be dragging out the U.S. Agent storyline past the show or maybe they’ll even hint to Bucky Barnes taking it on at some point, but I don’t really want that, and I don’t think anyone else does, either—not with what it means to him and so many others.

Anyway, nothing but respect for my Captain America: Sam Wilson.

(via ComicBook.com, image: Marvel Entertainment)

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