We don’t know for sure, but if we’re right, then this will be properly jaw-dropping.
As we barrel towards the end of WandaVision – which is quickly becoming one of the best things Marvel has ever done – you might already be worried about the MCU-shaped hole that will appear in your life once the finale airs on Friday, 5 March.
To that end, you’ll be happy to hear that you’ve only got to wait two weeks before the first episode of The Falcon and The Winter Soldier, which will debut on Disney+ on Friday, 19 March.
Marvel launched the brand-new trailer for the show during the Super Bowl on Sunday night, so before we do a mega deep-dive on it, check it out for yourself…
Clip via Marvel
It looks like the show will be sticking closer to the tone of Captain America: The Winter Soldier, an action-packed international political thriller, which is absolutely fine with us, because The Winter Soldier is unarguably one of the best movies in the MCU to date.
Additionally, we’ve got plenty of returning characters from Captain America’s film outings, including:
Baron Zemo (Daniel Bruhl)
While we never actually see his face, we do hear Zemo’s voice, telling us “I have no intention to leave my work unfinished”. Zemo was the guy who caused Captain America and Iron Man to go head-to-head during Civil War, wanting to take down all superheroes after his family were killed during the events of Age of Ultron. We see above he’s now got his iconic purple mask from the comic books, but we’re interested in how he got away from Everett Ross (Martin Freeman) and that high-tech, top-secret prison.
Sharon Carter (Emily VanCamp)
Introduced in The Winter Soldier, pretending to Captain America’s friendly neighbour, but actually an agent placed as protection (and also happens to be the great-niece to Peggy Carter), we last seen Sharon in Civil War, when she broke some big laws in order to give Captain is shield and Falcon his wings ahead of the big airport fight. Big question: has she been on the run from whatever SHIELD is called now since then? She’ll surely have a good reason for completely missing the events of Infinity War and Endgame.
Captain America’s outfit
Now who might this be? It seems unlikely to be a flashback with Chris Evans back in the role, and it seems equally unlikely that Falcon or the Winter Soldier would take time out from their international explosions tour to done their friend’s old costume and make a friendly PR appearance like this. Our best guess is that this is John F. Walker (Wyatt Russell), aka Super Patriot, a creation of the U.S. government as a more militarist successor to Captain America. What’re the chances the “good guy” ends up taking things too far in the name of patriotism and our leading heroes have to take him down?
Far from just featuring callbacks, the trailer also gives us loads of new stuff to mentally chew over, including…
Flag Smasher (Erin Kellyman)
As you can tell from the name, Flag Smasher’s ideologies likely don’t fall in line with Captain America’s, and it appears that she and her terrorist group will team up with Baron Zemo for whatever his grander plan may be. Later in the trailer, it looks like Flag Smasher is proving more than capable to take on the Winter Soldier while they grapple on top of a moving truck, so she’ll likely prove just as much a threat to the duo as Zemo will.
Madripoor
Okay, this is where we have to connect some dots. Back in December 2019, some on-set photos revealed the Madripoor flag as part of the production, and this trailer definitely looks like we’re being introduced to the fictional Asian island. Madripoor is an exceptionally dodgy place to be, an island filled with criminals, as well as crooked politicians and businessmen.
As you can see in the image above, it looks like Bucky Barnes and Sam Wilson are being guided somewhere by someone who knows the place better than they do, and now is the time to start speculating wildly. Off the back off the absolutely HUGE reveal at the end of the most recent episode of WandaVision, we now know that Marvel are going all-in on the crossover of their properties. So who might this third man be in the image?
Well, aside from all of the criminal activities, do you know who happen to own a bar in Madripoor? A bar brilliantly named The Princess Bar? None other than Wolverine.
Now, are we saying that this man above is Wolverine, either played by Hugh Jackman or whomever Disney have decided to recast in the character since they bought the property over from Fox? No. But we’re not not saying that, either. And it sure is fun to speculate as wildly as we possibly can!
We’ll know for sure once The Falcon and The Winter Soldier debuts next month.
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