The Falcon and the Winter Soldier

 

Marvel Studios routinely blends heroism and vulnerability in its characters but its treatment of the ambivalence Sam Wilson / Falcon (Anthony Mackie) initially feels about assuming the role of Captain America, a post nearly everyone but Wilson sees he is supremely suited for, is exceptionally well-done, even if the last episode gets a little preachy.

In The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, the usual fight-and-flight superhero plotting is enhanced by references to America's racial history, personoified by Carl Lumbly's Isaiah Bradley, a Black man used for super-soldier experimentation and then abandoned. (Echoes of the Tuskegee Experiments are surely not accidental.)

Bradley's resentment and Wilson's anxiousness mixed with the elevation of a "fair-haired boy," a traumatized Afghan veteran played by Wyatt Russell, to be the new Captain America converge into a compelling statement about truth and legitimacy.

Underpinning all of this are the increasingly dangerous actions of a racially diverse, globe-trotting band of amped-up, disaffected youths pushing for world change. Who is best suited to respond to the threat?

The series' white characters are neither rabid racists nor woke warriors. Everyone seems to be a work-in-progress -- another characteristic to be found in the best of the Marvel Universe features. This is especially true of Bucky Barnes / Winter Soldier.

An important, albeit brief, exchange comes in the final episode when Barnes apologizes to Wilson for pressing him to step up, not understanding what it would mean for a Black man to take up Captain America's shield (literally and figuratively). This felt like a genuinely healthy exchange between friends/co-workers/partners. Sometimes all it takes is owning one's ignorance.

Marvel fans will know Barnes' character has a special affinity with Black characters, having been treated and protected in Black Panther's Wakanda, where he was known as White Wolf. Because of his long residence in that African nation, he was, as the saying goes, "invited to the barbecue," where he was shown along with Wilson's family and friends at the episode's end.