He appears at the beginning to shoot some pool and reveal he’s still looking for Bucky, which one can assume is what he’s doing while all hell is breaking loose in Sokovia. The Falcon surfaced again in Avengers: Age of Ultron, although he’s sidelined for most of the action of the Joss Whedon movie.

Wilson literally jumps into a helicopter to escape a building tumbling to the ground, and he ends the film agreeing to help Rogers find his old friend Bucky. His biggest moment comes in a fight with Brock Rumlow (Frank Grillo), the double agent for Hydra who would briefly become Crossbones in Civil War before going boom. Informed that Hydra has infiltrated the organization, Wilson offers his assistance and reveals that he was a part of a project too, and the group retrieves the EXO-7 Falcon uniform together, allowing some quality Falcon action through the rest of the film. Wilson really becomes a part of the MCU when Rogers and Natasha Romanoff (Scarlett Johansson) come to him seeking safety when the entire force of S.H.I.E.L.D. He gets one of his strongest character beats in Winter Soldier when he reveals that he served in Afghanistan and lost a friend named Riley during the mission, eventually finding his purpose by helping others deal with trauma and grief - themes likely to find their way into The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, too. Wilson is framed as someone who works with veterans with PTSD, making him an instant ally for both Rogers, who has to struggle with losing decades of his life, and eventually Bucky Barnes (Sebastian Stan), who was an evil experiment trying to find his humanity again. Played by Anthony Mackie, Sam Wilson was introduced in 2014’s Captain America: The Winter Soldier on a morning jog, passed with alarming frequency by Steve Rogers (Chris Evans). Sound familiar?įor the feature films, Kevin Feige and the powers that be at Marvel reshaped the Falcon into more of a pure sidekick for Captain America, removing his avian telepathy and amplifying his almost Stark-esque skills with his superpowered uniform and deadly explosives. In 2014 in the comic books, Wilson even became Captain America after Steve Rogers lost his powers and aged into an old man. Just know that Falcon has been an ally of Captain America’s for most of his printed existence, even joining the Avengers briefly in the late ’70s, and that he helped Cap track down the Winter Soldier in the Captain America: Civil War story line in the ’00s, an arc that heavily influenced the MCU. Many other adventures would follow, but none will have much of an impact on the Disney show. While working for the mob, Wilson’s plane crashed on a Caribbean island that happened to be occupied by the Red Skull, who essentially created the Falcon, giving him the ability to talk to animals, especially a falcon named Redwing (reimagined as a purely electronic sidekick in the MCU).Ĭaptain America saved this new superhero, and the two worked together for years. He has a relatively typical hero backstory, in that his youth was shaped by violence, with the early deaths of his parents turning Wilson to a life of crime at a young age. 117 in September 1969, making him one of the first Black superheroes. Sam Wilson made his debut way back in Captain America No.

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