Sam Wilson looks to be ready to take on the mantle of Captain America, and if anybody deserves the title, it’s him. In the comics, he was Steve’s longest partner (Bucky goes back further with Cap but was out of the picture for decades). Sam had to come to this conclusion on his own. As he notes, Steve Rogers is gone. But he did have some wisdom in offering Sam the shield.
Isaiah Bradley understandably doesn’t want the shield. He served his country and his country experimented on him and put him in prison. Before assuming the shield, Sam must weigh the words of the first Black Captain America, in this thoughtful, piercing piece of dialogue:
“So they erased me. My history. But they’ve been doing that for 500 years. Pledge allegiance to that, my brother. 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.”
The Falcon’s wings are destroyed in the fight with John Walker. I assume the Wakandans have made him some sort of high-tech Cap uniform. And Sam’s practicing throwing around the shield. So I assume the stage is set for his new identity.
Hold up: It’s national treasure Julia Louis-Dreyfus as Contessa Valentina Allegra de la Fontaine! Louis-Dreyfus brings a nice bit of tart humor and I hope we do see some more of her in the MCU. (I assume she’ll win an Emmy for this short cameo, as she seems to collect one for every role she takes on.) Who is Contessa Valentina Allegra de la Fontaine? She’s an agent of SHIELD who first appeared in ‘60s issues of Strange Tales, a glamorous agent known for looking completely fabulous in Jim Steranko’s legendary art. She was the girlfriend of Nick Fury.
Val is right about the ownership of Cap’s shield being a gray area. Captain America’s shield was originally shaped like a badge and not a circle, and FDR gave this one to him during World War II. I believe this original, flimsier shield was the one Mr. Hyde ripped apart when he and the Masters of Evil invaded Avengers Mansion, the same story in which Zemo tore up Cap’s mother’s picture (boy, that was a rough day for Cap losing mementos). The round modern shield was made of a vibranium alloy developed by scientist Myron McClain. McClain’s attempt to duplicate the shield led him to create the indestructible metal adamantium, of which Wolverine’s claws and the murderous android Ultron are made. Apparently Marvel did retcon this to say T’Chaka gave Cap a vibranium shield during World War II, establishing goodwill between the United States and Wakanda.
Anyway, the vibranium alloy shield is the one Captain America has used in the comics ever since. There was a time in the ‘90s when the shield was lost at sea and Cap used a replacement shield made of some sort of energy, but he soon got the real shield back. The thing about the shield is it’s not only indestructible but it has properties that cannot be duplicated. A few nearly omnipotent beings—like the Beyonder, Molecule Man and Thanos with the Infinity Gauntlet—have managed to damage the shield, but all have remarked on the shield’s uniqueness, and the shield has always survived.
This is why not matter how good a metallurgist John Walker might be, the new shield he creates will always be margarine. Walker has now pretty much snapped. I’m enjoying Wyatt Russell’s performance here, showing the human toll his military service is taking, something more nuanced than being a crazy villain.
The military tribunal scene reminds me of something I’ve been watching with concern whenever I see superheroes on screen: Superheroes shouldn’t kill. There are a few rare heroes that stories make exceptions for. Wolverine will kill when he has to, but that’s just part of his character, and he has evolved over the years. Wonder Woman will kill because she comes from a much older culture that is freer to use violence because they face threats like enormous monsters and gods (Diana is an ambassador of peace but do not mess with her). The Punisher will kill but that’s the whole point of the character. (In my opinion, it’s a stupid point. Comic book writers periodically fall in love with these vigilantes who execute people but the stories that praise characters like the Punisher only show that there are very good reasons why society doesn’t trust the administration of justice to a sole character who may be unbalanced.)
The Avengers have a prohibition against killing and several characters have been called out for it. Hawkeye once accidentally killed Egghead and the Avengers cleared him of wrongdoing. His wife Mockingbird once killed a villain who had drugged and raped her and I believe the Avengers ruled it self-defense. The Avengers once had a team schism because half of them favored executing the Kree Supreme Intelligence (it turned out they were being mentally manipulated by Kang). Among the X-Men, Colossus once killed the Marauder named Riptide when he was uncontrollably killing the Morlocks (including kids) but it was portrayed as sadly necessary. Storm once stabbed Callisto through the heart, nearly killing her, and she paid a heavy emotional price that changed her as a person. Dark Phoenix once destroyed a planet, which led to editorial decreeing that she die by suicide rather than be redeemed, so a mass murderer wouldn’t be walking around the Marvel Universe calling herself a hero.
All of the above examples of heroes killing were rare. The writers took them seriously and there were consequences for the superheroes—there have to be, when you aim stories at kids. That’s why it bothers me when I see Green Arrow killing people on Arrow or the mass death in the Justice League movie. I don’t expect every battle to be with foam swords but when heroes have to kill, it should be rare, thought-out and with real-life consequences.
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