Review: Marvel’s Falcon and Winter Soldier finds a new villain – Racism

A black superhero takes center stage from the sidekick in Marvel’s latest staple event, “The Falcon and the Winter Solider,” a six-part series set to face the realities of racial inequity in one. fantasy universe of conflicting avengers and hellish villains.

Former Captain America winger Sam Wilson, aka Falcon (Anthony Mackie), is the focus of Marvel’s second Disney + television series, which began airing Friday. He’s set to team up with the Captain’s former brother-in-arms Bucky Barnes aka Winter Solider (Sebastian Stan) in the next installment of the Marvel Cinematic Universe expansion from film to TV series. Following the critically acclaimed “WandaVision,” this live-action drama also takes place after the catastrophic events of “Avengers: Endgame,” but that’s where the similarities between this story and the one about the Scarlet Witch end.

The premiere of “The Falcon and the Winter Solider” has more in common with traditional Marvel movie storytelling than it does with the experimental realm of Wanda and Vision. The high-flying drama begins with a thrilling action sequence: Falcon is on an airborne rescue mission, where his billion dollar wing set and fancy flight suit come in handy in a hijacked military operation somehow. leaves near the Tunisian border. He boards enemy planes in mid-flight, brawls inside plummeting planes, deflects bullets into the air, and overtakes missiles, all at dizzying heights in a combat scene designed for him. big screen.

But once he’s back on the field safely, the episode slows down considerably to explore the backgrounds of his characters – Wilson’s in particular. The pace that requires patience is a risky move, especially in the first episode, and within a franchise that conditions its audience to crave non-stop action. But the methodical accumulation works, subtly creating tensions on several fronts. It’s unclear where this series from creator and showrunner Malcolm Spellman (“Empire”) is going as Disney + has only released the first episode for review, but in this episode there are some intriguing clues that it is. This is a series of superheroes where even the strongest of Stark-crafted materials cannot protect against the ravages of racism.

Aging Steve Rogers aka Captain America (played by Chris Evans in the movies) passed his iconic shield to Wilson in 2019’s “Endgame,” and now the airborne hero is reluctant to take on the torch. (Without spoiling anything here, it turns out that the choice may never have been hers to make in the first place.) Meanwhile, Wilson tries to help his sister Sarah (Adepero Oduye), a single mom. in difficulty, to relaunch the family’s fishing business and keep the house their parents entrusted to them. But a visit to the bank shows that even Falcon’s celebrity status won’t outweigh decades of unfair lending practices embedded in the U.S. banking system.

For his part, Barnes, Rogers’ friend turned foe turned confused collaborator, is waging his own battle against the severe PTSD of his time as the brainwashed assassin of Hydra, an authoritarian paramilitary organization with an ambition to world domination. He’s in therapy and, suffice it to say, the brooding ex-assassin isn’t the most docile patient. Plus, like Wilson, he questions his role in a post-Captain America world.

Their personal dilemmas play out against an emerging global threat that will most certainly make these reluctant allies manage their baggage while throwing the crap out of rogue forces. Viewers must stay tuned to see this unlikely duo fight side by side – or even, perhaps, against each other. There is definitely more to their stories that will tie the two characters together and challenge their ideas on each other.

“The Falcon and the Winter Soldier” has yet to reach its ideal cruising altitude, but it’s a gentle, slow climb that promises to take viewers to exciting new destinations.