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| Ultimate Falcon |
Anthony Mackie (The Hurt Locker, Real Steel) is apparently
in talks to join the cast of the next Captain America film (recently given the
full title Captain America: The Winter Soldier). (More on the lack of LEAD female / non-white heroes further down AND in my SyFy Channel website blog by clicking this link...
The Hollywood Reporter are
convinced that the role he is up for is that of Sam Wilson, A.K.A ‘The Falcon’.
You’ll hear a lot about the character being able to talk to birds, but I highly
doubt that will come into play at all. The MCU films have all be an
amalgamation of the ‘Classic Marvel comics (or 616) and the Ultimate Marvel Comics.
That’s why Nick Fury is a black guy who looks just like Samuel L Jackson
(Ultimate Marvel) and not a white ‘Napoleon Solo’ type (616). Captain America’s
costume from WWII is mostly Ultimate Marvel, as are Hawkeye & Widow coming
from S.H.I.E.L.D, Hawkeye’s costume, the Chitauri and numerous other elements. So
rather than a street tough made good, I expect to see the scientist turned
field agent who joins Widow & Hawkeye as extra special agent, thanks to his
techno-wings.
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| Anthony Mackie |
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| Winter Soldier |
As the official synopsis for Captain America 2 states that
the Captain has to deal with S.H.I.E.L.D IT SEEMS LIKELY THAT Nick Fury throws
them together, as a way f keeping an eye on Cap, whilst they all try to do with
the unnerving return of a friend from WWII, now under the control of dark
forces. Unless of course the title “The Winter Soldier” is one of the biggest
red herring s in movie history and this film has nothing to do with the outstanding
run of Captain America comics where ***** returns from the dead! (If you want
to knew who ***** is then scroll to the end of this. If not, see you in April
2014...it’s a good one!
Side-Kicks, best friends &
lovers...
One last note: Marvel was ever the more progressive of the
big 2 (Marvel & DC). They had the first black, mainstream, super hero with
The Black Panther (Falcon is apparently the first AMERICAN black super hero)
their characters were always more diverse and natural, it is probably one of
the reasons I always preferred their comics to those of DC, where Batman was
about the only character I could stand to read. But the movies, as full of life
and non-white people and women as they are, remain decidedly white male led.
There are plenty of strong female and black characters there, but they are all,
even Nick Fury, support. Thor has Heimdall, Siff & Jane Foster, but it is
still THOR. Iron Man has War Machine/ Rhodey & Pepper, but it still Stark’s
show. Captain America had Peggy Carter and now Falcon, and The Avengers had
Black Widow, Maria Hill and Nick Fury, but was Iron Man, Captain America, Thor
and Bruce Banner / Hulk led. Now for phase 2 we have Iron Man 3, Thor: The Dark
World, Captain America: The Winter Soldier, The Guardians of The Galaxy and,
most likely, Ant-Man. What happened to The Black Panther film, it has been
written, so why isn’t it ready, surely we don’t have to wait for an intro in
The Avengers 2? What about Captain Marvel (The one who used t be Ms. Marvel,
not the alien man, or the black, female, version)? Surely the women and
non-whites aren’t going to be restricted to just side-kicks and love interests?
However great those character are, and they have all been well written nd well
portrayed, Marvel are better than that. Let’s not forget that the film that got
Marvel characters started as decent big screen characters, that got the 2nd
wave of super heroes cinema rolling; the film that paved the way for Marvel to
be able to make their own movies, was Blade. 14 years later and Marvel still have
no plans for their own film starring a non white male lead. Sure, don’t do one
just for the sake of it, that’s even worse than not doing one. But it is
starting to become “a thing”, and it doesn’t need to.
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| War Machine; bigger, badderer, background... |
The Winter
Soldier...
Well, you sat patiently through my equality tirade and a ton
of pics, so if you can’t wait for the film in April 2014, or to read the comics
(graphic novel), or to watch a few episode of The Avengers: Earth’s Mightiest
Heroes cartoon, then The Winter Soldier is BUCKY BARNES! Yep, you though poor
old Sebastian Stan was done for when he fell off that train in Captain America:
The First Avenger. But n. A hideous fate awaited him at the hands of well, we
don’t know who, maybe Red Skull, but some evil Nazi / Hydra / Soviet miscreant,
rebuilds him 6 million dollar man style, puts him on ice and thaws him out
every few years when they need some especially nasty piece of killing or
espionage to be done. Buckyyyyyyy!!!!!!
