When Marvel first announced that it would be releasing The Falcon and The Winter Soldier as a new television series on Disney+, fans already suspected that the show would set up Sam Wilson, a.k.a. Falcon, as the new Captain America for the Marvel Cinematic Universe. In one of the last scenes of Avengers: Endgame, an aged Steve Rogers met up with Wilson to give him his iconic vibranium shield - a handover that clearly symbolized the passing of the torch from one Captain America to another.
In celebration of the monumental changes, a digital artist on Instagram named @letsgobacktojakku recreated an old Captain America comic to reflect the MCU update. The original comic, which was titled "Captain America and The Falcon," showed Steve Rogers' Captain America and Wilson's Falcon together on the cover as they prepared to fight off a horde of brainwashed humans called The Night People. The digital artist's rework took all of the elements of the original comic, but replaced the two heroes with a blue-suited Falcon as the new Captain America and a metal-armed Winter Soldier instead.
The comic book artwork, which went viral on Reddit, came at a rather fitting time. With The Falcon and The Winter Soldier now completed, Marvel Studios has been gearing up for the rest of Phase 4, and the new Captain America will surely be pivotal in some of the upcoming works. In the show's finale, Anthony Mackie's Wilson debuted his new suit for the first time, marking the start of a new chapter for the superhero. Several rumors have Mackie's Wilson involved in important MCU storylines including Spider-Man: No Way Home and Black Panther: Wakanda Forever; however, there has been no official confirmation of such as of yet.
The Black Panther crossover speculation is particularly interesting because there have been some pretty convincing signs suggesting it will actually happen. The most telling sign comes from Episode 5 of The Falcon and The Winter Soldier, when Sebastian Stan's Winter Soldier asked the Wakandans to make Falcon a new suit.
In a recent interview with Entertainment Tonight, Mackie joked that his character now has a Wakanda visa, so he could technically "go to Wakanda as much as [he wants]." Such detail seems to be a pretty convincing set-up for an adventure in Wakanda. For now, fans will just have to wait until the summer of 2022 to find out if Mackie's Captain America will join forces with the late Chadwick Boseman's Black Panther.
The Falcon and The Winter Soldier is now streaming on Disney+.
Source: U/creamycilantro|Reddit