
- #CAPTAIN AMERICA ACTOR IN FALCON AND WINTER SOLDIER MOVIE#
- #CAPTAIN AMERICA ACTOR IN FALCON AND WINTER SOLDIER SERIES#
Blond, blue-eyed, and square-jawed, his alter ego Steve Rogers was an everyman whose heroic exploits as Captain America never acknowledged the domestic racial horrors that existed at home while Captain America battled Nazis and the Red Skull overseas. Frozen for seven decades while combating the forces of Nazi fascists and Hydra (a comic book invention) terrorists, Rogers awakens in the 21st century to a world that has left him, as well as much of the values he fought the war for, behind.Ĭhris Evans in 'Captain America: The First Avenger' (2011) Jay Maidment / Marvel StudiosĬaptain America is arguably the most iconic comic book character of postwar American history. The character, who derived his super-strength from a serum invented by American scientists to help end the Second World War, took on additional layers of mournful complexity as portrayed by actor Chris Evans in three movies in the 2010s that established him as a fish out of water.

First introduced in 1941, Captain America – dressed proudly in red, white and blue and sporting a virtually indestructible shield – proved a popular wartime comic book, and one that was reintroduced in 1964. The move to diversify the superhero canon on screen – along with “Black Panther,” the Black female “Ironheart” introduced in 2016 – has been emotionally thrilling, but also, to my disappointment, controversial.Įnter Captain America.

“Black Panther,” with an overwhelmingly Black cast, brought a vision of Afro-futurism into mainstream American popular culture, which often falters when confronting the more complex and painful aspects of Black history. However, until the February 2018 release of “Black Panther,” the MCU looked mostly White. REUTERS/Jason Redmond (UNITED STATES - Tags: ENTERTAINMENT MEDIA) JASON REDMOND/REUTERS Stan Lee arrives at the Activision E3 Preview Event in Los Angeles June 14, 2010. Marvel heroes, in contrast to rival comic book universes, were the ones who lived just outside your door, with real problems that allowed readers (and later filmgoers) to relate to the teenage angst of Peter Parker’s Spiderman or the battle with alcohol addiction fought by Tony Stark’s Iron Man (in the comics, but not film). a box office star and launched a multi-billion-dollar global cinematic franchise.
#CAPTAIN AMERICA ACTOR IN FALCON AND WINTER SOLDIER MOVIE#
The first decade of the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) began with the 2008 release of “Iron Man,” a blockbuster movie adaptation that made Robert Downey Jr. Those stories weren’t always the same ones featured at the multiplex. As a budding intellectual, my fandom shaped my study of that history for me, the most interesting comic books were the ones that reimagined the world of superheroes, parallel universes and intergalactic struggle – and presented them as being inclusive of the Black experience.

When I was young, my comic book fandom paralleled and intersected with my deepening love of writing, of reading fiction and of understanding Black history. It also underscores the need to understand contemporary political crises as rooted in an origin story Americans have often stubbornly refused to acknowledge.įor me, loving superheroes and loving history have always been linked.
#CAPTAIN AMERICA ACTOR IN FALCON AND WINTER SOLDIER SERIES#
“The Falcon and the Winter Soldier,” the six-part Disney series that culminates in Anthony Mackie’s Sam Wilson becoming a Black Captain America, is important because it challenges notions of American exceptionalism that gloss over the most painful chapters in our nation’s history. Peniel Joseph Kelvin Ma/Tufts University/Kelvin Ma/Tufts University
