Another Captain America Might Join The Falcon And The Winter Soldier
Marvel Studios might be giving The Falcon and the Winter Soldier a new wingman when they make their Disney+ debut this summer. And if the reports are true, that wingman may be another Captain America.
Deadline was the first to break this surprising news, reporting in February 2020 that longtime character actor Carl Lumbly has joining the cast of the Disney+ series. As the actor is prepping join The Falcon and the Winter Soldier production in Atlanta as soon as possible, the old MCU Phase 4 rumor mill has understandably been working overtime trying to figure out who Lumbly will be portraying on the show.
Though Marvel has yet to make any official announcement about Lumbly's character on The Falcon and the Winter Solider, the most popular theory is that he might be boarding the series as a character named Isaiah Bradley, who was exposed to the same super-soldier serum that eventually transformed the bony Steve Rogers into the brawny Captain America. Should this theory be true, it will mean that MCU fave Sebastian Stan's Bucky (a.k.a. the Winter Soldier) and Anthony Mackie's Sam (a.k.a. the former Falcon and apparent current Captain America) will be flanked at some point by an alt-version of Captain America, the one widely considered the first black Cap in Marvel Comics lore.
Lumbly will be joining The Falcon and the Winter Soldier alongside a handful of new MCU characters, including another super-soldier in Wyatt Russell's John Walker (a.k.a. US Agent), as well as Desmond Chaim and Miki Ishikawa, who's roles are currently being kept under wraps. Returning to the MCU for the Disney+ series — set to air in August 2020 — are Emily Van Camp as Sharon Carter and Daniel Brühl as the villainous Helmut Zemo.
Why you should be excited about another possible Captain America on The Falcon and the Winter Soldier
While plot details remain sparse for The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, it's worth noting that if Carl Lumbly is indeed playing Isaiah Bradley, his presence on the series will likely have a dramatic impact on the overarching narrative.
Isiah Bradley made his first appearance in the pages Marvel back in 2003 via the limited series Truth: Red, White, and Black. The plot found U.S. agencies attempting to duplicate the super-soldier serum that made Steve Rogers nearly invincible via clandestine experiments that are meant to mirror the abhorrent Tuskegee Syphilis Studies conducted by the U.S. Government between 1932 and 1972.
In the course of the Truth experiments, Bradley becomes one of the lucky few "enhanced" soldiers, and eventually the lone survivor of the tests. From there, Bradley's story only gets more complicated. Should Marvel choose to tell it, the studio will be bringing a political powder keg of a narrative into the MCU — one that will obviously affect how Falcon feels about taking on the Captain America persona.
It's worth noting as well that the character's possible presence in the MCU would also draw another direct line to the theory that Marvel is building toward a Young Avengers movie, as one of the team's key members, Elijah Bradley (a.k.a. Patriot), is Isaiah's grandson.
As for the man who may or may not be playing Isaiah Bradley, Lumbly is a first-rate character actor who just wrapped a memorable stint on The CW's Supergirl, and appeared last year in Mike Flanagan's sequel to The Shining, Doctor Sleep. As such, his casting is reason enough to get be more stoked about The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, no matter who he's playing.