Falcon & Winter Soldier Asks 5 Big Questions About The MCU's Secret History

The Falcon and the Winter Soldier episode 2 reunites Sam Wilson and Bucky Barnes in their fight against the Flag Smashers, and it also poses some interesting questions about both the recent past and secret history of the MCU. Episode 1 ended with John Walker being named the new Captain America by the U.S. government – a slap in the face to Sam, who surrendered Steve Rogers’ shield under the impression it would be put on display. With the MCU’s post-blip world descending into chaos, both Sam and Bucky struggled to find their place.

Episode 2, “The Star-Spangled Man,” opens with a proper intro for John Walker, painting him less as a snide villain and more as a cocky soldier tasked with a complicated duty. Sam and Bucky team up begrudgingly to track down the Flag-Smashers, who end up besting them, the new Captain America, and his partner Lemar Hoskins, a.k.a. Battlestar. The leader of the anarchist cell, Karli Morgenthau, gets a bit of character development, and her team is revealed to be running from a second group as well – agents of the mysterious Power Broker. After an investigation into the Flag-Smashers’ superpowers leads Sam and Bucky to an old super-soldier named Isaiah, they realize they need answers about HYDRA’s experiments, setting them on a collision course with Baron Zemo.

“The Star-Spangled Man” covers a lot of ground in a relatively short amount of time, developing several different conflicts, adding interesting details to the MCU lore, and reestablishing the taught relationship between Sam and Bucky. It’s a whirlwind, globetrotting episode, and it sets up some exciting potential for the rest of The Falcon and the Winter Soldier. It also poses some interesting questions about the history of the MCU – both for recent events and some mysterious ones from long ago.

Who Is The Power Broker?

Falcon and the winter soldier real villain power broker

Theories about the Power Broker appearing in The Falcon and the Winter Soldier have been proven accurate, as episode 2 invokes the comics villain by name. The character hasn’t been seen on screen yet, so their exact role in the MCU has yet to be determined. However, the comics do offer some insight into what role the Power Broker could play in the series going forward, especially in relation to the Flag-Smashers and John Walker’s new Captain America.

In the comics, the Power Broker is a criminal businessman who imbues ordinary people with superpowers for profit. His experiments are incredibly dangerous, killing roughly half of his clients, and those who survive often become indentured to the Power Broker for enormous debts. The MCU version of the character is likely the source of the Flag-Smashers’ superpowers, as agents of the Broker are seen pursuing and brutally gunning down members of the group. The Power Broker may also be connected to older super soldiers in the MCU, possibly having hidden connections to both the U.S. government and HYDRA. Only time will tell exactly what role this version of the Power Broker will play, but from what’s been shown so far, it certainly seems like a villainous one.

How Did Isaiah Bradley Get Superpowers?

Carl Lumbly as Isaiah Bradley in Falcon and Winter Soldier

The Falcon and the Winter Soldier episode 2 also introduces the characters of Isaiah Bradley to the MCU – a super-soldier who carried out secret missions for the United States after Steve Rogers’ disappearance during World War II. In the Marvel comics, Bradley was an unwitting subject of a series of brutal, inhumane experiments with super-soldier serum conducted on African American soldiers. He was the only survivor, and subsequently went rogue and donned a Captain America suit and shield to dismantle similar operations in Nazi Germany. After being captured by the Nazis and subsequently rescued by the Allied Forces, Bradley was court-martialed and imprisoned in an effort to keep the crimes against him a secret.

The MCU version of Isaiah Bradley isn’t very fleshed out in “The Star-Spangled Man,” but the core beats of his story seem to be the same – despicable experimentation, thankless fighting, and imprisonment. How exactly his history fits into the existing MCU lore, however, remains a mystery so far. Isaiah implies that both HYDRA and the U.S. government experimented on him, which could be explained by HYDRA’s infiltration of SHIELD and other American groups after World War II. Since the super-soldier serum HYDRA used on Bucky is the only known serum existent at the time of the tests on Isaiah, that would seem to make sense. Either that, or the U.S. acquired Arnim Zola’s serum through other means and administered it independently. And of course, the Power Broker could be involved as well.

How Many Super Soldiers Are In The MCU?

Captain America with Falcon and The Winter Soldier & The Flag Smashers

What once seemed like a relatively small number of existent super soldiers in the MCU has exploded in The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, revealing many more than previously believed. Many of the Flag-Smashers appear to have superhuman abilities, Isaiah Bradley obviously does as well, and with the Power Broker in the mix, there could be countless more. How likely that is will rely on how the Power Broker actually works in the MCU, but if they’re handing out super-soldier serum to anyone with enough cash, there are a few groups in particular who may already be involved.

The U.S. government clearly has an interest in maintaining dominance through super soldiers – an idea the series will hopefully explore further – and if any remnants of HYDRA remain, they’d also be likely customers. WandaVision’s S.W.O.R.D. could also be at play, given the agency’s interest in superpowered individuals and sentient weapons. Because the state of the world is so fragile after the Blip, there could be many other groups scrambling for control via superhuman means as well.

What Happened After Endgame’s Blip?

Iron Man snaps his fingers wearing his version of the Infinity Gauntlet in Avengers: Endgame

After both Spider-Man: Far from Home and WandaVision both effectively skipped over the geopolitical ramifications of the Avengers: Endgame Blip, The Falcon and the Winter Soldier is finally showing its impact in more detail. The return of billions of people overnight – people who’d been removed from all social and economic systems for five years – threw the world into chaos, with refugee camps popping up everywhere to house the displaced. Karli Morgenthau’s Flag-Smashers seem to have risen up in direct response to these Blip-created crises, and they’re quite vocal about their frustrations with the current power structure.

It is of course possible that those who returned to power after the Blip are simply faced with a difficult situation, but from the way Karli talks about them, it’s also possible the Blip allowed more nefarious people to seize control. With roughly half the population having come back from the dead, it would be incredibly difficult to track and verify the identities and histories of everyone. That’s the exact kind of situation that could have allowed some more villainous factions to rise up in the shadows – a plot twist with which Captain America stories are very familiar.

How Much Does Baron Zemo Know About HYDRA?

The end of The Falcon and the Winter Soldier episode 2 sees Sam and Bucky head off to meet with the imprisoned Baron Zemo. After Isaiah makes references to HYDRA being involved in the experiments performed on him, the two heroes decide it’s time to question the one man alive who knows the most about HYDRA. That begs the question – how much does Zemo actually know? His mission in obtaining secret HYDRA intel was entirely focused on destroying the Avengers, but he clearly knows more than what he brought to bear in Captain America: Civil War. Depending on what he knows, and what he’s willing to reveal, Zemo could drop some major bombshells in The Falcon and the Winter Soldier.

Next: Iron Man’s Legacy Is Still Shaping The MCU In Phase 4