But there is more. For example, Thunderbolts presents: Zemo – Born Better, from 2007 and created by Fabian Nicieza and Tom Grummett. In this volume, famed Baron Zemo (who joins Falcon and the Winter Soldier himself in the series) takes command of all the action and reveals much about the mind of one of our villains. hero. If this comic isn’t enough for you, try reading Winter Soldier 2012 by Ed Brubaker, Butch Guice and Michael Lark. Here, you’ll encounter a somewhat unknown side of Bucky Barnes as the heir to his old friend Steve Rogers, most famously Captain America.
Finally, it wouldn’t hurt to revisit the Falcon comic, from 2017 by Rodney Barnes and Joshua Cassara in which Sam Wilson returns Captain America to Steve Rogers to reprise his role as Falcon. A sort of throwback that will help you dive a little deeper into the mind of one of Marvel fans’ most beloved heroes.
life before the falcon
It goes without saying that Falcon’s name is Sam Wilson. A character who has been particularly fond of birds since childhood and who started training them very early. Unfortunately, his passage as a teenager was punctuated by episodes of racism, which he had to face and which will mark his personality. Like many heroes, in his origins a family misfortune occurs when his father dies after trying to stop a street fight.
As if problems were not uncommon for this kid accustomed to the harshness of Harlem, two years later his mother will be killed by an attacker and he will fall into a deep depression and pain that will lead him to be “angry with the world » . This will lead him down a path of perdition where his old jobs will be forgotten by the community and, after moving to Los Angeles, he will become Snap Wilson, a dangerous professional criminal and member of a dangerous gang.
How was Falcon born?
As you will have understood, we are facing a hero with a really eventful beginning, almost on a par with Batman, Spider-Man and others who have experienced family setbacks. Of course, you won’t have a wallet with too deep a checkbook, which will lead you to have to take other less glamorous routes. Even so, the key to Falcon’s creation is in the hands of a villain who, at least in the MCU, we’ve barely seen in the early Captain America movies. Specifically Red Skull.
It will be he who, thanks to the Cosmic Cube, will modify the reality of the character, mentally merging Sam Wilson with Redwing, which will cause a bond that will allow him to control time and concentration, which gives him almost infinite management power. and give orders to any bird on the planet. With Steve Rogers, Falcon will take shape with his characteristic red and silver costume and will learn the essential defense and attack movements that characterize him, accompanying Captain America in many of his adventures as a faithful companion. Although it is only much later that he really acquires the power to fly, thanks to the intercession of a Black Panther who will provide him with a special harness that will equip him with wings with which he can cross the skies.
Age of Avengers
Although the story of the films is significantly different from the original storylines, Falcon joins the Avengers in the comics to fight the Scorpion menace. It will be there that Sam Wilson discovers his telepathic power to communicate with Redwing and the rest of the birds, which he can see through their eyes.
It’s during these times that Scarlet Witch acts to destabilize the Avengers and Falcon suffers a setback that takes him back to his Snap Wilson days, committing misdeeds that will have consequences. One of them will be to face Captain America and end up separated from him. Still, it will be in the House of M and Civil War comics that Falcon will show the strength of his commitment to Steve Rogers by refusing to submit to the Superhuman Registration Act. Capi unfit, it will be Sam Wilson and his Falcon who will become the new Captain America, at the head of the group known as the Secret Avengers.
Falcon Powers
As we’ve told you before, Falcon’s main power is its ability to act in sync with Redwing and, almost by extension, with any other bird that crosses its path. It’s a symbiosis that allows you to always have an aerial map of the field of operations, making it easier for you to act where needed without being compromised by enemies.
Professor X has to do with this empathic connection, which will confirm these abilities of Sam Wilson, which he came to say hurt “like hell; it hurts to be mentally fused with that hawk and to be able to see through its eyes. This power does not only work on specimens close to it, but can strike anyone flying (almost) above the world. This allows him to have, in his own words, “more than six billion pairs of eyes in the United States” that can report any unfolding event and, if need be, summon many of them to battle at its ratings.
Yet almost everyone believes that one of Falcon’s powers is flight. In fact, as Buzz Lightyear would say, he descends in style thanks to a Black Panther-issued harness that was made in Wakanda. The place where some of the most incredible and powerful weapons in the entire Marvel Universe are developed.
The Falcon’s Enemies
The list of enemies of Sam Wilson is not short, but among them we can surely highlight some names known to all fans. Red Skull is, by far, the most decisive in his life because it is thanks to him that he has this telepathic power with the birds. Yet we also have Helmut Zemo, or Baron Zemo, who appears in the Falcon and the Winter Soldier series as a timely ally in their battle against the Bannerless.
The Sinister Six are another of Falcon’s enemies, though many identify them more with Spider-Man due to the presence of the Vulture, Lizard, Electro, Doctor Octopuss, and more. They also have prominent roles as supervillains of Sam Wilson, Mysterio himself or Arnim Zola, the HYDRA scientist we met in Captain America the First Avenger, also in The Winter Soldier and even in some episodes of What If…? you have on Disney+.
Finally, we must remember two names that many of you know very well, such as Doctor Doom, the main villain of The Fantastic 4, or Taskmaster (yes, the same as Black Widow), and that Thanos who through work and The MCU’s grace is now one of the best known for a planet that held its breath as in Avengers Infinity War it wiped out half of the galaxy’s living beings with the snap of its fingers.
Your partners
Although we have Falcon as a character who is taciturn, lonely and with his head always on the verge of falling to the dark side, he actually had time to enjoy a couple well known to most fans of the character. Or do you not recognize it?
Exactly ! This is María Hill, former director of the planetary defense and intelligence service, better known by its acronym in English SHIELD Surely you remember her from her appearances alongside Nick Fury, even if it was in l 2000 when the general public discovered it thanks to the Civil War and Secret Invasion comic books.
captain america returns
Although in the comics the story of Sam Wilson is an accumulation of comings and goings and arguments that tell us about the bond between Falcon and Captain America, the last thing we can cling to has to do with the series in which he plays on Disney + next to the Winter Soldier. In this one, far from watching how Cap’s legacy is trampled on by John Walker (the future US Agent), he decides to adopt the role that virtually everyone asks him to play.
And it is none other than becoming the new Captain America after the events of Avengers Endgame where the old Steve Rogers hands over to who he believes to be his most faithful squire. We will see the importance it takes in phase 4 of the Marvel Cinematic Universe and how the threats will evolve which, for the moment, do not seem as clear as in the previous stages where Thanos has already appeared from the beginning . Surely, with Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, we’ll begin to learn more about this plot arc that Disney is preparing for us in the years to come.
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