Falcon and Winter Soldier: Why the Civil War and the Avengers: Endgame are key

According to showrunner Malcolm Spellman, his new Marvel Cinematic Universe TV series The Falcon and the Winter Soldier exists because of a 12-second joke in Captain America Civil War. Squeezed in the back seat of a tiny European car, the feared killer known as Winter Soldier asks Sam Wilson – the superhero known as Falcon – to move his front seat a little to make room for his legs. “No,” Sam replies angrily, and a Marvel TV series was born.

In the Marvel cinematic universe, Captain America Civil War it was a long time ago – Thanos wasn’t even in it! And with Falcon and the Winter Soldier, they both turned to dust at the end of Avengers: Infinity War, it has been a while since none of them had much to do in an MCU installation.

With The Falcon and the Winter Soldier arriving at Disney Plus on Friday (at the always fun time of 3:01 PT), let’s go over what everyone should know about Sam Wilson and Bucky Barnes before diving.

The Falcon

Photo: Disney Plus

We last saw Sam in Avengers: Endgame, as elderly Steve Rogers gave him his shield and the blessing of taking him on as a new Captain America. But the first time we saw Sam (in 2014 Captain America: The Winter Soldier), he was a veteran and Air Force advisor who had a cute running encounter with Steve Rogers at the Washington Mall.

Meeting Sam turned out to be emotionally fruitful for Steve, as the two easily made friends, and logistically fruitful, as Sam was the sole survivor of the elite Air Force experimental Pararescue squadron. With a specialized mechanical jumpsuit, Sam could fly like an eagle, or at least like a hawk.

After the fall of Hydra, Sam helped Steve looking for Bucky and eventually joined the Avengers (in Avengers: Age of Ultron) and fought Ant-Man in a cameo Ant Man. When the Avengers split due to the Sokovia Agreements (Captain America Civil War), Sam remained loyal to Steve, becoming a fugitive from the law. Sam was a victim of Thanos’ snap (Avengers: Infinity War), but helped to assemble an army of resurrected heroes to defeat the Mad Titan forever (Avengers: Endgame)

The winter soldier

Marvel Studios

When we last saw Bucky Barnes, he was watching while Steve Rogers handed Sam Wilson his shield. When we first saw him, it was 1942, and Bucky was about to embark on the German front of World War II, leaving behind his best friend, the fragile but courageous soldier Steve Rogers.

Little did he know that Steve was about to receive a large dose of Super Soldier Serum, which allowed him to rescue Bucky and his fellow combatants from a Hydra POW camp. Bucky was eventually lost in an attack on a Hydra supply train and presumed dead (Captain America: the first avenger) But in fact he was almost dead.

Hydra captured Bucky, replaced his broken left arm with a metal one, and with the effects of the imitation of the Super Soldier Serum that the organization had injected into him while he was a prisoner of war, he nurtured his strength and supernatural reflexes. So they brainwashed him to become the almost legendary killer known as the Winter Soldier. For the next 60 years, Hydra sent Bucky on deadly missions when they needed him, then erased his memory and dumped him in a cryogenic deposit when they didn’t need to.

All of this was discovered by Steve Rogers when Hydra sent the Winter Soldier to kill Nick Fury, in preparation for a long-awaited global takeover. Steve managed to bring Bucky back to his senses, but he hid to order his extremely confused brain (Captain America: The Winter Soldier) Then, the enraged Sokovian mentor Helmut Zemo framed Bucky for some crimes and put him in a deadly frenzy using a subliminal phrase that Soviet agents implanted in his mind in his Hydra days.

After resolving all of this, Cap fled the law and Bucky was put back in cryogenic stasis – but this time in the hyper-advanced African nation of Wakanda, whose national hero and King Black Panther promised Steve that his scientists (ie, Shuri) could restore all Bucky’s memories and get rid of that nasty murder phrase (Captain America Civil War) Bucky had to live at least a few days of a peaceful and unfrozen life in Wakanda before Thanos came to the city and he was dragged into that battle, where he was among the 50% of all people who were dissolved in ashes by the Crazy Titans caprice (Avengers: Infinity War), only to be resurrected by Bruce Banner five years later (Avengers: Endgame)

But Bucky and Sam aren’t the only characters with an MCU story going back to The Falcon and the Winter Soldier – they are just the title.

Sharon Carter

When we last saw Sharon Carter, she smuggled vital equipment – costumes and equipment – to Captain America and his allies, and kissed him awkwardly (Captain America Civil War) while Sam and Bucky watched from that tiny car. But we saw for the first time Sharon, Cap’s Second World War niece, loving Peggy Carter, when she was the SHIELD agent assigned to monitor Steve Rogers’ assimilation into modern life (Captain America: The Winter Soldier)

Helmut Zemo

Image: Marvel Studios

The last time we saw Helmut Zemo, the hero Wakandan T’Challa, also known as the Black Panther, captured him and handed him over to the Joint Counter Terrorist Center for committing many crimes, including killing T’Challa’s father, the king of Wakanda. Zemo is Sokovian, and when his wife and children were killed in Ultron’s attack (Avengers: Age of Ultron) he blamed the Avengers for creating the intelligence of the evil machine. (Fair. They did that.)

He devised a scheme to frame Captain America’s best friend who became a brainwashed killer for some murders he didn’t commit, and also revealed some of the secret murders he actually committed during brainwashing. Specifically, he showed Steve and Tony Stark, also known as Iron Man, that Bucky killed Tony’s parents, Maria and Howard Stark, while making their deaths look like a car accident. The division that followed between Captain America, loyal to Bucky, and Iron Man, really crazy about his parents, separated the Avengers – and Zemo’s revenge was complete (Captain America Civil War)

Batroc the Jumper

Image: Marvel Studios

That’s right, there is one more villain in return The Falcon and the Winter Soldier!

What do you mean you don’t remember Batroc, the jumper? He’s that guy that Captain America said “On va voir” to! The last time we saw Batroc, he was a French pirate and Steve Rogers kicked his ass in an impressive hand-to-hand fight (Captain America: The Winter Soldier)

This was also the first time that we saw Batroc. But according to the cast’s information, we’ll see you again at Falcon and the Winter Soldier. Hopefully he will be so elegantly dressed.