Welcome to Fix It, our ongoing series examining projects we love — save for one tiny change we wish we could make.
With just two complete series aired, the Disney+ Marvel Cinematic Universe's foray into serialized TV has already expanded the Marvel universe in ways the movies couldn't. WandaVision elevated Wanda and Vision from "only in the team-up movie" players to two of the most anticipated (and most romantic) leads in the MCU, and The Falcon and the Winter Soldier introduced a slew of fascinating new characters who will impact the franchise for years to come. One of those characters was Isaiah Bradley, the kind of complex comic book deep cut who could only appear in a medium that gives his very existence enough screen time to really sink in.
Isaiah Bradley is a living reminder that Steve Rogers' Captain America may have been a good man, but America is a country capable of systemic evil. He is the sole survivor of unethical experiments the government performed in an attempt to recreate super-soldier serum, experiments performed exclusively on Black men who were either murdered by the process or sent on suicide missions in the Korean War. Isaiah was later thrown in prison for disobeying orders to rescue prisoners of war — the exact same act of heroism that turned Steve Rogers into a legend — and tortured by further experiments for decades until he faked his own death to escape.
Introducing Isaiah to the MCU was a ballsy move for a franchise that avoided showcasing heroes of color for nearly a decade, and if they had gotten him right, it would have been a slam dunk moment that recontextualized Blackness and heroism in the MCU. Unfortunately, they did not do right by Isaiah, and the reason is one ridiculous statue.
Toward the end of The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, Sam confers with Isaiah about what it would mean for him to take up Captain America's shield. "Those stars and stripes don't mean nothing good to me," Isaiah warns him. "They will never let a Black man be Captain America." Isaiah also stresses that he is legally dead and knows that if his survival were common knowledge, he and his family would be in danger from anyone coming after the serum in his blood. Somehow Sam Wilson hears the story and thinks, "That's cool but I'm built different."
Sam does take up Captain America's shield, and that's absolutely fine. He even does a little (okay, very long) speech about coming together to heal the world through the power of collaboration and that one U.S. Senator who's weirdly in charge of everything from court martials to UN votes on this show. What's not fine is how The Falcon and the Winter Soldier handles Sam's final "gift" to Isaiah Bradley: a statue in the Smithsonian that tells his story as the first Black Captain America, about which Isaiah weeps with joy.
There is no universe where outing Isaiah as alive and giving him a statue is an appropriate response to finding out this man was tortured for science and is in danger every second of his life.
I don't know how many unjustly incarcerated victims of the state Sam Wilson knows, but there is no universe where outing Isaiah as alive and giving him a statue is an appropriate response to finding out this man was tortured for science and is in danger every second of his life. Isaiah has family members that bear his name, and while opening up the Bradley family story to media scrutiny is probably how we get at least one Young Avenger at some point, it's definitely something you need to ask permission to do.
Furthermore, having Isaiah be thrilled to see himself recognized as the first Black Captain America gives the impression that his real problem with what happened to him was that he never got the same credit as Steve Rogers. The actual root of Isaiah's bitterness (a trait Sam scolds him for in another episode, like having your blood stolen by racists for 75 goddamn years isn't a good enough reason to be bitter) is that the American government considered him and his fellow subjects as acceptable casualties of comic book eugenics and left them all to rot.
The only way to fix the museum moment in a way that preserves the probably necessary exposure of Isaiah Bradley's history (again, it's really looking like his grandson Eli is a future Young Avenger), is to have Sam respect Isaiah's privacy while honoring the real crimes committed in Steve Rogers' name: the deaths of Isaiah's comrades. A statue or monument that focuses less on Isaiah as an individual who never got his due and more on the dozens of men who were murdered actually holds America accountable for what was sanctioned in pursuit of a white supremacist ideal.
That is the takeaway that makes Isaiah Bradley's presence in the MCU significant. The Falcon and the Winter Soldier missed the mark when it comes to holding a mirror up to the Marvel's United States of America, which sometimes painfully resembles our own.
