Avengers: Doomsday Pokes Fun At Marvel’s Captain America Problem
But is anyone laughing?
It’s been a long, long time since the Avengers assembled on the big screen, and though plenty has changed, it’s taking even longer for the memo to stick — for some members, at least. In the latest tease for Avengers: Doomsday, our original heroes reunite after the events of Endgame, rounding up a litany of new members to defeat a new threat in Doctor Doom. The God of Thunder, Thor, and the former Captain America, Steve Rogers, are leading the squad once again. After a pep talk that calls back to Marvel’s good ol’ days, Ant-Man is so ready to rock that he accidentally calls Steve “Cap” — right in front of the current Captain America, Sam Wilson.
Ant-Man’s slip makes plenty of sense: his Steve Rogers fandom runs deep, a fact he could scarcely conceal when they first met in Captain America: Civil War. He was also most likely in the Quantum Realm fighting Kang the Conqueror when Sam stepped into a public role as the new Cap and got to work rebuilding the Avengers, so maybe he needs a bit more time to adjust to the passing of this mantle. Whatever the cause, Doomsday’s attempt at some team-testing humor still falls totally flat, lampshading Marvel’s most acute identity crisis (and the franchise’s brazen attempt to cater to our nostalgia) when all we needed was a better story for Sam.
It’s common knowledge now, but Chris Evans’ return has been in the works from the moment he put down the shield in Endgame. The intention to bring him back is much clearer in hindsight: though Marvel put a lot of effort into examining his legacy and the void he left in its Cinematic Universe, Anthony Mackie’s Sam Wilson never felt like a successor Marvel was interested in. It didn’t help that a vocal minority of fans pushed back against his appointment, or that only Evans seemed willing to defend the new Cap’s right to exist.
The Falcon and the Winter Soldier might have nudged Sam into his destiny — all while entwining his journey to take on the shield with America’s perpetual prejudice — but a lackluster finale brought the character two steps back. Ditto for Sam’s first big-screen outing as the new Captain America in Brave New World, one of the MCU’s weakest post-Endgame films. Sam’s situation now is a mixture of genuine prejudice (even cosplayers who dress up as Sam are still “mistaken” for Falcon) and disappointing storytelling; with an all-new Avengers team making headway in the MCU, his authority has been further undermined.
Doomsday is built on such a shaky foundation that its Avengers reunion is impossible to enjoy.
It all culminates in Doomsday’s seemingly harmless joke. In a perfect world, one where Sam’s appointment got the attention and care it deserved, Ant-Man’s slip might have truly been funny. In a perfect world, it’d be an appropriate acknowledgement of how ridiculous it is to have three “versions” of Cap (if you include Wyatt Russell’s US Agent) on the same super-team. But Marvel didn’t put in the work to set Sam up for success — perhaps because Marvel President Kevin Feige always knew Steve Rogers would eventually return.
It might not have been anyone’s intention, but it just makes Sam feel like a placeholder: Captain America or no, he deserves so much better than that.
