'Avengers: Endgame': Winter Soldier shouldn't be Captain America's successor and writers agree
At the end of 'Avengers: Endgame' when Captain America / Steve Rogers (Chris Evans) handed his shield over to Sam Wilson/Falcon (Anthony Mackie), it created a lot of controversy among the fans. Most Marvel Cinematic Universe fans expected the Winter Soldier/Bucky (Sebastian Stan) to be the one who would pick up the mantle of Captain America but when you think about it, that doesn't really make much sense.
While he is most certainly an excellent character with a lot of nuances, Bucky is nothing like Steve. Sure, they are both heroes but there are lines Bucky would cross that Steve would not and not all of those choices are a result of his brainwashing.
In the comics, Bucky was often tasked with missions that the government did not want Cap to know about or be involved in and he went through with them without any question. That doesn't make him any less of a hero but it does make him a different kind of person, and making him Captain America would have been a bit of a misstep.
While Bucky has become Captain America in the comics for a while, it was hardly the high point of his superhero career and we were pretty glad when he returned to being the Winter Soldier. Now Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely, the writers behind 'Avengers: Endgame', have revealed that they too believed that Sam was a better representation of Cap's idealism.
"Considered, but quickly dropped," Markus wrote on Twitter, responding to a fan who asked if Bucky was ever considered as Cap's successor. "Captain America is about the idealism, what we could be if we were better. Sam is that. Bucky is something else entirely."
While there are bound to be some fans who won't accept this explanation, it seems Sebastian Stan, who plays Bucky in the MCU, does agree as well. In fact, he believes not being given the shield was Cap's final gift to Bucky.
"Steve is saying to Bucky, 'You're going to go and do that, too. I'm not going to put this thing on you. We're both going to live our lives — the lives that were actually taken from us back in the '40s when we enlisted,'" Stan explained to the Hollywood Reporter. "So, that’s where I felt they were at the end of the movie. I don’t think there’s a desire or any conflicted thoughts about taking on that mantle. Sam, to me, was always the clear man to take on that mantle for numerous reasons, which also comes with so much more baggage that’s going to be explored in the show. I guess you’ll have to tune into Disney+ to find out why. (Laughs) At the end of Endgame, for either Steve or Bucky, it’s really not about the shield.”
Bucky and Sam will be back in the Disney+ series 'The Falcon and the Winter Soldier', which is currently on a production pause because of the coronavirus pandemic.
