How The Falcon and the Winter Soldier continues the legacy of Black Panther

The Falcon and the Winter Soldier showrunner Malcolm Spellman talks about the importance of Black representation in the superhero genre.

Once WandaVision concludes on March 5, Marvel will be coming right back at us just a couple weeks later with The Falcon and the Winter Soldier. The series sees Sam Wilson (Anthony Mackie) and Bucky Barnes (Sebastian Stan) team up and figure out their places in a post-Steve Rogers world. If you’ll recall, Steve gave his iconic shield to Sam at the end of Avengers: Endgame, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that Sam will be the new Captain America. It looks like the series will play that conflict out.

According to showrunner Malcolm Spellman, the series will build on the legacy of Ryan Coogler’s award-winning Black Panther by continuing to show Black representation in the superhero genre. When it premiered back in 2018, Black Panther featured a cast of nearly all Black actors, whereas before there had been a lack of Black representation in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Think of 2012’s Avengers (2012), for example, where each of the six heroes in the titular team were white.

The enormous success of Black Panther really was a watershed moment for the MCU, and for its fans. Speaking to TV Line, Spellman explained how important the movie was for him and his family. “When you start to see the direct impact that a Black superhero had on my nephew, that’s branded on my brain. I believe that Falcon and the Winter Soldier is a nice progression with the mantle that [Black Panther director Ryan] Coogler and Chadwick [Boseman] left us,” he said. “I really do believe that these giant Black icons are necessary, not only for Black kids, but for white kids to start to absorb — our people as being big and heroic.”

"I think one of the most important things is the faith I have that there are no limitations to the size of specifically Black stories. They can be as big as anyone else’s. We learned that with Empire, we learned it with Black Panther, we’re going to see that with Falcon and the Winter Soldier. There’s just zero argument against that anymore. It was really empowering, after hearing for the first 15 years of my career that being Black meant you had to only do niche things that were really small, to see all Black filmmakers and be one of them to be involved with projects that just appealed across every spectrum while remaining decidedly Black. That’s probably one of the best things about the path we took to get here."

The Falcon and the Winter Soldier premieres on March 19 on Disney+. It’s another link in the chain of content Marvel hopes to string through the whole year. After The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, we’re moving on to Loki, and then What If…? and then Hawkeye and Ms. Marvel. Phase 4 is going to be chock-full of content and we’re here for it.

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