MCU Phase 4: 9 Insane Fan Theories You Won't Believe
6. One Of Two Heroes Will Become Captain America
Marvel
It's not difficult to see the foreshadowing with James Buchanan Barnes. Partner to Steve Rogers and a Cold War assassin to boot, his name's been mooted time and again to take over as Cap, should his fellow veteran bite the bullet in unceremonious circumstances.
And that's not just because he did so in the comics either. The First Avenger featured a famous sequence involving Bucky wielding the shield (with a pistol in one hand) before he passed, and he did the same during the Winter Soldier. Add to that a sequence in Civil War where both he and Steve swap the shield around to best Iron Man, and you have as good a visual allusion to a future story-arc as any.
But he's not the only candidate to have donned the red, white and blue. Sam Wilson, who audiences will know as the Falcon, also took on the mantle in the comics. While he's yet to receive the same thematic treatment Bucky has, or even the same visual teases, he's still in contention to become the new Cap should Steve depart, if he even does at all.
WhatCulture's very own resident movie guy, Ewan has been working in the content creation biz for over 10 years now, having started as a freelance contributor to WhatCulture Gaming all the way back in 2015. After graduating with a First-Class Honours in History from Northumbria University in 2017 (where he won a prize for a totally killer dissertation on the Watergate years), Ewan took on the role of Comics Editor at WhatCulture and quickly developed WhatCulture Comics into one of the biggest superhero-focused channels on YouTube. He followed this with a brief hiatus at Screen Rant in 2021, where he worked across the Gaming and Film sections as a writer and editor, before returning to WhatCulture as a Senior Content Producer / Presenter in 2023. He started his own podcast, We Love Dad Movies, in 2022, and has contributed several written pieces to the Eisner-nominated comics website Shelfdust as well.
In his current role, Ewan incorporates his love of cinema, comic books, and history into written pieces and video essays for WhatCulture's Film & TV channel, as well as WhatCulture Gaming and WhatCulture Horror, with a particular focus on nineties-era Dad Movies, old school Westerns, and Golden Age Hollywood Noir. John Carpenter is his fave, and he thinks Batman Beyond should never have been cancelled. If that's your vibe, you'll probably like his stuff.
