The Falcon and the Winter Soldier just introduced a major location from the Marvel universe that originated in the pages of X-Men comics, further teasing that the mutants are on their way to the MCU. The third episode of the hit show debuted on Disney Plus today, and it saw Anthony Mackie’s Sam Wilson and Sebastian Stan’s Bucky Barnes forced into an uneasy alliance with Baron Zemo (Daniel Brühl) as they travelled to Madripoor.
As Bucky explains to Sam during the plane ride over, Madripoor is a Southeastern Asian island that was once a haven for pirates centuries ago, and it’s still a hub of lawlessness today. When they get there, the unlikely trio visit Hightown, a buzzing cityscape. All of this is taken straight from Marvel Comics, as in the source material, Madripoor is also home to Lowtown, where the poorest citizens live.
Madripoor has been used across the board – it was once under the control of HYDRA, leading the Avengers to liberate it – but it actually originated in The New Mutants #32. Over the years, it’s continued to be a key location for the X-Men, as Wolverine’s son, Daken, took command of the island for a while, with Magneto also ruling over it for a time. The rights to Madripoor definitely would’ve rested with 20th Century Fox, so its inclusion in Falcon makes it one of the first fruits of Marvel Studios now owning the X-Men, following Disney’s takeover of Fox.
We thought that Evan Peters’ Quicksilver in WandaVision was going to be the first big instance of the two universes blurring, but as we all know, that turned out to just be Marvel trolling us. We’re still waiting on a proper crossover, then, but Madripoor’s debut in the MCU is an exciting tease at all that’s to come.
The Falcon and the Winter Soldier episode 3 (out of six) is available to stream on Disney Plus now.
