After the weird and wonderful nine episodes of WandaVision, the Marvel Cinematic Universe will find itself back on much more familiar turf next week when The Falcon and the Winter Soldier premieres. The footage we’ve seen so far has promised banter, one-liners, laughs, showstopping action sequences, familiar faces and a globetrotting mystery that needs unraveling, which is exactly the formula that brought the franchise such success in the first place.
It’s like comparing apples to oranges based on the content, but whereas WandaVision‘s established supporting characters were limited to only Randall Park’s Jimmy Woo and Kat Dennings’ Darcy Lewis, The Falcon and the Winter Soldier is looking positively stacked.
Daniel Brühl’s Zemo will obviously be back as the big bad, but Emily VanCamp’s Sharon Carter and Georges St-Pierre’s Batroc will also play major roles, while Florence Pugh’s Yelena Belova and William Hurt’s Thaddeus Ross have been heavily speculated to provide the connective tissue to Black Widow, which appears likely given that the latter has since been officially confirmed for Hawkeye as well.
There’ve also been a number of reports that Don Cheadle’s Rhodey could be dropping by for either a guest spot or a minor recurring role to tie The Falcon and the Winter Soldier into Disney Plus’ Armor Wars, and we’ve now heard from our sources – the same ones who told us how Vision would be resurrected in WandaVision long before it was confirmed – that War Machine will be part of the very first episode.
It’ll probably happen near the beginning as the story starts turning its gears, but as of yet, there’s no word on how exactly Tony Stark’s best friend will factor into The Falcon and the Winter Solider. Still, given that he’s got plenty of history with both Sam Wilson and Bucky Barnes, he’ll no doubt make for a natural fit in the plot.
