The jaw-dropping ending to last week’s WandaVision saw the Marvel Cinematic Universe introduce its very first member of the X-Men, and it would be an understatement to say that fans were as excited as they were surprised. Kevin Feige has teased that the slow rollout to incorporating the merry band of mutants into the franchise is set to begin throughout Phase Four, and the latest trailer for The Falcon and the Winter Soldier has revealed a good look at a location that’s familiar to longtime comic book readers.
In Marvel canon, the Principality of Madripoor is located somewhere in Southeast Asia between Singapore and Sumatra, and over the years has played a major part in countless stories revolving around the X-Men. Traditionally split into the affluent Hightown and the working class Lowtown, The Falcon and the Winter Soldier footage shows both sides of the island, from the sprawling cityscape where skyscrapers dominate the skyline to the dense urban areas.
What we don’t know yet is how Madripoor fits into the plot, other than as a backdrop for a handful of the show’s action sequences, but including a place so strongly linked with the X-Men is very much a deliberate move. Of course, it isn’t like we’re going to be introduced to a succession of mutants in The Falcon and the Winter Solider, but the geographical foundations are being laid nonetheless.
At one stage in the comics, Captain America and Bucky Barnes even waged a battle on the island during World War II against the forces of the Red Skull, which could provide the connective tissue to tie Madripoor into both The Falcon and the Winter Solider and the wider MCU.
