FanFare

Disney+ is the Future of the MCU

The nuance of slow burn character development

I’ve never been much of a fan of comic books.

It wasn’t for lack of trying. Growing up, I spent countless hours re-reading my small, tattered collection. Comics often tell an ongoing story, but my books were random, divorced from one another; any continuation of the story only occurred in my head. Maybe it was better that way.

Despite comic book’s propensity for longform storytelling, the characters themselves are largely stuck in stasis. The Peter Parker I read about 30-some years ago is the same one swinging around New York today. When I am dead and gone, Spider-Man will still be doing whatever a spider can.

That was all a feature as a kid. As an adult, the permanence leaves me cold. For stories to have any real meaning, they need to impart lasting change upon the characters. Not just the appearance of change, which is quickly forgotten in the next big comic book arc.

Part of the journey is the end. ~ Tony Stark

Which is why the Marvel Cinematic Universe has been the ultimate distillation of the comic book experience. The MCU takes these iconic characters and does what the comics could never bring themselves to do: end their stories. Time passes and actors age and characters must eventually be shelved. Endgame ended three of the original six Avengers. Sad as it is to see those characters go, it is vastly preferable to the alternative. I don’t need to see a digitally de-aged Chris Evans 20 years from now, hoisting the shield and promising he can do this all day.

Marvel has always done a good job of looking ahead, of planning for tomorrow, so that they don’t just keep repeating themselves ad nauseum. (Do you realized we’ve had two different actors play Batman since Iron Man premiered, with a third due to suit up in this year’s The Batman?)

Which brings us to Disney+.

As good as the MCU has been, these new Marvel miniseries on Disney+ are somehow better. They aren’t the same spectacle as the films and don’t quite deliver the same highs, but it’s not really fair to expect them to. The films will always be superior blockbusters simply because the entire narrative payload is packed into a two hour runtime. By comparison, these miniseries have a longer burn, and the action beats are spread out. But in between all the punching, the story is given space to breath and characters room to develop.

Consider everything The Falcon and the Winter Soldier has touched on so far: legacy, racism, supremacy, immigration, PTSD, family… I feel like I’m missing a couple of things, but therein lies my point. The show has the time to invest in quieter character moments and to ask weightier questions than we’d typically get in a movie about people running around in tights and capes. In the films, fighting is largely the raison d’etre; in the Disney+ shows, it is the character arcs that get top billing (there is also lots of fighting, naturally).

I think it’s fair to say that nobody was really ready to see Sam pickup the shield, and with it, the mantle of Captain America. It has nothing to do with him being black, but rather is a matter of character development. Across the MCU, Sam was only ever second fiddle to Steve Rogers. He was brave and smart and willing to put his body on the line, but we never had the time to fully take his mettle. Steve Rogers didn’t start out as Captain America either — we had to be shown he had the necessary qualities even before he took the serum. To see that he was the good man, not the good soldier.

We’ve gotten glimpses of this same quality in Sam along the way, but they were just that — mere glimpses. He was, if nothing else, a really good friend to Steve Rogers. In order to fully buy-in and let Steve go, we needed time with Sam. Not the Falcon, the guy forever on Steve’s right. But with the man himself. The show has given us that, notably in quiet moments with Sam’s family. Perhaps most affecting was his attempt to talk sense to Karli Morgenthau, leader of the Flag Smashers. In that moment, he wasn’t a superhero. He was just a man who saw the good Karli was trying to do and wanted to help her do it the right way. Steve Rogers was never about blind allegiance, and neither is Sam. He just wants to do what’s right.

The introduction of Johnny Walker’s damaged goods acts as a nice counterpoint to Sam’s quiet integrity, but is ultimately unnecessary to prove Sam a worthy successor to Steve. Sam is not only the best option – he’s the only option. We know this because we’ve seen firsthand that Sam is a man of substance and honor. We can let go of the past and embrace the future.

The miniseries has introduced nuance into what was to all extents an open-and-shut case: would Sam take-up the shield. The answer is preordained — there must always be a Captain America, it seems. But the shield is just a symbol. Horrible atrocities have been done under the stars and stripes nearly since their inception, often to people of color. What does it mean for a black man to wield the shield? Why should he want to? Isaiah Bradley outright says that no self-respecting black man would ever consider it.

I don’t know how Sam will answer that question, but I know why he starts playing frisbee with the shield: because he is determined to do the right thing. Because he has within his power the ability to do good. That is his superpower — being the good man. Doing the right thing. It turns out, that is the rarest ability of them all.

It’s not hard to envision a future where Marvel introduces new characters via Disney+, letting us spend time with them and come to love them, before turning them loose on the big screen. It’s a pretty good approach, a hybrid that plays to the strength of both.

But I must admit that I am far more excited to see the new Disney+ series than I am any of the upcoming films. It is, after all, in the quiet moments that you really come to know a person. Although I am super excited to see Captain America return to the big screen sometime soon.

Eric writes about pop culture here at Medium. If you’d like to see what else he’s working on, check out his newsletter.

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