In the comics, Sam Wilson is a social worker, as established in Captain America #134 by Stan Lee & Gene Colan in 1971. When the character first appeared in the MCU in Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Christopher Markus & Stephen McFeely’s script militarized him, making him ex-Air Force, but kept the social-work aspect by making him a counselor to military folk.
That aspect of his backstory is front and center in the fourth episode of The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, and it gives us one of the best scenes in the series so far.
One of the themes that has emerged from the first four episodes of this show is questioning the very notion of heroism. On the surface, we’ve got four costumed heroes going after a group of terrorists, and we’ve also got two of those heroes using a villain to help them find the terrorists.
But it is significantly more complicated than that. From the beginning, the Flag-Smashers have proven to have noble goals, if not particularly noble means to achieve them. And our four costumed heroes include a former Soviet assassin and two guys who have been thrust into their roles by the U.S. government but who may not be up to the task.
I’ve gone back and forth as to whether or not John Walker is a dick in this space, and this episode makes it clear that it’s not that simple in either direction—indeed, that happens a lot in this episode. In a very revealing conversation between Walker and Lemar Hoskins, we find out that the three medals of honor Walker received were due to a horrible mission in Afghanistan that Walker describes as the worst day of his life. We don’t get specifics, but we don’t need them: the point is that something that we assumed was a badge of heroism (the medals) is in fact an attempt to prettify something very very ugly.
The flip side of that is Karli Morgenthau. She’s trying to help people who have been screwed by the restoration of half of humanity and the attempt to return to normal, but she’s going about it in a way that is also ugly. We pointedly hear a news story that mentions that one of the victims of the destruction of the GRC building last week had only just started working for the GRC and left behind a family. As Sam says to Karli, when you’re killing people, you’re not making the world a better place, just different. If your noble goal can only be fulfilled by leaving children without a parent, then your goal may not be so noble. Then again, even Karli’s fellow Flag-Smashers were caught off-guard and not entirely happy with her blowing up that building…
So maybe it’s the power that corrupts. That’s certainly Zemo’s thesis (though it’s interesting to see that even he admits that it didn’t corrupt Steve Rogers). He manages to track down Karli and destroy most of her spare vials of the Super Soldier Serum, thus keeping to his MO.
He also refers to Karli as a supremacist, a characterization that Sam passes on to her, and which she rejects about four seconds before talking exactly like a supremacist. Karli herself realizes it, though she tries to backtrack. Sam, though, makes significant progress with her before Walker goes and fucks things up.
Fucking things up is mostly what Walker does. The hints dropped about the mission that got him his medals are enough to question how much of a great soldier this guy really is, and he also gets his ass kicked by the Dora Milaje. (More on that in a bit.) In fact, up until the end of the episode, we’ve never actually seen the new Captain America win a fight against someone who was fighting back. And then he goes and ruins Sam’s conversation with Karli. Sam asked him to give him ten minutes to talk to her, and Walker barrels in before those ten minutes are up, leading Karli to think that Sam was just stalling her until his boss could show up. Because of course the guy in the Captain America suit is going to be the leader.
Except he’s pretty lousy at it. Zemo misses one vial of serum to step on, and Walker pockets it. Throughout the episode, people ask if they’d take the serum if they had the chance. Sam says no without hesitation (which impresses Zemo), while Hoskins says yes with an equal lack of hesitation. We don’t see Walker actually take the serum he lifted, but in the climactic fight scene, he’s much more skilled, and shows much more strength (throwing the shield hard enough to be embedded in concrete, being strong enough to yank it out of the concrete, and making a jump from a high window onto a van that should have broken his legs).
And then they fridge Hoskins. Sigh.
I get what they’re going for here, but did they really have to resort to the trope of killing the black sidekick to motivate the white guy?
Nonetheless, this sends Walker over the edge. After Hoskins is fatally tossed into a pillar by Karli, the Flag-Smashers scatter. Walker chases one of them down to a public square and he proceeds to beat and murder him in front of a very large crowd of people with cell phones that have been set to “video.” The final shot, which in the previous three episodes was used to have someone new show up who would be important in the next episode, is instead this time used to show Walker standing in the middle of a crowd of people who just witnessed his committing a murder, with blood staining the shield. The symbolism is painfully obvious, but no less effective for all that. Bucky has been saying all along that Walker isn’t worthy of the shield, and that final shot encapsulates that characterization perfectly.
It’s telling that the closest anyone has come to solving things has been Sam talking to Karli, and that it doesn’t work because of the intrusion of violence. And then Karli doubles down on her terrorist tendencies by using Sam’s sister to set up a meet with Sam alone—and by “using,” I mean “threatening Sarah and her kids.” Karli’s insistence that she never would really have hurt Sam’s family rings hollow after the bombing of the GRC building last week. She insists that she’s a revolutionary, not a terrorist, but that line is a thin one to begin with, and hard to reconcile with threatening kids.
And yet, again, Karli’s ends are understandable and from a place of good, it’s her means that need a ton of work. Sam himself points this out to Bucky: the world came together during the five years of the Blip, as borders became meaningless because everyone wanted to help. (Here’s another shade of gray: an actual positive impact from Thanos’s actions.) Then everyone came back, and everyone fell back into their previous pattern. But it’s not that easy (as we’re seeing in the 2021 of the real world, starting to slowly crawl from the wreckage of the COVID-19 pandemic) and there are consequences.
Speaking of consequences, there’s also the Dora Milaje, who are perhaps the only people in this entire episode who are unequivocally doing the right thing: they want to bring Zemo to justice for killing their king. For that matter, the opening scene is a flashback to shortly after Captain America: Civil War, with Ayo working with Bucky, determining that the key words used to trigger him no longer work. Unfortunately, in the present, the Dora Milaje are stymied by Walker and Hoskins—and eventually, reluctantly, Sam and Bucky—because they still need Zemo. Except, of course, Zemo takes advantage of the confusion to escape.
So now the new Captain America is a murderer—and has become one in a way that is pretty damn hard to walk back—Zemo is on the loose with the Dora Milaje after him, the Flag-Smashers are on the run, and Hoskins is dead. This is probably going to get uglier…
Odds and ends
- The Dora Milaje first appeared in the Black Panther series that debuted in 1998 by Christopher Priest and Mark Texeira. (Priest—who has also written under the name Jim Owsley—also wrote an excellent Falcon miniseries in 1983.) Established as the royal security force, they are all women, and all kick serious ass. They were first seen in the MCU in Civil War, in the person of Florence Kasumba’s Ayo, and have also appeared in the MCU in Black Panther, Avengers: Infinity War, and Avengers: Endgame.
- One of the things the comics have established, at least in part to explain why there aren’t a ton of super soldiers floating around, is that there are nasty side effects to the serum, which are in part mitigated by Vita-Rays, which Steve Rogers was given. That’s why, for example, the Captain America of the 1950s went binky-bonkers after giving himself a version of the serum. There were lots of nasty side effects suffered by the African-American soldiers who were experimented on in Truth: Red, White, and Black, as well. And the serum’s track record isn’t great in the MCU, either, beyond Rogers: the Red Skull, the Winter Soldier, the Hulk, the Abomination, and now the Flag-Smashers and John Walker.
- This episode reminds us, not only that Sam is a counselor to former soldiers, but also a canny observer of humanity. Probably my favorite moment in the entire episode is when he talks Bucky down from getting into it with Zemo. Sam tells Bucky, “He’s just gonna extort you and do that stupid head-tilt thing.” As soon as he says that, Zemo self-consciously straightens his neck out. It’s a beautifully played scene by Anthony Mackie, Sebastian Stan, and Daniel Brühl.
- We see Sharon Carter only briefly, and she is somehow able to track Walker and, um, how? Related to that, the Power Broker still hasn’t been seen (at least not explicitly), but Carter tells Sam that he’s pissed, and he also texts the Flag-Smashers to say that he’s coming after them. (I’m only using the male pronoun here because Carter did when referring to the Power Broker.) There’s another shoe or three to be dropped here.
- Zemo escapes by going through a giant drain in the bathroom while the Dora Milaje are fighting Walker and Hoskins. Sam says he “pulled an El Chapo,” which refers to the drug kingpin Joaquín Guzmán Loera, who escaped into the sewers with his mistress when he was about to be arrested in Mexico in 2014.
- One thing I’m curious about, that will probably never be addressed: the “present day” of the MCU (Endgame, Spider-Man: Far from Home, WandaVision, and this show) is 2023: Thanos snapped his fingers in 2018 (Infinity War) and then the Hulk snapped his five years later. So what I’m wondering is: did the COVID-19 pandemic happen in the MCU? Did the lessened population (and greater international cooperation) in 2020 result in the pandemic being manageable?
Keith R.A. DeCandido also does the Star Trek: Voyager Rewatch every Monday and Thursday. His takes on the MCU films can be found in his “4-Color to 35-Millimeter: The Great Superhero Movie Rewatch” that started on this site in 2017. He’ll be doing a panel on WandaVision at the virtual HELIOsphere tonight at 6pm Eastern time.
And remember, folks, no matter who you are, no matter what is going on, the Dora Milaje will always kick your ass……
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
Not even them. In the name of restoring their honor they fight with allies and fail to provide a security watch which lets their target get away. Yes, Wakanda has a legitimate claim to Zemo, but they let their pride and honor interfere with their mission, and now Zemo is completely free. I imagine this group is acting without legal extradition authority and potentially without the approval on their king (admittedly my own head-canon, but fits in with the themes of the series).
Yet another layer in how complicated redemption can be.
I always assumed that with the blip in the MCU there was no Covid-19 patient zero because they had been snapped and maybe the pandemic would happen after everyone returned and resumed normal activity? Could be wrong though, what do y’all think?
I agree that while the Dora were the most awesome part of this episode, they’re not going to get away without repercussions — their boss isn’t going to be happy that the target got away from them.
Hmm…is Sharon Carter the Power Broker?
@5. That’s what I thought but it seems to obvious.
The Dora screwed up royally with their attitude of superiority. There was no good reason to barge in there at that moment and keep escalating the situation. They acted on their pride and did a poor job as a result.
@5, @6: In “Harry Potter”, and this may be a spoiler, basically it’s never who you think it’s going to be. So, is this story less sophisticated… or more sophisticated… than Harry Potter?
I have to say, even before the way this episode ended, it never sat right with me to see John Walker holding a sidearm above the shield.
After the aberration of episode three this gets things back on track with a much better episode, Sam shines in this one, the one on one with Kari is superb, well acted and well written, Bucky is torn between two worlds, his flashback to Wakanda and the White Wolf awakening is powerful. Daniel Bruhl continues to have the time of his life chewing the scenery as Zemo and Erin Kellyman is proving to be this series’ MVP as perhaps the most sympathetic villain in any “superhero” story we have yet seen on screen, The Dora are an awesome sight but it was not that good to see them let Zemo slip away whilst fighting Sam, Bucky Walker and Hopkins. as for Walker he is more complicated than the Jackass I feared they were setting up in episode three..but here we have this episodes one misstep the death of Hopkins.. not a great look to kill the black sidekick.. I hope this can be rescued in the final two episodes as it will need some good writing to pull itself away from that huge trap. But all in all a big relief of an episode after what we saw last week.
I’m thinking that there was no Covid in the MCU as there was no Blip here. In my mind, the Blip has become a metaphor for Covid, although obviously there was no way they could have thought of that when they started.
— Michael A. Burstein
Under the current rules for the Medal of Honor, Walker would have had to fight in three separate combat actions in a single day. Worst day of his life, indeed.
Quoth hoopmanjh: “I have to say, even before the way this episode ended, it never sat right with me to see John Walker holding a sidearm above the shield.”
And yet, we saw Steve Rogers wielding firearms all the time in the MCU, in The First Avenger and in Avengers.
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
Good episode. I loved the fact that Bucky has a “disable” built into his mech arm just in case he ever runs afoul of Wakanda’s interests. And the Sam/Karli conversation was great. Another example of why Sam should be the one carrying the shield. In fact, a lot of good acting all the way around. And some epic fight scenes. I like the way they are handling John Walker. I didn’t want him to be a bad guy, just a good guy in over his head, and that’s the way they are playing him.
@5,6 I wasn’t ready to buy Sharon as the Power Broker, but at this point, it’s looking more and more obvious that’s exactly who she is. I didn’t like that idea because the series (and the comics that it is based on) treats the Power Broker as a villain, but maybe that’s one of the twists, that the Power Broker is an intelligence agent, in a role that allows them to do things that need to be done. Maybe the Power Broker isn’t so bad, since so far, no one in this series (except Sam) is unambiguously good or bad.
@12 That “three Medals of Honor” thing never rang true. I can believe superpowers, but one guy with three Medals of Honor? Especially now that it is implied they all came in one day? Too much to swallow.
Until last week, I wasn’t aware this series is only six episodes long. And after the last episode, I wasn’t seeing how it would wrap up. But this episode moved a lot of things forward, and it is becoming clearer where things are going.
@@@@@ 13:”And yet, we saw Steve Rogers wielding firearms all the time in the MCU, in The First Avenger and in Avengers.”
If memory serves, the WW2-set THE FIRST AVENGER was the only time when Steve had a firearm as a part of his standard kit. In THE AVENGERS, Steve picked-up firearms on a few occasions, but he didn’t carry one around as part of his standard kit.
John Walker, in contrast, is always packing heat.
I enjoyed the episode, but either there is still some missing piece, or something about Walker and Hoskins’ relationship doesn’t quite work for me as presented. Hoskins has more faith in Walker than anybody else, including Walker, and it is not obvious why.
It came to a head for me in Hoskins’ line about how Walker always makes the right decision under fire, because that’s exactly the opposite of what we have seen: he repeatedly makes the wrong call under pressure, and his judgment under stress seems to be getting progressively worse over time (even before he presumably juiced himself with the serum). So either Hoskins is just oblivious or he has been enabling a buddy who is out of his depth and struggling. Perhaps he sees a different Walker than we do, but we never get the backstory to explain that. Just hints about what they went through in Afghanistan.
I guess that signals PTSD, probably for both of them. One might have hoped that the relevant brain trust would have screened for that when selecting a new Cap. Oh well.
@14 We’ve found the military equivalent to Bruce Banner’s seven PhDs.
I’m also not entirely convinced that Hoskins is actually dead. Yes, it is currently a classic case of fridging … but the MCU has been fairly good at avoiding the obvious so far.
Although that being said it was pretty obvious Mr Beardy was toast as soon as we saw the grave and the looks between him and Karli. Tall Australian Asian was also mostly in the background, whereas he’s been far more front and centre up till now.
On the whole Captain America and Guns thing, it’s really clear in the body language. Rogers used guns as a tool in war, and will willingly defend himself with them when attacked in The Avengers, but generally he uses the shield as a mostly non-fatal attack, and usually stands tall and straight beside it.
Walker has changed through this series, and is often hunched behind the shield – it’s for protecting him. He’s far more a modern soldier at war at all times, always on edge and willing to attack first. I literally couldn’t imagine him without a sidearm of some sort, whereas Rogers *knew* he didn’t need it.
Also, and most importantly of all – Rogers stood firm against bullies of any stripe, even as someone who was literally being bullied. Walker seems to be much more about being on top, the whole “if we had superpowers we wouldn’t have needed to do what we did” discussion doesn’t leave a lot of room for the opposite side.
Yeah, it didn’t bother me as much when Steve Rogers was carrying a firearm while fighting actual Nazis in an actual, declared war, or possibly picking one up in the middle of a fight, but seeing John Walker doing “doors and corners” with it just felt different somehow.
I was going to keep my mouth shut, but… Hoskins was NOT “fridged” in any way, shape, or form, including as a “classic case.” He was killed in action. It happens. It kinda has to happen at some point. So far the only people killed have been “Who was that?” and “Who cares?” Yes, Walker was “motivated.” It’s called Revenge. Been a storytelling staple since, like, the beginning. If it would have made everyone concerned about it feel better, I guess they could have cast Battlestar as a white man, or they could have had NuCap say, “Well, shit.” and gone for a beer.
I honestly believe nerd audiences would enjoy their entertainment more if they laid off the TV Tropes for a while.
@20 Um….what was Hoskins’ DRAMATIC function in this story?
If he had none outside of his death, then this WAS a classic “fridging”…. no ifs, ands or buts.
Exactly
I was really sad to see Battlestar go in part because he seemed to be the one person who could get through to Walker (and I really liked him), but, in a way, I kind of had a feeling that was WHY he had to die. I knew Zemo would miss a vial, I knew Walker would find one, and as soon as Battlestar ran in I was thinking, ‘oh man, he’s going to die and that’s why he’s going to take the serum’. And then once I remembered the title of the episode I thought “Oh….he’s going to snap and kill somebody in front of EVERYBODY, probably in some very symbolic way with the shield” (Remember that Karli was also talking about how it was a symbol that should be destroyed).
But yes, in a way it’s interesting/telling that Walker thinks his flaws/failures are simply a matter of not enough power. I could actually see some Anakin parallels here. But it’s also interesting that Battlestar’s main motive for the serum was ‘think of all the lives we could have saved’ (not so much winning or power) and Walker at least seems to agree.
I find both Karli and Zemo’s points of view compelling in their own ways. I do think maybe Zemo is misreading Karli a little bit in that she doesn’t so much seem focused on building a ‘superior’ race of ubermench; to her the serum is just more like a weapon. Although perhaps she DOES view the blip survivors as more superior/deserving. And while Zemo’s not wrong about how these things can lead to toxic ideologies, he’s also a member of a former aristocracy so…it’s a little precious for him to be going on and on about supremacists and idols. I’m not even saying he’s bad for that, but he seems kind of blind to his own privilege in that regard. Although I respect that, even with no witnesses, he destroyed the serum (after maybe being briefly tempted to take it). So at least he’s consistent.
I did think the fight scene with the Dora Milaje, while awesome, was a little too ‘Idiot Ball’ for me – it just seemed a bit too far fetched that they’d bust in, start a big fight and completely ignore Zemo to the point he gets away. Also, I’m not sure I buy that they get to just decide where they have jurisdiction ;)
I’m also leaning towards the Sharon is Power Broker/Mephisto camp although of course the show could still surprise us. (I also really like the theory that she’s actually secretly working for Fury and maybe wasn’t even blipped).
My wife clocked Ayo’s line to Bucky after she disabled his arm as “Do svidaniya, James,” which would be a great callback to the opening scene. Too bad the subtitles folks didn’t get the memo.
Sam didn’t get a direct answer from Zemo when he asked what Bucky fit in the Baron’s anti-Super Soldier soldier mission.
I wonder if the show is headed toward Bucky’s death at Zemo’s hand being the precipitating factor in Sam picking up with the shield. Maybe Bucky is able to put down Walker, but Zemo swoops in to ruin the party. And Sam accepts a responsibility he didn’t seek.
The scene from the trailer with Sam, the shield, and the tree is feeling more more like the final view we’ll get of the series. With just two episodes left, it getting harder to fit that in any other way.
The Dora showing up is interesting given the conclusion of Civil War and hints at how the MCU may handle things with Chadwick Boseman’s death.
T’Challa ended his quest for revenge, seemingly satisfied with Zemo being locked up instead of dead. Were the Dora (as Ayo said, sworn to protect the king/queen) satisfied with Zemo remaining alive as long as he was locked up and are they just looking to return him to prison? They could have killed him at the drop but didn’t. Are their actions sanctioned by the Wakandan sovereign? Is that person still T’Challa or has he died off-screen*? Does Shuri feel differently than he did?
Sure their apparent lack of a plan for actually getting their hands on Zemo was weird, but maybe it’s a hint that they weren’t supposed to be there. The Black Panther movie suggests Wakanda has agents in the field, possibly people who would be better suited for a “grab job” than the Wakandan version of the Secret Service. Were they off-books there?
*My play on that would be to open BP2 with news reports about T’Challa being assassinated, with a Wakanan investigation determining it was Atlanteans responsible, setting up a conflict with his former childhood friend turned rival, Namor, and Atlantis. But it’s all a frame-up by the real antagonist (an Atlantean faction challenging Namor’s position?). Or something.
I hope Sharon doesn’t turn out to be the Power Broker. Unless she is also a Skrull, then it will be fun
Saw on Twitter it pointed out that it was “Bast damn you, James” which makes more sense (and I hear it now, going back to review the tape).
@21 Well, his dramatic function was to be John’s conscience. he was always there to be john’s cheerleader, to make him think of being a good guy, he got his backup and his moral center. We do have a tendency to over do it just dropping tropes, and act like they are bad. The thing is John did need something to push him over the edge, as he HAS to realize he isn’t ready for the shield, that doesn’t just make him an absolute murderer with no real reason. Lamar was unforutantly the weak llink in the equeation, he didn’t care about bucky or sam and they can’t die right now.
Also, doesn’t fridging have to be a deliberate act by the villian for it to be an act of fridging ? because karly clearly didn’t mean to KILL lamar.
Sharon tracks Walker by calling in a CIA surveillance satellite. Sam assumes she still has connections when he calls in his favor and it seems he’s right. The Power Broker may turn out to be Sharon’s persona. They’ve been dancing around it, but it’s getting hard to imagine she can maintain such a persona without handling things in person. So… could go either way at this point. I’d like to be surprised, though.
Sam redeems himself after his bad undercover moves last episode. He’s very confident and competent this episode. It was good to see he’s figured out Zemo’s shtick.
The POV shot of the shield as an edged weapon before Walker kills the Smasher reminded me of Cap beheading Baron Blood and, for a second, I was afraid they’d show something similar on screen. The blood dripping from the shield was horrifying enough.
I’d say Karli is unambiguously lost at this point. Her fellow Smashers are showing doubt and remain silent when she says lines like, “I’m going to kill Captain America.” Even if she claims she didn’t mean it (I think she did), threatening Sam’s family was a straight-up villain move.
I wonder if the show is headed toward Bucky’s death at Zemo’s hand being the precipitating factor in Sam picking up with the shield. Maybe Bucky is able to put down Walker, but Zemo swoops in to ruin the party. And Sam accepts a responsibility he didn’t seek.
Yeah, I’ve been wondering if Bucky will survive the mini-series, too.
Sebastian Stan’s been playing Bucky for a decade now. I believe Stan’s said he signed a 9-film contract with Marvel Studios back in 2010, which means there are 4 films left (or 3 if you count his Black Panther cameo). I don’t know if the mini-series contractually counts as one of those remaining projects.
But there is also the question of what more you can do with Bucky at this point. The show’s definitely gotten narrative mileage out of exploring who he is without Steve…but I think there’s also value in phasing him out here and now to further signify the passing of the old guard and to remove Sam’s safety net and hammer home the Cap legacy is now solely his.
Killing Lamar does speak to a couple of unfortunate stereotypes, but in the end I kind of see it as an unfortunately necessary dramatic shorthand in order to establish an important character beat for John. In the comics, after spending time as the focus of the narrative, which gave the reader time to get to know and perhaps empathize with John Walker, we watched him slowly lose mind after losing his parents due to his role as Captain America. A six-episode television show in which he is not the focus, and yet is still essentially going through the same character arc, is not going to be able to to give us the same level of detail and focus. In the show, we only have time to meet two people who are close to him. Which brings us to the question of who do they unceremoniously kill off in order to cause John Walker to snap? His partner, the t veteran or his innocent bystander wife who we met briefly? Killing off the wife would be a more literal fridging than killing off the military veteran in a combat situation. It seems like a rock and a hard place situation with either decision being potentially problematic.
@26, 27: And if his function is as a conscience, then killing him seems the only way to get Walker to where he takes drastic steps….then that is precisely the definition of fridging–his existence is in service only to Walker and has no agency or meaning of his own in the overall story.
And while the original instance was from the clear intent of Major Force, I think other instances include deaths with no premeditated intent.
@32 than under that argument, than uncle ben and the waynes are fridged as well, and yet people will be upset if those dont’ happen ,as they are essential to the characters. This is why i hate people over using the term Fridgeing, as they make it come off as a dirty word that should never be used, when guess what, something NEEDS to happen in the narrative to the characters, otherwise they have NO reason for them to do what they do.
@33: Let me spoil Ben Aaronovitch’s “Rivers of London / White Riot” for you. In the action, senior British wizard Thomas Nightingale is shot, so his apprentice Peter Grant has to carry on the mission. But Nightingale isn’t dead, but he spends most of the next book convalescing or relapsing. I don’t like aspects of the book, including bloody violence and what happens then and later to female colleague Lesley May, but you don’t need to kill cast members to motivate the hero. Severe injury will do. You do have to take Old Ben Kenobi out of action so that Luke Skywalker can do something meaningful: Nightingale is much more powerful than Peter. Who is Black, incidentally, and Nightingale is white and actually about 100 years old, so they go on to have interesting verbal clashes about terms like “master, apprentice” and “black magician”. Also they are all London police officers, I should mention that. They settle on “ethically challenged practitioner” for the last.
(Sorry, if I’m all wrong, I gather Black now has a capital letter, for not Black I’m not sure.)
Battlestar dying is of a piece with it sucking to be Black in this story, and of course the character comes from the comics. But I want to put a marker on Battlestar being the Power Broker and already super serumed and only pretending to be dead, because I will be the only one who suspects this, and that is a big win!
@krad
A bit of BTS info for the show…
The original motivation of the Flag-Smashers was that the world was better with half the population, and they were going to take any action to return to those population numbers – including releasing a global pandemic to kill a bunch of people.
Then an actual global pandemic happened.
The writing team had to adjust their motivation and turn them into a more generic “terrorist group” during reshoots. That is why there are still references to vaccines, etc.
I’m not sure about Battlestar as the Power Broker, but it’s plausible that Battlestar’s death — real or feigned — was a setup by the Power Broker to (a) destroy Walker and (b) cause Sam and Bucky to go after Karli for real. As I think about it more, that sounds like Zemo.
On Dora Milaje and right things…
Well, the line about jurisdiction – something like Dora Milaje jurisdiction is where Dora Milaje are? – seems to come very close to the same idea of ends justifying means as everybody else has been grappling with.
Also, I read a piece of meta on Dreamwidth on disability: If Bucky is a disabled person using assistive technology, then Dora Milaje disabling Bucky’s arm parallels unwanted intrusions that disabled people experience in their lives, always for a purpose, of course – and how this aspect tends to be missed by abled-bodied folks. How Bucky had a relationship of exceptional trust and vulnerability with them healing his mind, and how this relationship has just been obliterated, how horrifying this moment was for Bucky and folks with disabilities watching the show – although at least it seemed to be portrayed with the appropriate horror and weight.
Forgot what the link policy is and don’t want to be stuck in spam queue, the post was titled “Bucky Barnes, disability, and ethics in episode 4 of the falcon and the winter soldier”.
@34 but than that goes into another problem Marvel has been accused of: that they don’t go far enough to show the stakes of a situation, that the heroes always come out ok in the very end, and that any injury is than healed by the end of the movie. look at Rhodie from civil war where he was crippled. that never really gets brought up agan as he got new legs and walks and wears the armor now just fine. Just injuring Lamar doesn’t have the right stakes for it. It sucks that it had tobe the black guy, but just injuring him wouldn’t push Walker off the deep end. At least lamar died fighting and trying to protect walker, which is better than the alternative: the flagsmashers kidnapping and kiling his wife.
Re our own pandemic and the MCU, a study of COVID-19’s origins concluded that two thirds of the time the initial zoonosis would burn out without sparking a pandemic. We just got unlucky. So any contingent change might have seen it not happen, let alone one where half the early patients were Snapped and transmission was hampered by reduced population density.
https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.11.20.392126v1.full.pdf+html
Regarding Battlestar’s death, I think it would also be interesting if he’s not really dead. Not in a “he gets resurrected due to phlebotonum later” but in a “newCap made a mistake”.
checking for a pulse, through gloves, in the heat of the moment? He might have missed it. I think it would be narratively interesting to see Battlestar’s reaction to newCap killing in his name, because he thought he was dead. I don’t think they’re going that direction, but it would be an interesting way to play it.
I think some parts of this series hit a little differently if you’re not American.
As an example; when the Dora Milaje claim they have jurisdiction wherever they feel like it, the most shocked are Walker and Hoskins…who have themselves just marched in and demanded Zemo because they think they should have jurisdiction.
Now I think about it, a lot of this show has involved people marching into foreign countries and behaving like they own the place.
Being confused about the time things happened and their relationship to each other can be a sign of PTSD, as can memory gaps which can make the confusion worse. Walker may talk about them coming from one action. Either he means it figuratively–that day was a turning point–or I’m guessing trauma has him putting those events together.
On the Dora Milaje’s jurisdiction:
I understand there are four basic theories of jurisdiction:
1) Territorial: The country where it happened has jurisdiction.
2) Roman: This goes back to the Romans belief (although others shared it) that they had jurisdiction over Roman citizens even if they were in another land. This is said to go back to the days when people saw themselves as part of a tribe rather than a territory.
3) Injured Forum: This means the place where the crime had effect has jurisdiction even if the action took place elsewhere. The example I read was that if you forge documents in Louisiana for property in Texas, Texas has jurisdiction.
4) Cosmopolitan: This is law everybody is supposed to more or less agree on. So, if your boat is attacked by pirates, it’s generally assumed you don’t have to check local laws before fighting back.
The Dora Milaje seem to be operating on the last three of these.
The king is the head of all the tribes in Wakanda. Wakandans have also shown that they claim jurisdiction over Wakandans in other lands in at least some situations (like members of the royal family using Wakandan tech where they shouldn’t). The Dira Milaje see themselves as having jurisdiction against their king’s killer.
The injury, from their POV, was to Wakanda and the Wakandans. Most of us would accept that they have an argument for extradition. It’s the going into another country thing that’s a problem.
Cosmopolitan: This is tricky. Things changed over the past five years. Apparently, national borders meant less during this time. It’s possible the Dora Milaje’s actions would fit international conventions from that time period.
It’s also possible there are agreements in place that make their actions legal. There may be treaties or other agreements in place that give them jurisdiction.
It’s also possible that Wakanda, which has a strong history of isolationism, doesn’t quite appreciate that their way of doing things may not be everyone else’s way of doing things.
@42: You have a great point about boarders and whatnot during the blip. I remember seeing a holographic Okoye in Nat’s world police meeting.
@44 Ohhhhh……
If Wakanda forces were used as part of global security during the five year gap, AS Wakanda forces, then they would have had legal authority probably across the globe.
And after everybody came back…it would be VERY unlikely that power would have been taken away.
The PURPOSE might not be clear-cut legal, but the power is. And they would certainly have an arguable case in any international court (in the unlikely event it went there).
@44: Which if they lead into a Wakanda vs Latveria angle as part of an overarching plot point, could make for an interesting grey area
@45 Laveria vs. Wakanda?
Probably won’t make it here….but in a World of Wakanda series? Well, now…..
A better episode, but the Dora Milaje looked kind of incompetent fighting with the heroes, while Zemo very slowly escaped. Really, no one focused on him?
Also, the flag smashers had a shocked face as they killed Battlestar. What did they expect to happen as they fought with their super human strength? It’s not like it was the first kill in their terrorist acts as well. One of them was killed as a stalling action in episode 2 and one of the GRC buildings was bombed leading to 3 deaths in episode 3. It was like they expected some kind of light playful fighting that would end with them getting away and the heroes knocked out. Then why come out with knives? It’s not like a knife puncturing a vital organ wouldn’t cause grave consequences. Battlestar’s death could look even uglier with a knife.
I admire these MCU shows for willing to get weird and messy, but I’ve seen enough of them to be pretty confident that they are over their skis on this. The MCU has not done nearly enough work on what the Avengers as a whole stand for, much less Steve or Sam in particular, to thread this needle. How are we this deep in and Sam is making the argument that ‘your cause is just but your means are wrong?’ Like, what means is Sam using to fight injustice? What does he even want to stand for? All we’ve really seen him do is act as a military contractor.
I’ve enjoyed the Marvel movies a lot, but it’s hard to get around the fact that what they stand for is always reactive and negative rather than positive–restoring and reinforcing a status quo rather than steering toward a goal. We started out in Iron Man with the ambiguity of an arms manufacturer wielding his most advanced weapon to fight arms manufacturing, and we never really got past that.
A few other thoughts I wanted to throw out:
I am wondering of whatever happened in Afghanistan is going to come out or be relevant in some way. In the scene where Walker was hellbent on interrupting Sam and Karli, I had wondered if he’d already taken the serum since he seemed to be acting very strangely. But, I wonder if he was having some type of PTSD or flashback to whatever had happened in Afghanistan. Lemar seemed to really have faith in him as a person who makes the right decisions, so perhaps that was true at some point but something broke him.
A lot of people have pointed out the tragic irony of the man who got killed was the same person who had talked about once looking up to Captain America, although I also find there to be some irony that he also said we live in a new age where ‘heroes have to get their hands dirty’ (which is usually code for ‘heroes have to do bad things sometimes’).
I think this is my own cynicism, and I dislike myself for this, but in some ways I almost find Sam almost winning Karli over to be…unrealistic. I WANT that to be how the world is, but I guess after watching people I have been close to fall into more extreme/radical beliefs, it seems like ‘talking’ just doesn’t work anymore. But I don’t know where that leaves us :(
I thought the Wakandans might take back the shield. We still haven’t gotten the full story of how Howard Stark got the vibranium in the first place.
“Now I think about it, a lot of this show has involved people marching into foreign countries and behaving like they own the place“
@41 this has been an issue in the MCU since the first Iron Man movie. Remember when the American military invade a Brazilian city to ‘secure’ the Hulk in The Incredible Hulk?
Anybody else think it was weird that two non-Americans were discussing Captain America and what he meant to them? And the guy even called Karli the next Captain America! It’s as though people ignore the “America” part of the title…
I was surprised the first time that Walker and Hoskins showed up in Episode 2 to fight it out with the Flag Smashers, as I thought that Walker would be more of a figurehead. Instead we see the pair repeatedly going into action with little to no backup. I realize that the shield is a nice piece of equipment, but without the super serum Cap would have been dead many times over with or without it. What is Walker supposed to do with it? It’s not like he has any real training with the shield. Our soldiers aren’t extensively trained for hand to hand combat. They carry guns and grenades because they work much better at killing people. Special Forces undoubtedly train some, but even they use such tactics usually to quietly infiltrate not to slug it out with a dozen bad guys at once. The Wakandans train with melee weapons pretty much exclusively and who wouldn’t pick a magic spear over a magic shield in a fight. Of course he was going to lose.
I just feel bad for the guy. How is he supposed to be Captain America? How is he expected to survive all these dangerous missions with just a shield? It’s more surprising that he had any reservations about taking the serum. Any sane person in his role would have guzzled it down in a second because they might want to live another week or two.
Obviously Captain America isn’t supposed to kill a downed combatant who was basically surrendering. Cap didn’t kill Zola after Bucky fell to his apparent death. So Walker clearly isn’t worthy of the shield, but I feel bad for a guy put into an impossible situation.
I think these last two episodes have had the most direct, specific argument on superhuman morality in the MCU so far. It’s comparable with the liberty-security argument Rogers had with Fury in The Winter Soldier.
Notice how tentative, almost reverend, our characters are about stepping into Steve’s shoes. It’s almost like this:
Here, John Walker, you take the shield. Or the serum. Now you have a choice. What do you want to be?
If you say, I want to be invincible, then fair enough, it’s your choice, you have your reasons. But ultimately you’ll be satisfied with nothing short of omnipotence.
If you say, I want to be Steve Rogers, then fair enough. But you will wind up giving your life for your country.
@53
This is a good point, and I think just is important is that the shows and movies frame the characters in particular ways. I suppose we assume that Steve Rogers must have gone on a lot of missions for SHIELD between the first Avengers movie and TWS, but we barely see any of that. We never have to see him in a compromising position in the present. Walker is put into compromising positions with narrative purpose, and the narrative is allowed to ‘cheat’ to make its points. Yeah, Steve Rogers never murdered somebody in the street, but Bucky was tossing dudes off stairwells and motorcycles in Civil War; we never see what actually happened to some of those people afterward.
Narratively too they’re trying to make the point that World War II was an ‘easier’ moral situation. That’s a common misconception, but it’s not true. We never really have to see Steve walking among Italian, German, or French civilians during the war–they might not have been that happy to see him. He’s always off fighting HYDRA, and he’s not not there for firebombing campaigns; he doesn’t survive for the messy, brutal aftermath of the war. The movies are careful to only frame him in a context where he can be innocent.
I think a statement while watching Episode 4 by my wife actually encapsulates Karli Morgenthau’s problem.
In the dialog with Sam, she says, “I’m not a child,” and my wife, a teacher, shot back at the screen, “Then why are you talking like one?”
I think that’s Karli’s fatal flaw. She’s reacting to injustice the way a child would, by lashing out indiscriminately.
@56, I don’t think the show has done that great of a job showing the grievances of the Flag Smashers. Yes, they have been driven into camps where supplies are slow in getting to them, and yes, they lost what they had. But people who were innocently snapped out of existence came back and some of them wanted their homes back. And sometimes bureaucracies are bad at getting needed supplies to the right people on time. The Flag Smashers have every right to petition and protest for what they lost and what they need, but we haven’t been shown any great justification for the violence of their actions. Karli has an incredibly innocent looking face, she has valid reasons for anger, and she wants good things but she comes off to me as unsympathetic.
@55, Sometimes the MCU moral compass is a but sketchy. Whenever Cap hits a normal person with a punch, there is a very good chance that they could easily die or never recover. But because he wasn’t shooting a gun (most of the time anyway), were expected to go along with the idea that they’ll be okay. Since this is Cap, maybe he is pulling his punches and they will, but it doesn’t look like it. It’s a bit like the Arkham Asylum games that came out with a “T” rating. They were incredibly violent, but Batman wasn’t killing the army of goons he fought. By the sounds of it, he was just breaking their necks and leaving them paralyzed from the neck down, but that doesn’t get you an “M” rating. Walker has been dropped into a “T” rated videogame that the whole world is watching, but he isn’t Cap and he isn’t Batman and everyone he is up against basically is. What’s a guy supposed to do?
@57. templar: agreed that the grievances are not presented very well. We hear dialogue about their suffering, but never see it. Aside from the mother mentor figure (who we don’t know) dying from lack of medication (which is going on in the real world without Snap related consequences), they actually seem to be living quite well.
Don’t know where the show was shot (somewhere in Eastern Europe? Romania?). But as an example, in the scene where Sam is looking for someone to talk to about the funeral, the displaced people seem to be living in a palace. They aren’t miserable in camps. The man Sam talks to even insists they are not refugees. So the mise en scene is actively fighting what we’re told thru the dialogue.
@37:
Bucky’s vibranium arm isn’t exactly assistive technology though. Assistive tech would be something like the powered leg brace thingies we see Rhodey wearing after Civil War, to help him walk after his spinal injury. Bucky’s arm is more along the lines of the War Machine armor – a powerful weapon.
The fact that it is a weapon is underscored by the scene in Infinity War when Bucky first gets it. He’s working on his little farm when T’challa comes up and presents him with the arm in a case. Bucky doesn’t seem to consider any possibility that this arm is meant to help him with his farm chores. He looks at it and immediately asks “Where’s the fight?”
From Ayo’s perspective, the Wakandans showed their trust in Bucky by giving him this weapon, a weapon that he is now using to protect an enemy of Wakanda.
I was a bit disappointed by this episode. On the one hand, nice action secenes, like the fight with the Dora Milaje, and funny scenes of Zemo drinking a whiskey in peace while they fight, or sweet-talking kids. And yes, Sam talking to Karli was a very good scene, although, being a veterans counselor and helping people deal with PTSD from war has nothing on being an actual social worker.
On the other hand, Sam and Bucky are HORRIBLE detectives/spies. Bucky should have more skill, and Sam did search for Bucky off-screen after Winter Soldier. They’re AWFUL, with Sam yelling “I’M LOOKING FOR DONYA MADANI!” around. And save for a couple of details in previous episodes, Walkers descent into madness feels a bit rushed, with lip service paid to “they gave me the medals to cover up the horror”. I would have rather he used the serum in a different situation than “I am being humiliated”.
I’m a bit worried that if they try to redeem Walker later, I’m not gonna buy it, unlike in the comics, were he snapped and killed ACTUAL white supremacists, after they killed his family. In this case, Lemar died in combat, while Walker murdered an already subdued/surrendered opponent.
Plus, Lemar was horribly fridged. Then there’s Karli threathening Sam’s family, that’s to keep on pressing the idea that these “villains” that make A LOT of sense are “the bad guys”. I find it pretty hypocritical that Sam tells Karli that killing people doesn’t make the world a better place, when he started this show’s run killing people (even if they were terrorists), and having been an active military combatant for most of his whole adult life.
And finally, plot-wise, they took four episodes to finally explain why there are so many refugees: it’s not just border turmoil caused by the snap, but because people moved around to fill job and housing voids, and were later f*cked by governments when people came back. They should have established that from the beginning.
@5 – KalvinKingsley: I sure hope not. Next episode is said to have a new (to the MCU) major character show up, played by a big name actor. Might be the Power Broker.
@35 – Joruus2: Even if that’s true, there are still references to vaccines because refugee camps get lots of diseases, and vaccines are necessary. In any case, genocide would have sucked as a method for the Flag Smashers, and completely done away with any ambiguity or greys.
@41 – phuzz: Absolutely.
@48 – Colin R: Yeah, Sam was definitely not acting as a superhero at the begining of this show, just as a military contractor. Then again, that’s not much different than Steve doing commando missions for SHIELD. The MCU is much more militarized than the comics Marvel universe.
@52 – Austin: It’s not odd, because Cap meant something to Europeans during WWII (Lucasz’s, the dead guy, grandfather had met him or something), and even in modern times, an Avenger saving Earth from the Chi’tauri or Ultron, means something to them. He’s talking about Cap as a symbol of justice and freedom, not just as a US symbol.
@56 – Rdclark53217: No, she’s not. She’s literally lashing out at the organization that is not distributing resources fairly (at least in her experience) to refugees. Lashing out indiscriminately would be if she was attacking random civilians.
@59 – Sunspear: They’re *squatting* in a palace, which might not have heating, reliable running water, etc, and they get spotty supplies. You try living in a palace like that.
@Magnus: I could probably make it work. They had several scenes set in a boiler room where the equipment looked like it was well maintained; and I have some HVAC experience. Cap cuffed Zemo to one of the boilers or heat exchangers.
And we haven’t seen any camps. Unless they are going with a more general translation of words like “lager,” which can mean more than just the generic image of a refugee camp.
General point that the setting they chose to shoot in doesn’t necessarily support the story setup stands.
Unpopular opinion: yes they are, and they should not be doing it. To be brutally honest, the only thing wrong with John Walker is the writers. As of right now, he’s the only actually heroic character in this entire show!
Sam: Degraded and humiliated by bad writing. Scene after scene, episode after episode, they’re taking one of the coolest characters in the MCU and giving him the Picard treatment for no good reason. He comes across as incompetent and directionless — particularly in this episode, with his absolutely cringeworthy searching for Donya — and Bucky’s quite right that it was really stupid of him to give up the shield.
Bucky: Not particularly humiliated, but still degraded by bad writing. There’s more to an elite super-spy assassin than just assassinating people, but you wouldn’t know it to look at the character here. He alternates between Penance Bucky and SMASH with very little in between.
Carter: It’s absolutely disgusting what the writers did to this character, to the point where I’m legitimately annoyed at the actress for agreeing to film it. Dumping that much ugly cynicism on such an awesome agent is unforgiveable.
Zemo: He was never a hero in the first place, but this episode shows that he can’t even be a proper villain. When he had the opportunity to finish Karli off, he let himself get all SQUIRREL!‘d by serum vials and she got away. It’s a time-honored tradition for the villain working with the heroes to execute the bad guys so that the actual heroes don’t have to get their hands dirty, and he couldn’t even get that right.
Karli: I stopped caring about her “complexity” and “sympathetic motivations” the minute she blew up a building with innocent people inside. She’s a terrorist and a mass murderer, and it’s a crying shame that Zemo didn’t finish her off here, especially because it allowed her an opportunity to kill again!
Nico: Karli jumped gleefully off the slippery slope, and he had a choice to make. He chose wrongly, sticking with her and becoming complicit in her crimes. Sorry, by the Felony Murder Rule he had it coming.
And so we come to Walker. He’s been through the hell of war, come out of it a hero, and retains enough of a conscience to question the morality of his heroic deeds. That is not the picture of an unbalanced psychopathic killer; it’s pretty much the polar opposite in fact! Now he’s been thrust into a role that originally belonged to one of the greatest heroes of all time. the good guys who ought to be helping out seem to hate him for no good reason (no, “he’s not Steve Rogers” is not a good reason) and are going out of their way to antagonize him and make his life and his mission difficult. He’s getting kicked around by super soldier terrorists who have him outmatched physically, but he carries on anyway because it’s the right thing to do, no matter the cost to him personally. (Gee, does this remind you of anyone? Really, when it comes down to it, the only thing he’s missing is the serum!) So when he gets the opportunity to level the playing field, he takes it… and then it just still wasn’t enough to save his partner and close friend. (Bucky really should have noticed the parallel. It was at the end of the episode, so it ought to come out in the next one, but the writing on here is bad enough that it’ll probably never happen.) And what comes out of it? He chases the bad guys down, and becomes the first person on here to actually do the right thing and kill a terrorist!
This was a high point of the season, the first true victory against the terrorist plague that was threatening the entire world… but the camera, the direction, the whole cinematography treated it as a monstrous act, framing Walker like some sort of psychopath.
Well… no. Walker wasn’t wrong. The writers were.
Wow…
@63, Nice take!
@64: If you’re going to disagree, tell me, what was the alternative? Remember that this takes place in the same world as The Avengers, which gives us a pretty stark object lesson in what happens when you take a superhuman villain into custody. If comics have taught us nothing else, they have been excessively clear and consistent on this one point: it is morally wrong to respond to supervillains with anything less than kill-on-sight force, because otherwise they will always always always escape and wreak even more havoc. (And being comics, even death isn’t a sure way to stop them for good, but it tends to be at least marginally better than the alternatives!)
That being true, what could Walker have possibly done better?
I don’t know… NOT MURDER A GUY WHO WAS ALREADY NOT FIGHTING BACK?!??!
@Magnus: it’s worse than that…
“Wyatt Russell appears to have teased a potential appearance, in some form, of Chris Evans’ Captain America in the season finale of The Falcon and the Winter Soldier:
Have I ever met Chris Evans? I think I have. I don’t think I’ve ‘shook his hand’ met him, but I think I’ve walked by him somewhere and made eye contact. That counts as being a stalker, that doesn’t count as meeting anybody. But, I guess it would. You just gotta wait until the end of the series and then everybody will be like, ‘Oh, wow.’ “
That could turn out to be some epic Bettany level trolling.
@67 I didn’t ask for a suggestion on what not to do; I asked for an alternative. What could he have done instead, dealing with a superpowered individual who was already complicit in multiple murders on multiple different occasions, that would have led to a better outcome?
What’s the alternative? Because as near as I can tell, as distasteful as it sounds, when dealing with a supervillain summary execution is always the best possible course of action. Anything more lenient runs a risk bordering on absolute certainty that they will end up killing more innocents further down the line, and then their blood is on the hero’s hands for failing to stop them.
@69 While I’m stillnot sure if you’re trolling or not, the basic existence of the Raft in the MCU shows that there are a whole range of incarceration options short of killing him. Wakanda will have ample options, most of the MCU heroes are capable of bringing him in, and he’s only got limited resources and assets to hide with.
At the end of the day he took the super soldier serum, he has extra strength and speed but he’s not a physical god like Loki, Thor, the Vision or Captain Marvel. He’s a henchman at best, not a supervillain. He can be constrained, and tried, and suitably punished.
Sure, he might eventually escape, but equally he could be persuaded to assist order instead, or be banished to another world or parallel universe.
This is something the US in general struggles to understand because of the founding myths of its various forces, but vigilante justice and summary execution in a foreign country is not something that should be endorsed.
He’s not trolling, unfortunately.
@70
Oh, you mean the place that couldn’t even hold its prisoners until the end of the film without them being sprung by a super soldier? You’re making my point for me.
When things are different, things are different. I firmly oppose vigilante justice in the real world. But we don’t have supervillains in the real world. If we did, I’d be all for summary execution for them too.
@70. Mayhem: “This is something the US in general struggles to understand”
It’s actually an irony for the US that they mass incarcerate. It’s been pointed out by people studying democracy for a long time; writers like de Tocqueville noted it. Then again, a society valuing freedom maybe considers taking away that freedom as a severe punishment.
@mason: seems you’re confusing Captain America with the Punisher. Unfortunately, Cap is not a real world symbol, (at least not in the US) while Punisher is. We’ve seen the skull symbol on cop vehicles and uniforms, but not Cap’s shield or any of his insignia. This led to the infamous scene in the comics where Punisher confronts some rogue cops and tells them not to emulate him, that a vigilante is not a hero. Castle tells them that Captain America would be happy to have them. But again, not happening in the real world. Marvel’s message failed.
And not happening on this show with this Cap either. Regardless of mitigating circumstances, what Walker does here is an extrajudicial execution.
Here’s a What if? What if Sam and Bucky had not refused to work with Walker? Would things have turned out differently?
Walker’s suffering from PTSD and has insecurities as a result. It’s why he shouldn’t have been selected and why the serum magnifies his worst qualities. Going over the edge may be setting up his turn into US Agent, which means we’ll see more vigilante action. But hopefully, he doesn’t go full Homelander.
@73: I’ve said nothing about the Punisher. I’m not particularly familiar with his comics, so I could be completely wrong here, but I’m under the impression that he mostly fights mundane criminals, rather than supervillains. Is that correct? If so, it’s not at all relevant to the point I am making.
Look at it this way: how many people are dead because Batman keeps capturing The Joker, who subsequently escapes and kills more people again and again and again? From my point of view, that innocent blood is on Batman’s hands.
@mason: read Alan Moore’s The Killing joke for one answer to why Batman doesn’t kill and why he shouldn’t kill, even under extreme provocation. Hoskins’ death (maybe?) is such a trigger, but that’s why this Cap fails to live up to the ideals of the original.
I haven’t read every Punisher comic, but I think he’s fought superpowered opponents, taking them out with extreme prejudice. Do a little research on the character and you’ll see why it’s untenable for you to wish Captain America should behave like Frank Castle.
I’d say “Heroes don’t kill” is a good general rule. You’ll have to look elsewhere if you want murder and mayhem.