The Big Cameo in Captain America: Brave New World Is of Congressional Importance

There’s nothing surprising about the surprise cameo in Marvel’s Captain America: Brave New World, which sees Sam Wilson (Anthony Mackie) don the stars and stripes and lead his first film after the 2021 Disney+ series The Falcon and the Winter Soldier. If you had to guess who it is, you’d probably get it right on the first attempt. What is surprising is that this character’s appearance is delightful anyway. And what it reveals about them sets up a future movie in weird and unexpected ways.

Spoilers to follow.

After the original Captain America, Steve Rogers (Chris Evans), left his shield to Wilson at the end of Avengers: Endgame, the former Falcon wrestled with the weight of his red, white, and blue mantle in The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, where he co-starred with frenemy-turned-pal James Buchanan “Bucky” Barnes (Sebastian Stan) — another inheritance from Rogers. Barnes makes a welcome appearance late in Brave New World, wavy flowing locks and all, at a time when Wilson needs a bit of advice and a familiar face. His sidekick, Joaquin Torres (Danny Ramirez), the new Falcon, has just been gravely injured while trying to stop a missile over the Indian Ocean, similar to how Barnes originally died during World War II in the Captain America comics, and Wilson blames himself.

Barnes, of course, knows the feeling of guilt all too well, having spent decades as a brainwashed assassin, but he reminds Wilson why Rogers believed in him in the first place. It’s a sugary sweet scene, and if this were a normal cameo, that would be the beginning and the end of it. But then Wilson makes an off-handed joke about Barnes’s “speech writers” helping him with this spiel, and before one has time to even process the comment — or the fact that Barnes is dressed, uncharacteristically, in a suit — the conversation casually pivots to him running for political office.

That’s right. The former Winter Soldier is on the campaign trail and hopes you’ll vote him into Congress. And we may already know the outcome of his election.

Discerning fans may have noticed Barnes wearing a congressional pin in the latest trailer for Thunderbolts*, Marvel’s upcoming Suicide Squad–esque team-up movie. Not only that, but in a red carpet appearance several months ago, his co-star Wyatt Russell also casually mentioned that Barnes is now a congressman, though that seemed like a joke at the time with the way everyone around him brushes him off.

Barnes is hardly the first Marvel superhero to run for office. In the comics, Iron Man has been secretary of Defense, Daredevil has been the mayor of New York City, and Rogers was a presidential candidate back in 1980 (he dropped out to avoid partisanship, but an alternate version of him in the Ultimates universe got elected). What’s strange about this development for Bucky, though, is that it has no precedent in the comics whatsoever.

After being killed off in a flashback in the 1960s, Barnes was resurrected as the bionic-armed, mind-controlled assassin the Winter Soldier in 2005 and has been a notable Avengers mainstay ever since. He’s taken up the mantle of Captain America. He’s done a bit of time traveling. He’s died and returned again. At one point, he was even appointed “The Man on the Wall,” which despite sounding like a made-up, Humpty Dumpty position, is a vital defender of Earth akin to the Watcher. He’s done it all, but he’s never run for office — until now.

Since the shield was never passed to Barnes in the MCU the way it was in the comics (prior to Wilson), perhaps this is Marvel Studios’ way of having him spiritually follow in Rogers’s comic-book footsteps, albeit in a non-Captain America capacity. Either way, at 110 years old, Bucky Barnes will soon be the oldest active congressperson in U.S. history, beating South Carolina Senator Strom Thurmond by a smaller-than-you’d-expect margin of 10 years. He also may or may not be the first congressperson (…that we know of) to assassinate a president? (Some have interpreted a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it moment in Captain America: The Winter Soldier as implying that Bucky killed JFK.) His turn toward politics is probably one of the biggest things to happen to any Marvel character offscreen, right up there with Hulk becoming intelligible between Avengers movies and Tony Stark and Pepper Potts breaking up and reuniting about a dozen times.

What does this mean for Thunderbolts*? From what we’ve seen in the trailers, Barnes is the one who recruits the unlikely team in what appears to be an off-the-books assignment. If nothing else, a sitting congressman going on a mission to unite, among others, a former Black Widow and two knockoff Captain Americas is all the funnier as a premise, and it adds unexpected stakes as well. Could there be an official inquiry into his actions? Maybe someone behind-the-scenes is blackmailing him into doing this — or maybe he’s just that dedicated to his constituents. I know I’d vote for him, especially if he’s keeping the hair.