The second MCU show on Disney+, “The Falcon And The Winter Soldier,” has been reckoning with Old Man Steve’s decision to leave the shield behind and retire in “Avengers: Endgame,” but it is also building up a possible bright future from the Marvel Cinematic Universe by introducing the Young Avengers.
In the latest episode, Bucky leads Sam to Baltimore where they encounter a man named Isaiah, who was also a super soldier back in his prime. Isaiah was also given the super soldier serum that gave Steve Rogers his powers, but he wasn’t given the fancy shield, or the costume, or the government support, continuing the show’s juxtaposition of race and superheroics. But before they meet Isaiah, Bucky and Sam are greeted by his young grandson, who is named in the credits as Eli Bradley (played by Elijah Richardson), a key character from the comics known as Patriot, and a founding member of the Young Avengers.
The Young Avengers, as the name implies, is a team of teenage heroes with ties to the original Avengers, and this is not the first time the MCU introduced one of them. We already know Hailee Steinfeld is going to play Kate Bishop in “Hawkeye,” a character who serves as the Young Avengers’ own bow-and-arrow user, while “WandaVision” introduced kid versions of Wiccan and Speed (though they are not 100% real, and also trapped in another dimension). Meanwhile, Kathryn Newton is set to play Cassie Lang in the next “Ant-Man,” while Iman Velani is set to bring Ms. Marvel to life in the near future. Kevin Feige already confirmed that Young Avengers is at least being considered as a possibility, which we are taking to mean it is absolutely, 100% happening.
Now, a problem with Eli Bradley’s Patriot is that he doesn’t really have powers of his own, but resorts to fabricating illegal Mutant Growth Hormone pills instead. Now, there are no mutants in the MCU as of now, despite what everyone thought just a couple of months ago, but we do have super soldier serums in “The Falcon and the Winter Soldier” already. In the latest episode, we meet Karli Morgenthau (Erin Kellyman), the leader of the Flag-Smashers, a group trying to put the world back to how it was before half the population came back. Karli and her group seem to share the same super strength and agility as Captain America, and they are being chased by someone called The Power Broker, who sent armed men after them.
In the comics, the Power Broker is an evil businessman who sells dangerous superpower treatments to desperate people willing to pay. Though he doesn’t explicitly sell the same super serum that made Steve Rogers into Captain America — the MCU has never really followed the comics verbatim, as “WandaVision” painfully proved over and over — in the comics, he’s the one that gives John Walker (Wyatt Russell) his powers, allowing him to become Super-Patriot and then Captain America. It’s possible that Power Broker is also how “The Falcon And The Winter Soldier” allows Eli Bradley to gain powers and become Patriot, building up to Avengers: The Next Generation (they should just call it that, you’re welcome, Marvel).