Falcon & Winter Soldier Theory: US Govt. Created Flag-Smashers To Justify Captain America

The Falcon and The Winter Soldier is set to determine Sam and Bucky’s future in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. WandaVision kicked off Marvel’s Phase 4. The show focuses on Sam’s responsibility as Captain America and Bucky’s confrontation with his past. The show also brings in recurring threats such as Zemo and his desire of living in a world with no superheroes, as he believes their shenanigans come with a lot of collateral damage. We see Wyatt Russell as John Walker in The Falcon and The Winter Soldier. He is being portrayed as the new Captain America. Alongside Zemo, we have the Flash-Smashers as the bad guys as well.

The Flag-Smashers is led by Karli Morgenthau (Erin Kellyman). The Flag-Smashers look back at the past of Avengers: Endgame ‘Blip’ with nostalgia. They look back and savor the fact that everyone got together after the Blip, worked together, and there were no national borders. The world was becoming one. But now that everything is coming back to normal, those borders are rising up once again and people are drifting away again. For this, the Flag-Smashers hold the people who back from the Blip responsible. The Falcon and The Winter Soldier episode 2 made it very clear that the Flag-Smashers have super-soldiers. This is because they stole the super-soldier serum from the Power-Breaker.

Captain America (Steve Rogers) was highly decorated for his efforts and help during World War 2. But there is no doubt that Captain America eventually started defying the government, something they feared the most and holding his own. He was rather a controversial figure. In The Avengers, Captain America broke into a secure SHIELD storehouse in order to discover Tesseract weapons Fury was trying to keep secret; in Captain America: The Winter Soldier he decided to burn down SHIELD because it had been compromised by Hydra, making the decision on his own and without any oversight; and in Captain America: Civil War, he outright rejected the Sokovia Accords. So when Captain America gave up the shield, all his defiance was set out on the table and for the world to agree to.

The Flag-Smashers are craving for the post-national status quo that emerged during the Blip. Moreover, they are ready to any lengths to achieve it. But the fact is that they are terrorists, hence the political opponents find it very convenient to frame their motive as too extreme. With skillful handling, their entire political agenda can be neutralized. This is why we believe that the Flag-Smashers are supersoldiers that are created by the government. The very existence of a terrorist group, with an extremist approach, and supersoldiers, only provokes the world to harness the need for a savior like Captain America.

If you come to think about it, then the Flag-Smashers is a very convenient group. A simple motive, a team of supersoldiers, and all terrorists. Even if they didn’t exist, then someone in the government would have wished for something like this. Now, this might point at a grand conspiracy in The Falcon and The Winter Soldier. That is someone from within the government is secretly pushing Karli Morgenthau towards extremism, and providing her supersoldier serum via the Power Breaker. But there seems to be a miscalculation. They aren’t aware of the fact that Bucky remembers Isaiah Bradley. This means that they’re first coming after the serum, which can lead them in many directions. But what’s more surprising is that John Walker is trying to convince Bucky and Sam to work along with him, especially when you remember Walker was part of a conspiracy to make himself look like a hero in the comics too.

The Falcon and The Winter Soldier begins with Sam giving up the Cap’s shield. But it doesn’t take long for the government to go against Sam’s best interests and find someone else to take on the mantle of Captain America. Episode 2 of The Falcon and The Winter Soldier finally introduced the new Captain America with his quick appearance and a wink that immediately provoked the fans to despise him. His grand introduction across the country included TV interviews, press conferences, and deployment on missions already. This also included the revelation that John Walker’s Captain America isn’t a super-soldier, and set up his very existence as Captain America to be completely human-like.