The Falcon and the Winter Soldier: What’s hidden in plain sight in episode 6
By Mike McNulty
Dark Avengers or Thunderbolts?
“One World, One People” makes it very clear that we haven’t seen the last of either John Walker or Baron Helmut Zemo. What is surprising is that while the episode did have a mid-credits scene (which we’ll talk about later), it didn’t have an end-credits scene involving Zemo. Perhaps there will be one for Black Widow, but you don’t need a stinger to tell you that some form of an “Anti-Avengers” team is coming. The question is whether it will be the Thunderbolts, Dark Avengers, or both?
Basically, the idea is that since the original Avengers have disbanded and with the Sokovia Accords still in effect, the UN Security Council needs a new group of supers protecting the planet whom they can coerce into being more cooperative. And, of course, the person this new team would answer to would be Secretary of State Thaddeus “Thunderbolt” Ross (William Hurt). This also means that this new team would, therefore, be called the Thunderbolts.
However, the introduction of Valentina Allegra de Fontaine throws a bit of a wrinkle into this. Based on the scenes between Walker, his wife, and the Contessa in both last episode and this one, we know that “Don’t call me Val” recruited Walker not unlike Nick Fury did Tony Stark at the end of Iron Man (2008). She also teases that she may or may not have had a hand in Zemo’s plan to blow up the surviving members of Karli Morgenthau’s (Erin Kellyman) Flag Smashers. Either way, this suggests that the Contessa has access to Zemo and may have already recruited him. Whatever the case may be, it’s clear that the Contessa is forming her own version of the Avengers. A group of Dark Avengers, if you will. Because her forming the West Coast Avengers would just be downright silly.
Thing is, would Marvel Studios really have two separate teams of anti-heroes and villains acting like DC’s Suicide Squad? That seems rather superfluous. Instead, what if Ross and the Contessa are working together and forming one team of Anti-Avengers? That would streamline things a great deal, and put greater emphasis on the idea of the conspiratorial nature behind the formation of such a team.