How John Walker’s Evil Captain America Origin Is Different In The MCU

Battlestar’s death triggered John Walker’s dark turn in The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, but that’s not exactly how it happened in Marvel Comics. In both versions of the story, Steve Rogers’ Captain America replacement unfortunately succumbed to his aggressive tendencies. However, the MCU chose a rather different route for the character’s origin.

In the beginning, John Walker (Wyatt Russell) was determined to have a positive impact on the country as its new Captain America, but any chance of that happening was ruined in The Falcon and the Winter Soldier episode 4. After taking the Power Broker’s super soldier serum, Walker found that he finally stood a fighting chance against the Flag-Smashers, but he ended up taking things too far when Battlestar (Clé Bennett) was killed. In response, Walker relentlessly chased down a Flag-Smasher and gruesomely executed him with his shield. A bad situation was made worse by the fact that the grisly scene was witnessed by dozens of horrified onlookers.

John Walker’s horrendous act was shocking, even though there was some degree of precedent for it in Marvel Comics. In a similar act of rage, Walker briefly lost his temper and accidently beat a villain called Professor Power to death. However, that wasn’t his last major misstep. In The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, the catalyst for his evil transformation was Battlestar’s death, but in the comics it was the death of his parents that drove him over the edge. Two supervillains, Left-Winger and Right-Winger, figured out Walker’s real name – which was kept a secret in the source material – and exposed it to the public. As a result, Walker’s parents were targeted by a far-right terrorist organization known as the Watchdogs. When both his mother and father were murdered by them, Walker retaliated by killing nine of the Watchdogs in a heated battle.

Walker’s parents dying because of him, coupled with the pressures of being Captain America, had a detrimental effect on his psyche. Furious about what had happened and unable to let it go, John Walker set his sights on Left-Winger and Right-Winger, who he blamed for their deaths. After defeating them and tying them to an oil tank, he left them to die in an explosion (though a later retcon revealed they actually survived). His mental state continued to deteriorate from there. It reached a point where the original Captain America, who was disgusted by how his legacy had been tarnished, had to defeat him.

Other major differences between the two stories include the fate of Battlestar and the role the super soldier serum played. In the comics, Battlestar — who survived Walker’s time as Captain America – tried to be supportive, but didn’t know how to keep him in line. As for Walker’s abilities, they seemingly had little to do with his emotional breakdown; Walker received super strength before becoming Captain America, which is in contrast to what happened in the MCU.

How these stories will end could be different as well, but that remains to be seen. In Marvel Comics, Walker adopted the “U.S. Agent” codename and became a member of the West Coast Avengers. He retained his aggressive nature and bad attitude, but he became a respectable superhero. The Falcon and the Winter Soldier’s John Walker, on the other hand, may have a much tougher path to redemption (if it can happen at all).

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