This is an intervention, y’all.

Because we need to talk about John Walker and his “fandom” real quick.

Buckle up.

Disclaimer: I’m going to spoil the events of Captain America and the Winter Soldier, The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, Black Widow, Thunderbolts, and Captain America: Brave New World, so if you’re not caught up and you want to go in unspoiled, please bookmark this post and circle back once you’ve seen the missing works I’ll be discussing below.

Also, warning for language. Lots of it. Some of y’all been driving me crazy for the last three months and I’m finally addressing it today.

Now, I know I’m speaking to a somewhat limited audience, but I feel compelled to take an aside to address something that’s been bothering me intensely since the release of Marvel’s Thunderbolts this past summer. It was a film I didn’t want to watch, but I did since my grumpy cyborg husband was cast in a supporting role, so I went. It was fine for me. No more, no less, just fine.

But that’s not how other people reacted.

After I got out of the movie, I pretty much left it with very shallow impressions. For one, it feels…slightly gratuitous when you think about what was actually accomplished and established within the film, so I was already going into it knowing it’s not pointless, but it is pointless-adjacent. It doesn’t really do much but slightly advance the progression of Yelena and Red Guardian—pre-established characters that we at least know after watching Black Widow—and an inching forward for Bob (newly introduced) and Bucky. Ghost gets zero development and neither does Taskmaster since she gets shot in the fucking face in the first ten minutes (and do NOT get me started on that or you’ll hear a rant for another hour). All in all, it just moved Valentina into supervillain position when she’s already a boring, middling antagonist taking up space and it didn’t do much but tell us they cobbled together the worst “Avengers” team I’ve ever seen in my life. And that’s not because I dislike any of them other than Walker—they had trouble with one concrete wall, guys. One. Concrete. Wall. And you expect me to think they can save the world? Mmkay. “Sure, Jan.”

But the thing is…apparently, the fandom’s reaction was the opposite. I get home after the movie and find everyone on Tumblr singing its praises about how good it is. And that’s fine, but it’s also confusing and problematic as hell.

And that’s what I want to talk about today.

It’s no secret most fandom spaces are still majority white. Anyone not white that’s been in fandom for more than maybe a year or two is also painfully aware that most fandom spaces are still majority white, so we have to watch what we say and how we say it. So most of the time, I’m not participating; I’m just lurking, as I know as the resident fandom and film snob, most of the content is going to annoy me. I curate my time in fandom very strictly because I know how problematic it can get and I try my best to filter out the noise I don’t want and just find the cool folks and hang out with them.

In particular, one of the best most recent fandom moments I had was live-tweeting the Falcon and the Winter Soldier mini-series. You see, back in the year of our Lord 2021, we weren’t yet dealing with the total collapse of America, just the partial collapse of America, and so I was still using Twitter and live-tweeting during the show’s debut, and it was fantastic. It remains the best show for me personally of all the Marvel shows (though I enjoyed the heck out of Echo, Moon Knight, and Ms. Marvel) since for me, it was the first time that Marvel Studios actively felt like taking a stance on an issue of not only race, but the discussion about justice versus vengeance. It wasn’t that Marvel had never taken one at all; this, to me, was the first time Marvel overtly said that bigotry, racism, and prejudice are just as rampant in the MCU as it is in the real world, and burying your head in the sand or becoming too cynical to help is not going to make things better for anyone nor you. It openly discussed things like microaggressions, double standards, and the trouble with mental health among veterans with PTSD. To me, it was a wonderfully balanced and excellent show that could make me laugh as much as it could make me cry, and the fact that the antagonist was a sympathetic woman of color used and manipulated by an evil, entitled white bitch was thematically on point for me. (Rot in hell, Sharon Carter. We know you’ll never get what’s coming to you. You suck.)

I remember when John Walker’s Baron von Underbite ass first showed his face on the Falcon and the Winter Soldier. As intended, he was met with instant hatred and ridicule, and that was always the intention for him. Everything about him is problematic as a creative choice to talk about what a fucking problem America has with patriotism. The MCU America was just so fucking desperate to elevate a white man in the absence of Steve Rogers that they picked the worst possible candidate and put lipstick on a pig to pass this bum off as Captain America, as if that title is just a shield that anyone can hold. Hell to the naw, bruh. That’s not Captain America. That’s Captain Colonizer, as the brilliant Nicque Marina called him during her absolutely fantastic series of FATWS skits on TikTok and Instagram. When John Walker premiered, he was the laughingstock of the Internet, generating an avalanche of hilarious memes, and it was a great time to be alive because almost everyone was on the same page: “This guy is a wannabe government stooge that’s not fit to wipe Steve Rogers’ ass and we’re going to talk about why this entire thing is a sham.” The best thing I ever heard regarding it is that John Walker is who America really is, Steve Rogers is who America thinks it is, and Sam Wilson is who America should be. I agree 100%.

But here’s the thing.

While John Walker is certainly just a lightning rod for your hatred as the antagonist of the show, he’s also written very well as a problematic white man that thinks he’s the solution to America’s problems. They don’t just dump him out there as a one-dimensional bully like Ronan from Guardians of the Galaxy. The writing for the show is excellent, so they do cast a slightly sympathetic edge to Walker in that he goes so gung-ho about being Captain America that he crosses the damn line and murders an innocent man (and please note, innocent of the crime of murdering Lemar, not innocent in general; the guy was an ecoterrorist responsible for the deaths of others, so again, innocent of this particular crime is what I’m talking about there) and then acts shocked he’s then demoted and the title is rescinded.

What I also found very well done was the fact that it’s very clear Walker did not receive a redemption arc in canon. He is meant to be seen as a problematic person who thinks that his station in the military means he doesn’t have to listen, reason, understand, or sympathize. John Walker is a weapon made by our own rotten government who abuses his power to get what he wants and make demands to others he has no right to make. We see he is a lying coward when he confronts Lemar’s grieving family and he is so convinced he’s a good soldier that he keeps carrying around a flimsy shield to relive his glory days (aka five minutes) when he was Captain America. Like a lot of white men in America, he is obsessed with wearing rose-colored glasses about his tenure as “Cap” instead of learning from the experience and becoming a better person. This fact is evidenced in Thunderbolts when it’s revealed Walker became full on emotionally (and possibly physically) abusive to his black wife and biracial son, screaming at her when she asks him to properly watch over their son while he’s in the middle of brooding about his failed attempt to be Captain America.

Remember this part. This part is important for later.

The Falcon and the Winter Soldier remains a well-regarded show to this very day, and I still reference it frequently, as do other people, and so time went on and then they introduced what Captain America: Brave New World would be about, which is Sam adopting the mantle and taking his rightful place as Captain America in an America that would see him hang. I’m going to try my best not to slide into my rant about everyone’s lack of support for Cap 4, but I do need to talk about it so you can understand why I’m even writing this post to begin with.

I loved Captain America: Brave New World, and I am livid that everyone made a concerted effort to make it the least amount of money possible for downright hypocritical reasons. But that’s not what I want to talk about today, if ever. I left the theater ecstatic, knowing the movie certainly had issues, but overall, it left me feeling so warm and encouraged because the message that I took from it was, “Even in the midst of a corrupt government that is oppressing its own people, if you have the ability to stand up to protect innocent people, it is the responsible thing to do to still save them in spite of the system itself being utterly corrupt and horrid.” That movie was not about patriotism, and I’m sick of every last person that said as much, as I feel like we ain’t watch the same fucking movie. There are several lines that directly address the moral quandary of being a black Captain America in a corrupt ass America. Sam knows that Ross is a sack of shit that ain’t gonna change, but that doesn’t mean he should stop helping to save people in harm’s way thanks to Ross’ shitty ass agenda. He goes out of his way to be merciful and understanding when needed, but also beat dat ass when it’s necessary (that fuckin’ dropkick impregnated me, it was so fuckin’ dope) and not shy away from the fact that Sam was trying to exonerate Isaiah Bradley the same way Steve was trying to exonerate Bucky when Zemo framed Bucky for King T’Chaka’s murder. And yet the response to Sam trying to save his friend was totally different from how Steve was treated, and his movie was also treated differently by a fandom that whines all day long about the mistreatment of black characters, but yet it abandons them at the first sign of trouble or even just plain dislike. Everyone found every single excuse as to why they didn’t see Cap 4, and I don’t think that’s an accident.

But here’s my point: why is it that Sam Wilson, no matter how much he sacrifices and no matter how good he tries to be, is not good enough for the MCU fandom…and yet after Thunderbolts, John Walker’s a “Woobie blorbo” that I should accept as just a “misunderstood misfit”?

And try to read between the lines here.

Why is a dark-skinned black man from New Orleans who worked his ass off and is a genuinely good person now considered second fiddle to a literal abusive white supremacist sociopath?

Gee.

I wonder why, fandom.

I wonder why.

Let’s circle back to what I talked about earlier. I got back from Thunderbolts, posted that it was mediocre, and went about my life. While I did not particularly care about it, I did like some of Bucky’s scenes (look, I’m just a squirrel tryin’ to get a nut, SO WHAT’S UP SEBASTIAN STAN?!) and so I basically marked a tag on Tumblr so that I could check each day to see when Bucky’s scenes from the movie would be in .gif form in high quality.

And a byproduct of my thirsty ass doing that means unfortunately, I saw in real time when the tide turned of the white half of the fandom now infantilizing and de-demonizing John fucking Walker after his appearance in Thunderbolts.

And I’m still so angry I cannot even express myself.

Look, let’s stop for a second before you twist your face up at me. I’m not talking about liking problematic characters. Bitch, please—if I threw that stone, my entire house would come crashing down. I love Loki, and that motherfucker is the most problematic demigod we have in the MCU, so I’m not talking about simply liking someone that’s either bad or unforgivable. What I’m talking about is how this fandom is content to forgive John Walker of all his crimes when he has not done one single thing that indicates he is worthy of being forgiven, and how the same white fans that praise Walker and say we should forgive him too spend every single second tearing down Sam Wilson and giving him no sympathy and no credit for anything he’s ever done, all while still moaning that they miss Steve Rogers.

Fandom doesn’t care who hears them bleating.

But guess what, white fandom?

People of color hear you and see you doing this shit. Yes, we listen. Yes, we remember.

This is some fucked up behavior and I’m tired of pretending it’s not.

I’m not even going to ask how you can reach inside yourself and sympathize with John Walker over Sam Wilson because I don’t know you as a person. What I’m talking about is how it’s ridiculous to heap praise onto an outright abusive white man that in no way is portrayed in a positive light—even to the degree that everyone in canon ridicules him for being a bossy, arrogant, slimy, selfish jerk—no reason other than you desperately need an excuse not to accept Sam Wilson as Captain America. It is perfectly fine to not like Sam Wilson nor Anthony Mackie. It is perfectly fine to not like Captain America: Brave New World. This is about the fact that y’all don’t want to face your own prejudices when you make these long posts about how we should feel sorry for Walker, and yet you can’t ever drum up sympathy for anything Sam’s been put through since his introduction in Captain America: The Winter Soldier. You need to understand that we hear this crap and it makes us never want to interact with fandom again when the hypocrisy is on full display the way it is in the MCU fandom, to the degree I no longer track MCU tags and have to block John Walker x Reader fics (yes, those are fucking real, and do not get me fucking started) in the Bucky Barnes gif tag where I just want to look at my grumpy cyborg husband in peace. I have to now dodge post after fucking post insisting John Walker is a poor misunderstood soul, not a violent criminal who was willing to ditch everyone to save himself.    

Do you see the picture forming yet?

What I am really asking you is: why, as a black fangirl, am I told to forgive and accept John Walker when the fandom is not even remotely willing to accept any part of Sam Wilson?

Let that sit with you for a second. Does it make you uncomfortable? It fucking should. Again, this is not about “Sam is better/likable.” I am talking about a double standard in which a white antagonist is seen by this fandom as more sympathetic than a black protagonist that has sacrificed literal life and limb for the very same world, yet he’s just insulted non-stop by that same fandom. No one is asking you not to sympathize with Walker—he is a character written well enough that there is an angle in which you can find something to feel sorry for him about. My problem is that no matter what good Sam does, these same people reject him but accept Walker’s unapologetically awful behavior no questions asked.  

And I am the one saying this behavior should be called out more in fandom spaces. Not silenced and ignored and buried.

Like who you like. No one will ever stop you.

But you also need to pay attention to hidden biases and ugly behaviors that are toxic and indicative of a much larger psychological problem.

Again, this is not to say I don’t have those same biases. Of course I do. We all do. I try my best to dig inside myself and follow the thread about why I feel strongly about something and then stay aware that I can accidentally be problematic by not following the thread to its origin. I’m sure many other people do the same. All I am saying is we need to pay attention to problematic behavior in majority white fandom spaces instead of burying our heads in the sand. It’s hard for POC to find community when that sort of attitude is stinking up the joint. And fandom is meant to be shared among everyone, not a select few, and certainly not by perpetuating unhealthy reactions to characters based on their race.  

For God’s sake, just look at Bucky’s fucking face when you leave him with a bunch of problematic white people.

LOOK WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU DON’T LEAVE UNCLE BUCKY WITH AUNT SARAH AND HIS CHILDREN IN NEW ORLEANS HE IS SO TIRED BEING AROUND OTHER WHITE PEOPLE IF YOU DON’T LET THIS POOR MAN FUCKING REST AND BE WITH THE BLACK PEOPLE HE WANTS TO BE AROUND OOH I SWEAR FO’ GOD MARVEL—

Ahem. Sorry, lost the thread there, I’m done.

Look, all I want is for us to all row this boat together instead of squabbling about where the shit is going, okay? Just think before you post. Think about why you have all these problems with Sam, yet no problems with Walker, and I genuinely think the MCU fandom would air out a little bit more toxicity if people would be willing to do so.

But what do I know?

“Just fishin’ in the dark, son.”

Kyoko