Sad that Wandavision has come to an end?  Wondering what you will now look forward to every Friday? Well, don’t worry because phase 4 of the MCU(Marvel Cinematic Universe) is in full swing and is giving us all the content that we need! A new MCU miniseries, The Falcon and the Winter Soldier is planning on being released on the streaming platform Disney+ on Friday, March 19th, and will be releasing episodes every Friday. This series was written by Malcolm Spellman and was directed by Kari Skogland and is planning on having only 6 episodes this time, which is less than we got for Wandavision. 

The series takes place after Avengers: Endgame and stars Sam Wilson(Anthony Mackie) and Bucky Barnes(Sebastian Stan) as they face the world without Steve Rogers(Chris Evans).  The two couldn’t be more different and we will see them having to work together and test each other’s survival skills and patience. We will also see the void that Captain America has created be filled by the government instilling their own Captain America, John Walker who is also known as U.S Agent. It is likely that we will watch Sam and Bucky deal with him as well. 

In Wandavision, Marvel took us through Wanda’s(Elizabeth Olsen) stages of grief and dealing with the loss of Vision(Paul Bettany). They went into depth about the tragic losses that Wanda has gone through and how that has affected her. What Wanda has gone through is traumatic and has never really been highlighted before since she has never been the main character of these movies. Exploring how our heroes deal with trauma will roll over into this new series. Bucky Barnes has had to deal with brainwashing and being an assassin for many years and having to go from one fight to another. We are going to see him deal with his traumatic past of being turned into the killer, known as The Winter Soldier by Hydra, and how even though he is “back to normal” that trauma still affects him. 

This is incredibly important to portray in popular movies because it helps with destigmatizing mental health. More and more people are feeling comfortable talking about their mental health battles and by showing that even superheroes go through difficult situations and have to deal with hard things like trauma, that many people have dealt with, it makes people feel not as isolated and helps people struggling with these disorders feel seen and that they aren’t alone and can help with the viewers create a deeper connection to these characters.