REVIEW | What the world needs now is a black Captain America

On the first day of the new millennium, Europop group Aqua released an infectious song — Cartoon Heroes. Famed for their 1997 smash hit Barbie Girl, the band continued to play around with their animated brand of tunes and attempted to shrug off one-hit wonder suggestions with the new jam.

The song draws a clear line in the sand, breaking a parasocial relationship between them and their fans. In it, they view themselves as cartoon heroes who are “gonna last forever” thanks to music videos and a pop cultural footprint.

However, it's also important that their fans understand they should not attempt to be like them. They should not think the actions of “cartoon heroes”, who in their well-sketched media can perform inexplicable feats of nature, are to be attempted in real life. Essentially, they exist for everyone else's entertainment and that's where it ends.

The song came back to me after watching Marvel Cinematic Universe's (MCU) latest flick Captain America: Brave New World. The movie franchise is now led by Anthony Mackie who takes the role of the red, white and blue captain after Steve Rogers (played by Chris Evans).

Since then, the franchise has been under mounting pressure to relive its heyday from the mid-2010s. In its multiversal storytelling, it collected heroes from movies going back to 2008, which Brave New World revisits in its plot.

While Evans' Captain America was much like Aqua's imagination of a superhero, Mackie takes the mantle with a little more pressure which the movie is aware of. Rather than considering him a beacon of hope, they see him as something everyone can aspire to be.

Superhero movies and their comic and animated counterparts are great narrative drivers for inspiring young and old to do better in their lives, which the movie attempts with Mackie's Sam Wilson. In the series spin-off following him and Bucky (Rogers' childhood best friend played by Oscar nominee Sebastian Stan), Sam is confronted by what it means to fill Rogers' giant shoes, especially as a black man.

The whimsical and moral legacy of Rogers' is also sullied by the harsher and more brutal realities faced by Sam who must also confront the violence inflicted on the real first Captain America, Isaiah Bradley (played by Alias alumni Carl Lumbly). The character returns in this movie to celebrate the inauguration of Thaddeus Ross (Harrison Ford) as the American president.

Reprising his 2008 role as Samual Sterns, Tim Blake Nelson is the main villain of this movie with a ploy to ruin the reputation of President Ross and destroy his life. In what feels more like a sequel to the 2008 movie, we see a more sincere approach to the characters left in the debris of MCU's first flop. It also puts Sam in the driving seat for the Celestial (a world-ending character from the Eternals movie) that many countries are chasing for its adamantium (one of the most powerful metals in the Marvel universe).

Sam's ride as the new Captain America sees the franchise carry the baton Black Panther's sequel had started: a story that is not concerned with villains and heroes but with complex social issues that MCU tells well with black voices behind it. Rather than reinforcing the decisions of its characters, Brave New World bites off a little more than it can chew with a story about reformation, aspiration and political warfare — especially at a time when America is ruled by its own raging orange monster in the White House.

The movie, while not perfect, puts to rest the need to consider MCU a dead franchise. Its rethinking of Sabra, a Jewish villain from the comics, as a heroine delivers an important message about dealing with one's past actions and accepting the consequences. Let's hope it is a message heard loud and clear by the real political leaders who are not cartoon heroes.

Captain America: Brave New World is now on circuit.