John Walker is a missed opportunity

I think John Walker would have been a great protagnist in a smaller scale MCU movies in rhe mould of Bourne series, enemy of the state, rambo series but it seems marvel writers personally hated US military.

The thing i hated the most was that John is treated as some random person. Even sam doesnt know about him. Sam should know if someone has won medal of honor unless he deliberately keeps himself uniformed. His medals and military service gets mocked. As an Indian i would like to say, an Indian filmmaker wont be able to get away with mocking highest honors of Indian armed forces. In thunderbolts, he is still shown as a loser and loses his family. He doesnt even get them back.

I think he would have been ideal protagnist in a movie with Sharon as villain. Nice subversion

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Commentaires

Stevenwave2025-12-28 08:12

Characters like this are partly a reflection of the public sentiment around the wars relevant to them. At a base level, Steve from WW2 is seen as a heroic figure fighting Nazis. It's all very black and white. On the other hand, characters like Punisher or Walker, are from very different wars and times in US history.

jatt24022025-12-28 08:23

Walker is treated wprse than even Punisher. 3 medal of honors are shown worthless. In India, this show would have been cancelled unlesss they removed all mentions kf military honors. Apparently, costumes decides the combat effectiveness of a pwrson in MCU.

I dont understand what are the intentions of writers.

He would have been ideal portrayal of a uniformed soldier in world full of aliens, socerrors.

Stevenwave2025-12-28 10:52

You fundamentally misunderstand the whole point of the character.

Forsaken_Professor792025-12-28 22:39

How is it a missed opportunity? He’s a fairly new-ish character and is already going on his 3rd film appearance unlike many others *cough* Shang-Chi

I’d rather they give us a show similar to Punisher

Also how do the writers hate the US military? lol

Iron Man alone is US military propaganda and the films were made with support from not only real life defense contractors like Lockheed and Boeing but the US military itself complete with real aircraft and vehicles.

I’d say the writers of a lot of the US centric films critique the US government more than the military itself.

BZenMojo2025-12-29 05:45

John Walker is meant to reflect a pragmatic understanding of the role of the US as empire. From his discussions with Battlestar, Walker is likely a war criminal with a history of extrajudicial assassinations, and unlike Battlestar, he has reconciled this with his image as a hero, in fact feeling entitled to admiration because of his violence. And it's very possible that several of his medals are for war crimes.

John Walker being a protagonist isn't a subversion, it's just pandering to the very thing Falcon and the Winter Soldier criticized. Walker, if he's on any path to redemption, will have to be humbled and likely turn on the government in favor of some other higher calling. And that means probably dying in the act.

marvelcomics222026-01-02 04:45

So, he wasn't treated as a 'random person', he was introduced as an acomplished member of the military who was capable, and they don't trash on his accomplishments, they trash on him as a person. Also, why would Sam know Walker beforehand? How many people in the military can you name? Also, Sam was dead for five years if you're forgetting about that. Also, while the entire cast of Thunderbolts\* are at the lowest (or very low) points in their lives, they move up a bit by the end of the movie when they find each other, but why would he get his family back?

Also, writers have free will and are allowed to do whatever they want in their stories, so even if they did hypothetically mocked military service (which TFATWS did not), then it shouldn't be an issue. It's the same as being critical of the corporations or AI. TFATWS respected John's career, but Sam and Bucky's issues with him stemmed from John Walker the person, not John Walker the soldier.