The Falcon and the Winter Soldier: New Casting Info Hints At Huge Endgame Connection
It is not always that we see Marvel Studios sleep up like this. But this time it looks like they have. While the world is still reeling from the loss of Tony Stark aka Iron Man in Endgame, Disney and Marvel are hard at work creating the next generation of superheroes to take over the old ones. The Falcon and The Winter Soldier is a high budget action oriented series featuring two very popular superheroes from the Avengers – Sam Wilson aka the Falcon and Bucky Barnes aka the Winter Soldier. As the release date for the Disney+ series draws near, more and more critical information has come to light. On such leak has confirmed a mutual point of contact between the series and the larger Marvel Cinematic Universe.
The connection is rather simple yet elegant. The Falcon and the Winter Soldier will be an espionage centric series that will take the heroes to the criminal underworld of the MCU. As a result, they will face many unknown foes throughout their journey. One such foe will be a particular criminal empire very infamous in Japan.
Yes, we are talking about the Yakuza.
The Yakuza made their first appearance in Avengers: Endgame. The very first few scenes of the movie saw Black Widow tracking down the rogue Avenger Hawkeye, who then went by the name Ronin. Ronin was found in Japan, hunting down powerful and dangerous members of the Yakuza. The Yakuza were not seen after Ronin left with Natasha for the Avengers HQ.
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Looks like the Yakuza will be seen again in action in the upcoming Marvel Studios TV Series. A particular reddit user who goes by the name /u/littvinny was quick to spot some new additions to the cast section of The Falcon and The Winter Soldier IMDB Page. Tow members were added to the cast and crew – a “Yakuza Bike Rider” (Leon Ngo) and ”Yakuza Gang Member” (Kawui Joa). The additions were done for the third episode of the series.
What does this mean though? The Avengers tend to leave a pretty big mess for the world to clean up after them. Take Sokovia after the Age of Ultron movie or New York after the Battle of New York for example. Someone is always given the burden of clearing up their mess. Maybe that is why the Yakuza is featured in the third episode’s cast. Falcon and Winter Soldier will be tasked with clearing up Hawkeye/Ronin’s mess after Avengers: Endgame.
Set photos from the show have revealed that the Marvel Comic Book Super Villain known as Ogun will be a part of the villains’ roster of the show. Ogun is closely associated with the Yakuza in the comic books and have been involved in managing their international operations. He is also known to act as the Yakuza’s Chief Enforcer. Although Ogun and the Yakuza are well-known enemies of the X-Man Wolverine, this will be the first time we see a traditional Fox Studios property trade fists with characters belonging to Walt Disney.
For now, the Yakuza connection does leave a lot of open doors for the series to move about. The reference is cool. Maybe we can expect Hawkeye to make a cameo appearance as well? Or will it be asking too much??
