Connecting Imaginary Dots: ‘THE FALCON AND THE WINTER SOLDIER’ Might Introduce Isaiah Bradley to the MCU

If you’ve never read an installment of Connecting Imaginary Dots, allow me to explain the idea. Connecting Imaginary Dots was the title I came up with for my speculation pieces when I was writing at MCU Exchange. These types of pieces basically allow me to unload a bunch of junk that’s circulating in my brain in a way that should never be confused for things I actually expect to happen. I basically take a bunch of facts that are almost always entirely unrelated and do my best to connect the dots with by stretching my imagination. In the past these types of pieces have resulted in me theorizing that the Spider-Man sequel which became Far From Home might end up being a team-up outing of Spidey and Hulk in the Savage Land;however, I also wrote one theorizing that Sterling K. Brown would be playing the father of Erik Killmonger in Black Panther LOOOOOONG before anyone else was considering it and one in which I theorized that Annette Bening was actually Mar-Vell when everyone else still thought Jude Law was playing the character. The bottom line is this: these are fun spec pieces that allow me to just be a fan. With that out of the way…

A recent update to IMDB (which I am well aware can be unreliable) produced some information that, if true, could be considered incredibly interesting. The update indicated that actor Olli Haaskivi had joined the upcoming Disney Plus series The Falcon and The Winter Soldier as Dr. Wilfred Nagel.

If you find yourself asking who Dr. Wilfred Nagel is and why he might matter, don’t feel bad because he’s certainly not a popular character and not one that has accumulated a lot of appearances. First appearing in the 2003 limited series, Truth: Red, White and Black, he is however notable for one incredibly important thing: in an attempt to carry on the work of Project: Rebirth begun by Dr. Abraham Erskine, Nagel, under the alias Josef Reinstein, experimented on a group of 300 African-America soldiers, including one by the name of Isaiah Bradley.

Bradley, the only soldier to survive the trials, takes a Captain America costume and goes on a one man mission against the Nazis. The mission, unfortunately, fails and Bradley is captured and experimented on by the Nazis as they try to reverse engineer the new batch of Super Soldier serum. Though freed from his captors, Bradley is court-martialed and imprisoned for nearly 20 years before being pardoned. The legend of Bradley, the “Black Captain America”, however, had taken root in the Marvel Comics Universe and Bradley became well-known and respected in the African-American community.

Upon meeting Bradley, whose physical and mental states had deteriorated significantly, Steve Rogers began to learn more about Project: Rebirth.

If we are seeing Nagel, it seems very likely that he’s either there for the same reason he was introduced in the comics OR they’ve greatly altered his story and the MCU version will be responsible for production of the Super Soldier serum used by John Walker.

Here’s to hoping it’s the former. As fans know, if we get to meet Isaiah Bradley, his grandson Elijah might not be too far behind. And that’s another Young Avenger and…well, that’s another story.