Captain America Shield Smash

Editor's Note: This entry contains spoilers for Falcon and the Winter Soldier; read at your own caution.

About

Captain America Shield Smash refers to a moment in the fourth episode of the Disney+ series The Falcon and the Winter Soldier that began airing in 2021. The character performing the action, referred to as New Captain America, is meant to be a replacement for the original Captain America, who retired at the end of Avengers: Endgame. This incident, among a few others during the show, has been memed by fans for their uncharacteristic behavior of the Captain America figure.

Origin

Halfway through season one, episode four, John (the new Captain America in the MCU) manages to find himself in possession of some super-soldier serum and uses it on himself in secret. When his partner is killed in a confrontation, John snaps and physically assaults a member on the antagonist's side, killing him using Captain America's own shield. The meme in question is a moment directly before and after the shield slam. Before he beings his unrelenting assault, John raises the shield into a striking position and has a look of rage in his eyes. After the murder, which was caught on camera by a crowd of onlookers in the show, he stands there with the shield attached to his right wrist as blood drips off it (still image of scene below).

The same day the episode was released, memes referencing Captain America's shield slam began appearing online. The best example of the complete scene is found in the meme posted to the /r/MarvelMemes^[1] subreddit by Redditor g_manas (shown below).

Spread

Since his debut, John Walker's Captain America has been highly controversial online. Fans typically view Walker's character as either a bad and hated character or an actor playing a hated character too well. Memes about both parts of his heinous act spread fast on Reddit in the following days after its premiere.

On April 9th, 2021, Redditor^[2] Jake_Marek posted an early example of a reaction to the surprise turn of events, garnering 379 upvotes in five days (shown below).

Because this character exists in the MCU, some fans have used this opportunity to insert him into previous moments in the franchise. This was exemplified with a meme posted by Redditor Torren7ial on April 14th, 2021, to the /r/marvelmemes^[3] subreddit that received 43 upvotes in 24 hours. In the meme, John Walker is contrasted with the previous Captain America, and voice lines from Avengers: Infinity War are used (shown below).

Various Examples

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Search Interest

External References