The Falcon & The Winter Soldier Villains: Everything You Need To Know

For any superhero story to exist, there needs to be a villain. It’s yin and yang and all that. For Marvel’s upcoming and highly anticipated Falcon & The Winter Soldier, there’s a few villains we’ve seen glimpses of over the past months through trailers and clips. While the first episode of the show will come out around 12:30 PM IST this Friday on Disney+Hotstar, here’s what we know bout the villains.

Baron Helmut Zemo

The overarching villain of the series appears to be this familiar face. Helmut Zemo was a former Colonel with the Sokovian Armed Forces whose entire family was killed in the Battle of Sokovia. Following this, he became a terrorist mastermind obsessed with destroying the Avengers for what happened.

Helmut Zemo, played by Daniel Brühl, was last scene in Captain America: Civil War, and the end of that film saw him captured by Black Panther and given to the Joint Counter Terrorist Centre to be imprisoned. Basically, he hates the Avengers because in his mind, they destroyed his homeland and killed his family.

We don’t know how he escaped, but we do know that he’s now got a cool new purple mask.

The Flag-Smashers

In the comics, Flag-Smasher is the name of a supervillain who is a frequent nemesis of Captain America. It’s the alter ego of Karl Morgenthau, a diplomat turned supervillain. However, it appears that the show has turned it into a group of anti-patriotic activists known as The Flag-Smashers, led by Karli Morgenthau (Erin Kellyman). From what we’ve seen in the trailers, she and her associates seem to possess super strength and agility, holding their own against Sam and Bucky, and even kicking away Cap’s shield. They might be super-soldiers, but then we still have no idea who created them.

US Agent

We know that Wyat Russell has been cast as John Walker aka US Agent. However, we only get a fleeting glimpse of him in the trailer – that too from behind – so we really don’t know whether he’ll be an ally or a nemesis. We know that following the presumed death of Steve Rogers, the U.S. government has chosen Walker as their next Captain America.

In the comics, he’s sometimes a Steve Rogers fan frustrated with the government, and other times he’s a ruthless thug. However, we don’t know enough about what he’ll be in the show.