American Duty

SCI-FACT! In comics, Baron Zemo is one of Captain America’s greatest WW2 foes, but he never appeared in the original 1940s stories.

NOW STREAMING ON DISNEY+, THE FALCON And The Winter Soldier sees Marvel’s Phase Four kick into political thriller mode. Red Alert speaks to writer Malcolm Spellman, director Kari Skogland and stars Anthony Mackie and Sebastian Stan about superhero fantasy in a fractured America…

What was the biggest responsibility when you began writing this show?

It starts with the last scene and that’s a traumatising thing to step into. Like, “Hey, Mac, it all amounts to this one moment, go ahead, pick it up from here!” It took me a second to shake off the jitters about that. You walk into the Marvel offices and there are statues of Iron Man’s armour and Thor’s real hammer, and you feel it. If you love those movies, you feel that pressure. So the biggest stresser for me was feeling, “I’m gonna be the guy that is part of taking Marvel into this next phase…”