Captain America fans can look forward to a much tougher Sharon Carter.
As she’s prepared to make her return to the MCU in the Falcon and the Winter Soldier, showrunner Malcolm Spellman shares how Emily VanCamp’s secret agent has changed in the last several years. He also gave more insight into what motivates Daniel Bruhl’s Zemo.
Sharon in the MCU
In the comics, Sharon Carter was the younger sister (later changed to grand-niece) of Steve Roger’s WWII love Peggy Carter. Sharon and Steve fell in love themselves with various issues, including a long period where Steve believed Sharon was dead.
In Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Sharon is known as Agent 13, a SHIELD agent who poses as Steve’s next-door neighbor. When Hydra is revealed to have infiltrated SHIELD, Sharon aids in fighting them off.
Civil War had Steve attending Peggy’s funeral to discover Sharon was her grand-niece. She aids Steve when he’s on the run, and the pair kiss.
An early script for Infinity War would have shown Sharon and Steve now in a relationship. It was cut as VanCamp was too busy filming her TV medical drama The Resident.
Sharon’s new role
According to producers, Sharon was among the billions turned to dust by Thanos in “The Blip” and only recently returned after five years. She’s naturally thrown to learn how Steve elected to stay in an alternate past to be with Peggy.
The actress talked to Good Housekeeping about how she hopes to finally bring some closure to how Sharon feels about this world without Steve.
“When we see her now, she’s a little rough around the edges. She’s been on the run, she’s had to take care of herself, she mentions that in Civil War that she has to disappear for a little while, and I think here we get a little sense of what she’s been up to and how she’s had to fend for herself and make her own way in this new world. It’s a very, very different Sharon … You can imagine that there’s a little bitterness there.”
Speaking to the AV Club, Spellman confirmed that the experience has hardened Sharon, who’s now an independent operative and has a new attitude.
The character that turned into the most fun was Sharon Carter, because Emily [VanCamp] has such a baby face. She looks very sweet and innocent, but Sharon Carter is going to emerge as a badass. I’d have to use far more inappropriate language to describe how awesome she is. Let’s just say this: Sharon Carter is all grown up now. I guess what made it so fun was we started getting to know Sharon in Captain America: Civil War, and you just factor in what would have naturally happened between Civil War and now and you get a whole different Sharon Carter showing up.
Early concept art shows Sharon now wearing a uniform much like her current comic book look as she helps Sam and Bucky on their quest to stop Helmut Zemo.
Zemo’s motives
Speaking of which, Spellman delved deeper into how Zemo is taking advantage of the chaos of the world following “the Blip” and driven by his own motives.
In the MCU, Zemo’s backstory is that his family was killed during Ultron’s attack on Sokovia, which he blamed on the Avengers. Zemo now feels that those heroes are just as responsible for not stopping Thanos and causing five years of agony for Earth.
It’s funny. The Zemo character is going to lend a lot of voice to that. You can see what he thinks of it. Obviously, all of us are channeled through him a little bit in that Zemo sees all of them as supremacists, and he thinks that people who are endowed with abilities that are extraordinary—like law enforcement or in this case, heroes—are inherently going to abuse their power, and he has a damn good reason to think that. They destroyed his country by using his city as a bomb and killed his entire family along with everyone he knew.
The showrunners have already noted how Zemo sees himself as the “hero” of the story, making him a more dangerous foe. This includes now donning a mask to match his comic book counterpart.
While they’re naturally tight-lipped on more details to keep up the surprises, Spellman states that the former Agent 13 is going to be a lot tougher when she finally rejoins the MCU.
The Falcon and the Winter Soldier streaming new episodes every Friday on Disney+.