USAgent

You loved America's ass, now get ready for America's taint! After being stripped of the Captain America title, John F. Walker's spirit is broken and he takes on a new mantle: US Agent. Yeah, and the "F" in "John F. Walker" stands for "total f*ckstick." He was originally given the Captain America job despite the fact that he was already suffering from some sublimated PTSD; though he repeatedly played humble and insisted he was just trying to do his best, he let the role and the praise go to his head, refusing to accept help or advice from better men; he was insecure, prone to violent outbursts, condescending, and prideful verging on vain, with an ego as fragile as spun glass. But hey, none of that matters, because he's likely to follow orders, right? That's all that counts? Total shocker that turned out badly. USAgent isn't just "what if Captain America was a Republican," he's "what if toxic masculinity was a person". Chris Evans was famously self-conscious about the way his ears looked sticking out from the Captain America helmet, but Wyatt Russell proves he needn't have worried: Cap looked fine in it, USAgent looks like a total yokel. This is an accurate sculpt, meaning he looks dumb, but they did great work layering the mask and face to create the illusion of depth. The USAgent uniform is the same one Walker wore as Cap, just black instead of blue. In fact, it looks better in black than it did in blue. The cut is an evolution of Steve Rogers' suits, though his stripes run horizontally rather than vertically (just as they do on the comic costume). He's still got pads on his elbows and knees, and a utility belt, plus a gun holstered on his right thigh. Yes, just holstered there - we'll get to that more in a bit. His logo is a nice combo of a star and a capital A, which suggests the US Government has some decent graphic designers on staff. Considering how long ago Falcon & Winter Solder began production, it's weird that the toy still gets the costume colors wrong. Did I say "weird"? I meant "super disappointng." The show's USAgent costume looked great. It was one of the best comic-to-screen translations there's been, copying everything important but ditching the flared boots and gloves. The toy gets the red stripes all over the place, but is missing the white. See those red bars on his chest? They should be white, and the red should be the part that's black. How'd they miss that? Another big flaw? No accessories. We already said his gun was permanently sculpted into his leg, which is never fun. He also doesn't have a shield, because he didn't have a new one yet - this toy is based on a single scene that's about 30 seconds long. There's a hole in his back where a shield could be plugged in, if he had one. His right hand has the trigger finger extended, underscoring the lack of a gun, and his left is open slightly, as though he's meant to be holding the strap of a shield or something. We get fists to replace both of those, but if he's not going to have accessories, why have anything but fists in the first place? There had to be something they could do. USAgent comes with the tip of Falcon's left wing as his BAF piece. He's gotta hate that; there's no question John Walker is a "right wing" kind of guy. As much of a dickbag loser as Walker is, he can still be a decent, moral human being. After going a bit crazy, he reined it back in, choosing to save people rather than blindly persuing revenge (for once) and acknowledging Sam was a better Captain America than he would have been. They did a decent job of half-redeeming him so we don't totally hate him when they get around to making their "Dark Avengers" team or whatever it's going to be called. The figure's nice enough, but (in keeping with the theme of all these Disney+ Legends) he needs more dang accessories! -- 07/12/21

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