In the comics, Steve finally steps back in and reclaims the mantle of Cap. The new Captain America has shown his true colors to the world, and perhaps permanently tarnished a once sacred image of American power and righteousness. Either way, the end result looks to be the same. Like many characters, Walker doesn't maintain a secret identity in the MCU, so The Falcon and the Winter Soldier instead uses the death of Battlestar as the incident that pushes Walker to cross an unforgivable line. Though in the comics, that incident comes when his secret identity is publicly outed, leading to the murder of his parents. Just as in the MCU, Walker is eventually driven over the edge by the death of a loved one. At one point he even accidentally beats a villain named Professor Power to death, proving super-strength and a violent temper are a bad combination. Despite being physically stronger than Steve and benefitting from world class training from the likes of Taskmaster, Walker finds himself increasingly torn between his sense of duty, his desire to live up to the mantle and his darker tendencies. If there's one takeaway from Walker's tenure as Cap in the comics, it's that the powers don't make the hero. Where Steve is loyal to the American Dream, not the US government, Walker is fanatically patriotic and only too happy to answer the call of duty. We've already taken a deep dive into Walker's comic book background, but the gist is that he temporarily took over the mantle of Captain America after Steve Rogers abandoned it in Captain America #333. John Walker's DownfallWhile some of the details have changed in the transition from page to screen, John Walker's basic character arc has (so far) proven very similar in both versions.

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