Captain America: Brave New World has had a couple of bumps along the road to release, but to Marvel’s credit, it’s done a decent job of withstanding them and changing course. For starters, Brave New World wasn’t even its original title, as it was changed once New World Order came under fire for its right-wing political connotations. In a similar vein, another politically charged element of the movie may also have been altered. Specifically, the origins of its most controversial character.
When Israeli superhero Sabra was announced to be part of the Julius Onah-directed film, as played by Shira Haas, there was outcry from some quarters as both Sabra’s depiction in the comics, and the depiction of her Palestinian enemies in those comics, has earned a lot of heated criticism. According to intel being shared by scooper CanWeGetSomeToast, however, Sabra will be a “CIA agent” in Brave New World and her political ties to Israel have been removed.
That’s a big change to the comics character, but rest assured that another aspect of Sabra on the page will most likely be retained. Another scooper, MyTimeToShineHello, waded into the conversation to tease that Sabra will still be a mutant in the MCU, just like her counterpart in the source material.
Marvel Studios is getting better at casually throwing mutant comic characters into the mix, such as Namor in Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, a tactic that is infinitely preferable to retconning non-mutant heroes into mutants (I’m looking at you, Kamala Khan). So Marvel might just have made the contentious character of Sabra work in a way that should appease pretty much everyone.
Captain America: Brave New World releases in just over a year’s time on July 26, 2024.