In terms of the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s roster of super soldiers, David Harbour’s Red Guardian occupies the middle ground somewhere between Carl Lumbly’s Isaiah Bradley and Chris Evans’ Steve Rogers, which is an interesting way to position Russia’s only survivor of the experiments.
Similar to Isaiah, Alexei Shostakov was abandoned by the country who subjected him to the serum despite the successful results and numerous missions he was sent on, ultimately ending with him spending decades in prison. On the Steve Rogers side of the equation, Red Guardian suited up in a jingoistic costume and became something of a national hero, as evidenced by the action figure we see in Black Widow.
Alexei loves few things more than talking about Captain America, even if the veracity of his claims are heavily disputed given the established MCU timeline. Harbour wants to throw down against the MCU’s resident star-spangled superhero somewhere down the line, and we’re hearing from our sources – the same ones who told us the project was in development long before it was confirmed – that it could happen in Captain America 4.
Harbour is intent to make his presence felt in the MCU moving forward, and unless Kevin Feige wants to see him beat up an old man, then Sam Wilson is the version he’s most likely to cross paths with. We’ve been inundated with rumors about potential cameos, storylines and such for Captain America 4, but Black Widow already presented an easy way to parachute Red Guardian into Sam’s path given his borderline obsession with clinging on to those Cold War sentiments in an effort to prove that Russia’s super solider is far superior to his American counterpart.