This has been the pattern from the very first Disney Marvel shows (and continues in the Daredevil abomination they hijacked from Netflix). I went into the first shows, Falcon & the Winter Soldier, and Wandavision (I don't drink coffee or use amphetamines, so I was unable to make it through an episode of Loki) in good faith, liking all four title characters.
Wandavision had Wanda enslave a town full of innocent bystanders, compelling them to live out supporting roles in her fantasy life of being married to Jarvis and raising kids. When a government agent tried to investigate why the town stopped answering its phones, she was briefly engulfed in the mind control, before Wanda caught on and expelled her at high velocity in such a fashion as would result in fatal or paralyzing injuries, had the writers a better comprehension of combat and physics than your typical middle-aged spinster Lit or Drama major. In the end, Wanda gave up her delusion, including her imaginary children, and quailing at the stares of the townspeople who had been aware the whole time (at one point, one of them pleads with Wanda to let their children, at least go free), she is comforted by the government agent (black, female, BTW) who tells her "they'll never know what you sacrificed for them." The show really believes that Wanda was justified, and that her surrendering the pretend life which was built on the ongoing mind-rape of dozens, if not hundreds, of innocent bystanders, was actually a noble sacrifice. At one point, another government agent, inexplicably depicted as a villain (guess what skin color & sex that agent is, uniquely among all the LEOs shown investigating this phenomenon), is confronting Wanda with tactical team, and justifies his "belligerent" posture by pointing out that she has taken a town hostage, to which our hero snaps "You're the one with the guns." And this is treated as a legit smackdown by the narrative.
Falcon & the Winter Soldier, had the government appoint a new Captain America and give him Steve's shield, after Sam decided he did not want it (this US military veteran thinks it was offensive of Steve to ask him, as a black man, to carry a shield representing America, and Bucky apologizes for agreeing with Steve and supporting his bequest at the time). This new guy, John Walker, is a military hero and three time Medal of Honor winner. He is portrayed as respectful of Steve, and deferential to Sam & Bucky, and grappling with his inadequacy to follow in Steve's footsteps, despite winning three more Medals of Honor, and almost certainly serving for longer than the 3 years America fought in the ETO of WW2, much of which Steve spent fundraising with showgirls. Eventually, despite the risks, he takes the serum which was used to give Steve his powers, and which has now been replicated.
Throughout the show, Sam and Bucky's attitude to the new Captain America ranges from dismissive to contemptuous to hostile, as he and his best friend & partner, Lamar, repeatedly ask for their help fighting a terrorist group. It culminates with the terrorists, who were similarly enhanced by the serum (John got his dose by confiscating it from them), murdering Lamar, and John chasing them down. He catches one, who smashes a concrete planter on the shield, before John kills him in a scene staged to recall Steve's final fight with Tony in Civil War. Except the terrorist has superhuman strength, instead of a suit of armor that can be disabled by smashing the glowing target in his chest, so John's blows with the edge of the shield to his chest have to kill the terrorist before he stops. A crowd films it on their cell phones, there are dramatic shots of the shield "stained" with blood, and John is subsequently branded a murderer. He killed a multiple murderer in the heat of combat, who was still struggling and could not be restrained or safely taken into custody. The narrative & Disney shills try to argue that the terrorist was surrendering, since his hands were "up" but only because he was lying on his back, flailing at the opponent on top of him, much as Tony's hands were up when Steve was on top of him, pounding the same shield into his chest.
After Sam & Bucky break John's arm to take the shield away (conveniently forgetting all the men Steve killed with it, most of them ordinary humans without powers or enhancements, and in at least one case, staggering dazed by gas) John is fired as Captain America and stripped of his military pension. He makes himself a new shield, and attaches his medals to the inside, to remind himself of them while in combat, and goes after the terrorists. At the climax of the final episode, with several politicians who are the terrorists' target trapped in a paddywagon, the lead terrorist drives it to the edge of a precipice and bails out. Bucky is below (safely & responsibly, unlike John, beating on a terrorist with an I-beam) and can only look up as the van starts to slide over the edge toward him, when suddenly it stops as John's battered homemade shield comes tumbling down. John threw aside the shield with his medals, to save the van full of victims (who were also his political persecutors), rather than pursue his revenge against his partner's killers, and while he is struggling to pull it back, the terrorists attack him, forcing him to try fighting them off with one hand, until they pull him off by tackling him over the edge. The van continues to teeter over the edge until Sam flies up in a new, patriotically-painted Falcon armor suit with advanced Wakandan technology (three guesses whether or not they would ever give John what they gave Sam, and why) and catches the forward bumper and starts pushing it up. The music is stirring and triumphant as Sam groans and bellows like he is overcoming gravity through sheer willpower, and his actual body or muscles are doing this, instead of the propulsion system of his backpack. The gathering crowd of black people cheer as they film this with cell phones. Bucky give a big, beaming smile, where he merely observed, stone-faced, John's initial effort to save the same people.
The villains on that show are called "The Flag Smashers". They are a group of young Eurotrash, who came of age in the lustrum after Thanos turned half the population to dust. Raised by electronic devices, these empathy-deprived children grew up thinking everything was theirs for the taking, looting the possessions of the dead people and squatting in their homes. But now that the Avengers have restored them to life, these scavengers are being turfed out and their stolen property returned to their rightful owners. The politicians in charge of sorting everything out and making provisions for the trespassers now-displaced Blip survivors are not moving with sufficient alacrity, so they turned to terrorism, using the Captain America serum and attacking the international relief efforts, including blowing up buildings, and the political commission in charge of it. Those political figures were the people who were in the van John and Sam saved (they were also the committee who fired John for some reason).
The leading terrorist is named Karli and is played by Erin Kellyman, a mixed race actor Disney has been pushing on the world since she reached adulthood. She first appeared in "Solo" as the leader of the thieves who were constantly harassing Han Solo & Woody Harrelson, stealing their take and inciting the anger of the mob boss for whom Han & co were compelled to carry out jobs, and causing the death of Woody's wife and his pilot buddy. In the confrontation near the climax, she dramatically pulls off her mask to reveal her pale, freckly, African-featured face like that, and that alone was supposed to inform our opinions about her. Like, up to that point, we view her as an antagonist and a bad guy because of all the death and mortal danger she is causing the character we came to the movie to see, but when we see she is a young woman, possibly when we see she is not strictly white, we are supposed to suddenly change our minds and sympathize? It's fucking Star Wars, not the deep South! There is no reason to assume IRL racial politics apply. Pre-Disney, the most prominent black people in Star Wars were the guy in charge of Bespin, the top military officer(s) of Naboo, and the highest-ranking Master in the Jedi Order. Are we supposed to assume that African features mean Enfys Nest is automatically oppressed and worthy of support? After F&tWS, Kellyman also had a prominent role in "Willow" before Disney memory-holed that show, and I can only assume scheduling conflicts kept her from appearing in the last Indiana Jones movie to complete the set of Disney IP defilements.
Like with Solo, the Disney authorities are so enthralled with Kellyman that they expect audiences to automatically take her character's side, regardless of the violence, murders and the-more-you-know-the-less-you-like cause she espouses. After she and her fellow terrorists are blown up by Zemo, Falcon, in full robo-winged regalia, carries her body Pieta-style to the politicians, an angel confronting the indifferent or apathetic with the corpse of a martyr to make them face the consequences of their failure, and he proceeds to reprimand them for calling Karli & her ilk terrorists, blame them for her crimes, and talks over or dismisses their points that the whole situation and the disputes are complicated, by pointing out how much power they have, and they should just give everyone whatever they ask for, demand that they "do better" and cloaks his ignorance of the specifics by pointing out that he is Black.
Later, in the Thunderbolts movie, John's backstory is summed up as "you killed an innocent man" and his defense is a tacit concession as he replies "define innocent." He is called "a piece of shit" by the main character in a context of her telling him a harsh truth, and the nadir of his personal failure is that with his child in a crib literally a foot away from him, and perfectly fine, he was looking at his phone, thereby being an abusively neglectful father, causing his wife to leave him. She's totally not abandoning him because life is less fun when your husband is no longer a celebrity and is sad about his best friend's murder.
John Walker is a selfless hero, who is treated by the narrative like a violent, hateful thug, shamed for non-existent crimes, that not even his critics claim had any selfish motive or evil intent, accusing him of being vengeful (over the murder minutes before, of his best friend, in the same ongoing combat operation) or afflicted by drugs (he took to succeed in his mission).
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