The concept of Captain America as an identity used to inspire the people of the Marvel Universe has spread beyond the original holder of the mantle. In the core Marvel Universe, multiple people have worn the title for good and for ill, and the Marvel Cinematic Universe has just introduced Sam Wilson as the new torch-bearer in the final episode of The Falcon & The Winter Soldier.
But in many possible futures of the Marvel Universe, there’s a consistent (and impressive) figure who seems almost fated to take up the mantle and become a leader of the Avengers — Dani Cage, the daughter of two major New York City heroes. How has Marvel teased that this young girl will one day become a leading member of the Avengers?
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Danielle Cage is the daughter of New York City heroes Luke Cage and Jessica Jones. After circling each other romantically in Alias, the pair began a formal relationship upon discovering she was pregnant. The two have slowly become one of the Marvel Universe’s most prominent heroic couples, with Danielle still a young girl in the present day. However, potential futures that have been teased for the Marvel Universe suggest a remarkably bright future for the young woman, with many alternate universe versions of Dani being teased to eventually take up the mantle of Captain America.
Perhaps the most prominent is the version of Danielle who hails from the reality known as Year 20XX. A reality where half of the superhero population fell in battle against an empowered Thanos, Dani rose up to take her parents place in the world as a heroic figure. She donned the costume of Captain America, and gained her own version of the classic shield (as the original one had been lost in the battle against Thanos). Working alongside a future incarnation of the Avengers known as the A.V.E.N.G.E.R.S. Initative — and largely working under the orders of Madame Natasha, her world’s version of Black Widow — Dani became a dependable incarnation of Captain America.
This version of Dani has interacted with the core-Marvel Universe version of the Avengers, fighting a time-displaced team of heroes in Avengers: Ultron Forever and traveling to the past in an attempt to alter it in U.S.Avengers. In these occasions, it becomes clear that Dani has not only taken up the mantle of inspiration that comes with being Captain America, but has also become a dependable and recognized field leader of her band of heroes. Still, this isn’t the only version of Dani Cage who’s been shown to grow up to become Captain America. The Year 20XX version of Dani revealed to the heroes of Earth-616 that she’d encountered other multiversal versions of herself over the years, all of whom took up the mantle of Captain America in some form — suggesting Dani becoming a major hero is almost her ultimate fate.
This extends to other alternate futures glimpsed in Unbeatable Squirrel Girl, as well as Dani being one of the heroes captured by Doom and eventually released in the reality featured in “Old Woman Laura.” She also appeared as a hero in the future recently visited by Captain Marvel. Even in the desolate wasteland reality that was home to Old Man Logan, Dani was a hero. In that reality, a coalition of villains banded together and ambushed the superheroes en masse, wiping out most of the heroes in one fell swoop and ushering in a chaotic and brutal era. In this possible future, Dani remained a beacon of hope, fighting alongside the rest of the Avengers of the Wasteland and even eventually proving worthy enough to claim the fallen Thor’s Mjolnir, transforming her into the new God of Thunder in this reality.
Even as Thor, Dani recalls elements of Captain America, including her innate nobility making her (like Steve Rogers before her) worthy to lift the hammer. It speaks to her likely destiny to follow in her parents’ heroic footsteps and suggests that even in the core-Marvel Universe, Dani Cage might someday become a future wielder of the shield.