At the end of Avengers: Endgame, an elderly Steve Rogers gave the shield and mantle of Captain America to Sam Wilson, sparking the events of The Falcon and the Winter Soldier.

However, there are several fans (myself included) who believe that Bucky Barnes would've made a better fit for the mantle, because although Sam and Bucky are both fan-favorite characters, the narrative framework of the MCU did a lot of work in establishing the strength of Steve's friendship with Bucky and provided several indications that they were building up Bucky's eventual claiming of the title. As a result, Sam receiving the shield instead made no narrative sense, and resulted in The Falcon and the Winter Soldier being a controversial entry in Phase 4 of the MCU.

The show not only denied Bucky the payoff that he deserved after over ten years of narrative buildup but sidelined his character's arc (to the point that he had almost no arc at all) and just made him the butt of a series of unfunny jokes at his expense, making Sam seem extremely unlikeable to me. In addition, if he had received the shield, The Falcon and the Winter Soldier could have actually analyzed the legacy of Steve Rogers through the characters of John Walker and Baron Zemo, rather than using characters like the Flag-Smashers to force nonsensical racial politics that only exist to further Disney's agenda, rather than further the logical story of the MCU's narrative framework.

Bucky's future at the moment is extremely cloudy and uncertain. Even his actor, Sebastian Stan, is unsure when or if he will return. If you are going to bring him back, please give him the mantle of Captain America, or at the very least, have him share the mantle with Sam Wilson.

I ask this because I love the character of Bucky Barnes a great deal, and I want to see him rise to the heights he enjoyed in Captain America: The Winter Soldier and Captain America: Civil War.