As news about the “Captain America: Brave New World” production was first coming out back in 2022, some fans were concerned about the addition of the character Ruth Bat-Seraph, also known as Sabra (played by Shira Haas). In the comics, Sabra is an Israeli superhero working on behalf of Israel’s national intelligence agency, Mossad. The character’s comics have often been accused of perpetuating stereotypes about Arabs and glorifying the Israeli government’s actions throughout the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Sabra’s addition to the franchise seemed at best an awkward fit, giving Disney’s general tendency towards avoiding serious, heated conflicts.
In a recent interview with The National, “Captain America” producer Nate Moore has clarified what this new live-action version of Sabra will be: “She’s Israeli, but she’s not Mossad. Now she works in the U.S. government.” He elaborated further:
“What we thought was interesting was a lot of the characters in the film revolve around President Thaddeus Ross [Harrison Ford] … Ruth works within the government under Ross, so her perspective on that character and Sam’s perspective sort of put them on a collision course. She’s first-generation Israeli, but she works within the U.S. government.”
Sabra is no longer a mutant like she was in the comics
Moore also clarified that Sabra, who commonly fought alongside the X-Men as a fellow mutant in the comics, is not a mutant in the upcoming movie. Instead, she’ll be a former Black Widow agent, with a backstory similar to what we saw with Scarlett Johansson’s Black Widow in her 2021 solo film. This means Sabra will no longer have her comic powers, such as her super strength or superhuman speed.
Moore stressed that these changes to Sabra’s character had little to do with any pushback from pro-Palestine or pro-Israel groups. Instead, they were due to what the creators believed would best fit the movie and help the character better integrate into the Marvel Cinematic Universe. He elaborated on Marvel’s general approach to adapting comic characters to live-action:
“We try to take the essence of a character but reinterpret it in a way that we find interesting … When we made the ‘Black Widow’ movie, we realized there was an opportunity to connect that mythology to characters that we thought were interesting and maybe didn’t want to translate as one-to-one from publishing…The Ruth Bat-Seraph you meet in the film has very much, I would argue, the attitude of the character from publishing, but the backstory is different.”
“Captain America: Brave New World” hits theaters on February 14, 2025.
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