Sabra All Alone

Remember when Marvel said that they were introducing Sabra in Captain America: Brave New World? Remember the backlash? And remember how they said they’d be revamping the character’s origin? They were true to their word.

It’s been revealed that Sabra, a Mossad agent in the comics, is having a makeover for her debut. She’d be played by Shira Haas, but she’d no longer be a Mossad agent. Sabra’s new origin would be a former Black Widow operative. From Soviet Russia. Cue my rage.

I know some of you might be confused; after all, Sabra was never subtle about her Zionism, and that often led her to be mismanaged. Additionally, Israel’s reputation is in the pits because of the Gaza war, a war they never wanted. Having a Mossad operative in a mainstream movie wouldn’t bode well, so it makes sense that Marvel would change it. But while that works for The Mandarin, with Sabra it returns to an issue The MCU has had with Jewish superheroes. It also highlights a bigger issue that’s frequently plagued superhero movies.

Superheroes are a largely Jewish invention in Western comics. It makes sense, as many early comic writers and illustrators were Jewish. And for characters like Superman and The Thing, it was a core aspect of their identities. There’s a reason Superman’s Kryptonian name, Kal-El, was so integral: like the Hebrew from which it originates, Superman was the voice of God on Earth. Essentially, he was a Moses stand-in.

Sabra’s another character who’s quintessentially Jewish. Like Magneto being a Holocaust survivor, Sabra being Israeli’s part-and-parcel of her personality. You can’t separate that. Whether or not she needs to be Mossad’s debatable, but there’s no Sabra without her being Israeli. Even her name’s slang for an Israeli, being the Hebrew word for “cactus”. This isn’t disputable.

By changing Sabra’s origin, you scrub her character completely. It also doesn’t help that many characters have lost their Jewishness when brought to The MCU. Or if they haven’t, like with Moon Knight, their Jewishness was usurped by non-Jewish actors playing them. And being Jewish isn’t something you can turn off. Like being trans, it can’t be mimicked with no life experience. Sabra becoming a Soviet spy, therefore, is whitewashing. It’s as bad as The Ancient One being a white, English woman, pedigree be damned.

There’s an even more upsetting implication with her specific origin. While Jews exist in Russia, Russia…hasn’t been kind to them historically. Specifically, Soviet Russia attempted to eradicate their cultural and religious identity, even torturing Refuseniks in the 70’s and 80’s following the revival of Zionism. Soviet Russia’s why many Russian Jews who escaped didn’t have a strong Jewish identity, and having Sabra as yet another Soviet spy further plays into that. It’s also not terribly creative.

To further explain why this is a problem, let’s use another minority character fans felt received the short end of the stick: Kamala Khan, or Ms. Marvel. In the comics, Ms. Marvel was an Inhuman who could use her stretchy hands to fight foes. In The MCU, however, her powers were changed to energy beams, and she was made a Jinn. People were angry; after all, why change her character? And to something many Muslims considered evil?

While I liked the end result of Kamala Khan’s change, questionable and all, she retained core features of her identity. She was Pakistani-American, she was a Muslim teenager and she had her famous bangle that tied her to her grandmother. She wasn’t stretchy anymore, but she was identifiably Kamala Khan. She was still the essence of her comic book character. That wasn’t lost.

Sabra as a Soviet spy, however, loses her identity completely. It also misses the point. It’s not like Taskmaster or M.O.D.O.K., both being drastic changes that filled their purposes narratively. It’s also not like what The MCU did to The Mandarin, updating him to erase the racist components. No, this is ruining a character to appease people who wouldn’t have been happy anyway. How do you appease those who don’t acknowledge Israelis as people?

You could argue that Sabra was always a bad character. I’d argue that Kang the Conqueror was worse, and his inclusion as The MCU’s the next big baddie was eyebrow-raising initially. But Jonathan Majors, up until his skeletons were made public, made it work, imbuing menace while not neglecting the character’s humanity. He made Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania a much better movie when on-screen. Sabra, for all her issues, could’ve been the same.

But Marvel chickened out, caving to criticism and butchering Sabra completely. By doing so, they not only ruined her, they made her worse by attaching her history to a regime that tried erasing Judaism. If you don’t get why that’s an issue, then I clearly can’t change your mind. But it’s a problem. And it’s another example of whitewashing a Jewish character.

This isn’t to disparage the movie, which isn’t out, or Haas’s portrayal, which I haven’t seen. For all we know, Haas could steal the show. She’s not a bad actress, going by Shtissel, and I desperately want people to like her. Plus, she’s young! And The MCU needs more new blood! If Captain America: Brave New World is a hit, it could skyrocket her career!

At the same time, I wish her portrayal of Sabra would get the respect it deserves. This includes making her Israeli. It’s possible she could pull a Wanda Maximoff and become like her comic book counterpart overtime, so I shouldn’t shut her out altogether. But as it currently stands, I’m not sold on this being a good decision. It actively upsets me, if anything!

So yeah, I’m not happy by this change, even if I understand why it happened. But hey, maybe I’m alone?