Torres Might Turn Into [SPOILER] by the End of 'The Falcon and the Winter Soldier'

Spoiler Alert: This article contains spoilers for the first episode of The Falcon and the Winter Soldier.

Disney+ is becoming a successful mode of expanding the Marvel side characters’ backstories. After the success of WandaVision, we’re going to explore Captain America’s best friends, Sam (Anthony Mackie) and Bucky (Sebastian Stan). They’re headlining the new series, The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, but they’re not the only main characters. Torres seems to be an important character in the series, so who is he?

Torres, played by Danny Ramirez, has come on strong immediately. In fact, Torres had a bigger part in the premiere episode of The Falcon and the Winter Soldier than the Winter Soldier himself. Torres must be pretty important, but how important is he to the wider MCU?

So far, we’ve met First Lieutenant Torres as a sidekick to Sam Wilson for a rescue mission, and Torres was loving it. We also learned that Torres is doing his own side mission to break up a group of online terrorists called the Flag-Smashers, which doesn’t go so well. Torres looks to his new mentor, Falcon, for help.

Although we haven’t yet learned Torres’ first name, we can assume he is taking on the role of Joaquin Torres from the Marvel comic books. In the comic book series, Torres is the center of a much-needed immigrant story. He comes to America with his mother and grandmother when he’s only 6 years old. However, as he got older, he wanted to make a difference and tried to help families also crossing the border.

While he did this with the best intentions, there are naturally evil people in the world who have the worst intentions. One group of those people was the Sons of the Serpent, a group dedicated to experimenting on people trying to cross the border. Torres was caught by them, and their experimentation led to a painful transformation that resulted in Torres becoming a vampire and falcon hybrid.

It doesn’t seem like Torres’ same backstory will necessarily come into play here, but it is possible he’ll take on a Falcon role. In the comic books, Sam Wilson decides to take on the role of Captain America, which leaves room for Torres to become the Falcon and the new Captain’s official sidekick. It seems like The Falcon and the Winter Soldier is setting up this same plotline for the MCU.

So, who plays Torres in The Falcon and the Winter Soldier? He’s portrayed by the up-and-coming actor Danny Ramirez. Danny doesn’t have a huge breadth of credits under him, but that’s because he’s at the forefront of a hopefully long and fruitful career. We might recognize him from his recurring role as Mario Martinez in Netflix’s On My Block.

He’s also in Top Gun: Maverick, and appeared in an episode of Orange Is the New Black. But if Torres is as important as we think he is, this is sure to be a major breakout role for 28-year-old Danny, even paving the way for him to appear in Marvel movies.

We’re not sure if Danny has a girlfriend, and if he does, they’re not very public about it. However, Danny is very open about who he’s friends with, and has run in the same circles as Maude Apatow, Suki Waterhouse, and Lukas Gage. He also seems to be an avid reader, who reads everything from anti-racism texts to Joan Didion to bell hooks. 

It’s already looking like Danny is going to literally soar in his new role as Torres.

Stream new episodes of The Falcon and the Winter Soldier on Disney+, releasing every Friday.