After being pushed to his limits during that epic battle with Thanos in Avengers: Endgame, Captain America's shield was shattered by the Mad Titan. However, when Steve Rogers returned to the present day as an old man, he had a repaired version of the iconic weapon ready to present to Sam Wilson.
While by no means completely redesigned, the shield has been overhauled with some alterations to the star and a line running through the silver ring. We'd assumed the changes were a result of it being rebuilt, but in an interview with Phase Zero, Marvel Studios Prop Master Russell Bobbitt shared some insights into why the shield looked so different in The Falcon and The Winter Soldier.
"My attitude was and the way I saw it, and the way I interpreted it was, 'I’m handing off the torch. I’m passing the torch. I’ve made some improvements. I want you to run with this. It’s your shield, it’s not mine,'" he explained. "Now, that’s one guy’s interpretation. Hopefully, a lot of other people saw it the same way. But that’s kind of in a nutshell where [Marvel] went with it."
"That motivation just came from the director. He said, 'Let's change it up.; Kevin [Feige] was on board obviously when old Captain America hands off the shield, that’s when we introduced it. Knowing that there would be more to come as we saw in Falcon and the Winter Soldier."
The changes made to Cap's shield are minor, though we do wonder if there's a story to be told about its repair. After all, it's crafted from Vibranium, so it can't have been easy for Steve to fix up.
Whether that tale is ever recounted remains to be seen, but it does make sense for some updates to have been made ready for the new Captain America to wield the shield in battle. John Walker got to use it for a time, of course, but as U.S. Agent, we're expecting him to get his own shield somewhere down the line. As for Anthony Mackie's Cap, he'll take centre stage in the upcoming Captain America 4.