Comics Rainbow - Captain America

Where do you start with a character like Captain America?  Originally created by legends of the medium Joe Simon & Jack Kirby Captain America is one of the longest running comic characters ever conceived, standing proudly alongside Batman, Superman, and Wonder Woman as one of the few heroes whose been part of the genre since its inception in the late ‘30s.  After a brief absence in the ‘50s followed by reintroduction into the burgeoning canon of Marvel comics Captain America has become one of the most dynamic and compelling heroes in the entire genre.  He’s been through innumerable changes in his epically long history and in recent years come to be almost the face of the superhero genre in a way that no one could’ve predicted. 

For decades the hero people thought of when they considered the iconic hero was Superman, Batman, Spider-Man, even Iron Man for a hot minute there in 2008 but now, at this moment in time, it’s hard to think of a superhero who better embodies the genre and the reason for its continued success and relevance.  And with his new film Civil War continuing that trend and having it’s trailer drop I’ve decided to look back over the full history of Captain America, in all it’s shades, shames, and successes.   

It’s impressive that a character as dopey as Nomad emerged from one of the best Captain America stories of all time, the so-called Secret Empire.  In it, Cap discovered that President Nixon was the leader of a secret Hydra-style evil organization, only for Nixon to choose suicide rather than accept his defeat at Cap’s hands.  I admit it sounds dopey now but at the time it was the first instance of any overtly political ideology seeping into Captain America’s mythos since his revival.  The idea of having him quit being Captain America over the revelations was a powerful statement but Nomad, as a replacement idea, was pretty much dead on arrival.  

Aside from the silly name and worse outfit (seriously, no one wanted open chest Captain America) it just wasn’t a very interesting exploration of Captain America without the America.  Mark Grunewald re-explored this idea during his run on Cap in the ‘70s with better results but that’s a discussion for a different color.  I won’t pretend Nomad’s stained reputation isn’t hinged heavily on his outfit but by the same token comics are a visual medium for a reason and if you don’t want your characters judged on their outfits then maybe comics aren’t quite the right medium.

I’ve spoken at length about the amazing comic Truth: Red, White, and Black chronicling the secret history of the Captain America program and trying to infuse the MCU overall with more historical parallels to the rampant racism and human rights violations that blighted the so-called “greatest generation.”  None of that is why Isaiah Bradley ranks my personal favorite Captain America, though it’s a compelling reason for why he’s one of the best iterations of the character ever conceived and the sooner Marvel figures out a way to get his story into the MCU the better, especially now that we’ve seen their willingness to address dark topics in Jessica Jones.  

No, the reason Isaiah Bradley is my favorite Captain America is because he’s the only Cap who was explicitly featured liberating concentration camps.  It’s always been sort of accepted that Steve Rogers got knocked out of World War 2 and into the ice before the long slog through Germany that accompanied allied discovery of the Nazi atrocities by for Bradley it’s intrinsic to his story.  The only time he actually got to run around and fight Nazis AS Captain America was liberating a death camp and it cost him dearly but he did because that’s what heroes do.

This is the most recent version of Steve Rogers and easily my least favorite though the one Marvel seems to be obstinately sticking with.  Basically what’s happened is that for reasons too complex to get into Captain America’s had all his super soldier juice sucked out of his body and reduced to a super old guy as a result.  However he still has amazing tactical knowledge because Marvel likes to insist a strong moral compass and using your fists for frontline combat is the same thing as being a strategist so now he leads the Avengers as old man Steve Rogers.  A big part of my complaints about this decision admittedly come from execution, old man Cap was a big part of this annoying run from Marvel where the emphasis was on making Cap more of a curmudgeonly racist jerk because the writers were all joyless hacks who don’t get Captain America.  We’ve finally managed to claw our way out from under that era lately but it hasn’t made old man Cap anymore tolerable, mainly because he’s just a boring character.  It certainly doesn’t help that Batman Beyond did this idea infinitely better with old Bruce Wayne but there’s exactly zero genuine chemistry or connection between old man Cap and any of his soldiers, he’s just some jerky old dick everyone listens to because continuity. 

Real talk here: Captain America’s leadership of the Avengers is the single best use of his character ever conceived of by writers, and it’s not because he’s such a great tactical commander.  As I mentioned, I’ve never really bought into the weird claim that Cap is some tactical genius because he fought in World War 2, mainly because he was a super soldier involved in the heat of battle against one of the most evil enemies the world has ever known.  There’s a big difference between deploying your fellow human soldiers while storming a town in central Europe compared to commanding a gamma beast and the Norse God of thunder to defeat Dr. Doom or Ultron.  

No, the reason Captain America is the perfect leader of the Avengers is the same reason Superman is the leader of the Justice League; they’re the moral compass of their team.  That’s the true power that makes Cap the leader, it’s not his age or experience, it’s the ability to look at a situation and instantly discern the right thing to do, the same power that makes Superman the perfect leader for the Justice League.  So many of the Marvel heroes are built around the idea of being deeply flawed and broken people but not Captain America, he’s the one hero genuinely superhuman enough to actually command literal Gods and monsters. 

History lesson time.  Thanks to his massive modern success this image of Captain America punching Hitler square in the face has become a fairly iconic image related to the hero.  It’s a great striking pose that’s both comically over the top and immediately endearing from its classical sincerity and unawareness, the kind of great golden age war comic that comics nerds totally love.  Fun fact about this cover: it predates America’s involvement in World War 2 by over ½ a year.  At the time this was produced it was just a cover of Captain America beating the snot out of a world leader who, though disliked, was not actively engaged with fighting America.  The big reason behind this being that Captain America was invented and written at the time by a pair of Jewish immigrants to the US. 

That more than anything sums up why I’m such a big fan of Captain America’s time as a soldier in the European theater during world war 2.  This era is still loved by some authors but it’s rare to see that much of it or if we do it’s thoroughly underwritten and not really focused on the kind of war stories Captain America was created to tell.  Captain America’s adventures in World War 2 were all about dropping a flashy, colorful superhero into the middle of a legitimate warzone and just letting him cut loose against an enemy where he really doesn’t need to hold back.  There are no super villain masterminds, no secret weird science groups, just a guy whose stronger and faster and more powerful than everyone else thrown against the Axis with the aesthetics of a spaghetti World War 2 flick. 

This is what I was alluding to earlier about Captain America giving up the mantel during Mark Grunewald’s run on the character.  The idea then was that the US government wanted Steve Rogers to do some shady missions he didn’t agree with so they stripped him of his rank and gave the role of Captain America to a jingoistic ugly psycho patriot named John Walker.  Walker served as Captain America for a time while Rogers discovered a Red Skull conspiracy as the Captain; later reclaiming his identity but the idea of Captain America as an amoral agent of US Government interest is a very interesting concept that’s never really been developed as much as it really should’ve been.  

Walker was a solid stand in as was used for a trilogy of fake Captain Americas who operated under the control of the US government during the ‘50s and later came back to menace Cap under the control of the villainous mind controller Dr. Faustus.  The ‘50s Cap, in particular Will Burnside the most deranged member and one who returned in recent years, were another interesting idea that never got as complex or engaging as it really should’ve done.  Whenever you write a character who literally wears a flag as a costume you have to embrace some amount of politics but turning Captain America, the symbol of morality over compromise into a puppet for a self-serving system should back more punch than just being a pretty interesting blip on the hero’s history. 

It’s hard to think of an identity that Captain America wears better or more belovedly than his “man out of time” persona.  This is basically the iteration of Cap who’s still stumbling through our brave new world and marveling at our light up sneakers and snap bracelets and the fact we no longer segregate our schools like back in his time.  I’m not actually a huge fan of this iteration of Cap, not because it’s a bad idea but because it’s an unsustainable concept.  There’s only so long Cap can be bemused or disappointed by the conventions of this modern world before the gimmick starts to wear unbelievably thin from both overuse and the fact that he’d eventually acclimate.  

The annoying thing is that Marvel knows this as well and has, in recent years, actually contrived ways to keep Cap in a state of re-acclamation like having him die and return or get lost in another dimension for decades.  All of which ends up feeling like just so much manipulative padding, which it is, to say nothing of a cheap way of trying to make Cap more disapproving of our time, which is a decidedly tired and empty goal.  I know a lot of people like this version of Cap and I admit that I like whenever he affects some ‘40sisms towards our modern emphasis on compromise and moral grays but there’s only so much “in my day!” I can take. 

Here’s something that’s probably surprising given how much I’ve come down on the really bad Civil War comics: Cap as a rebel against the government was actually a really cool idea.  There are a lot of terrible parts to Civil War but Captain America running a secret network of superheroes working to fight criminals under the noses of Iron Man and his fellow registration punks was a really cool one plus the fact that Cap would fight the government is a big part of what makes him the moral compass of the team.  Cap refusing to bend to a decision made out of fear and paranoia that won’t help anyone but just turn the superhero population into a superhuman army for the government is the epitome of his character.  Yeah they had Cap do some pretty dumb things as part of the story and eventually twisted the idea beyond all recognition when he argued changing your position AT ALL was a betrayal of personal values but the concept remains solid and one of the more dynamic and stakes raising uses of Captain America in recent time. 

When Sam Wilson was first announced as Captain America I was skeptical and when his first comics arrived I was…still skeptical.  His premiere ended up smack in the middle of a really dumb event called Axis that no one had or ever will care about and even his non-Axis book didn’t inspire much confidence or interest.  Then the All-New All-Different Marvel launched and suddenly everything clicked into place for Sam Wilson, Captain America.  A big part of this was the shift in writing team, a desperate necessity at this point for the Captain America comics after so long under the oppressively awful thumb of Rick Remender.  

Suddenly the character was actually about something beyond just giving Remender another vehicle for his weird Arnim Zola obsessions (seriously, the original Sam Wilson Cap comic felt infinitely more concerned with the new Nomad, Zola’s son, than it did Sam Wilson.)  The new series has Sam taking a political stand and attempting to unite an America that’s more politically divided than any time in living memory, also his falcon Red Bird makes a return, which is pretty great.  The scene of Sam Wilson defending Mexican immigrants from the Sons of the Serpent is the most pure Captain America moment I’ve seen since Brubaker stopped writing the character. 

Here’s one I’m sure very few people agree with but yeah, Bucky was kind of a terrible Captain America.  Oh he had his moments to be sure but those were mainly involved in trying to get the real Captain America back.  He was really a character that was only made to work for one particular context, opposing the machinations of Red Skull and his neo-Nazi group to try and financially destabilize America, launch a 3^rd party candidate, take over the US government, and then steal Cap’s body and put Red Skull’s brain in it.  I admit, it’s a pretty dopey plan but given Ed Brubaker’s ENTIRE Captain America run reads like some insane blend of Tom Clancy military thriller madness crossed with comic book scale and weirdness I’m willing to allow it.  

In the context of all that particular craziness Bucky actually works pretty well as a sort of shadowy and harsh vision of what Captain America could’ve been.  The problem is that when the story was ever Bucky was still Cap and remember how I talked about how Cap’s moral compass is what makes him the perfect Avengers leader?  Yeah, Bucky has none of that, he’s a shadowy secret agent assassin, not the leader of Earth’s mightiest heroes and it showed.  All that considered it’s not surprising that Marvel quickly and quietly brushed Bucky back to the Winter Soldier identity soon after Cap’s return as part of the incredibly bad event comic Fear Itself.

Yes, Captain America was a werewolf, for a shockingly long time in the comics.  Actually to be fair Captain America being a werewolf for more than 1 issue is pretty shocking, the really crazy thing about this transformation is that it’s from the ‘90s.  If Cap had become a lycanthrope in the ‘60s or even ‘70s when that kind of shenanigans was more common I think it’d be a bit more palatable but nope, it was the ‘90s less than 2 decades ago.  It’s not a particular good or interesting run either, in a lot of ways Cap would’ve been better off becoming a werewolf in the ‘60s or ‘70s, at least then they’d have had fun with it like when Spider-man grew some additional arms just like a real spider.  The ‘90s adventure was just a weird excuse to throw him together with Wolverine as part of another weird exploration of Wolverine’s origins, this one I believe was the time it was revealed Wolverine actually evolved from wolves.  But that’s an embarrassing and stupid character derivation reserved for another rainbow. 


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