It’s a big week for comics news! While Rebirth has been grabbing a lot of headlines, Marvel has made its own noise with a SHOCKING TWIST FOR A BELOVED CHARACTER. Nothing will be the same ever again!
This spoiler involves Captain America and the comic book CAPTAIN AMERICA STEVE ROGERS #1, on sale today. And here it is!
SHOCK! Cap has no ear on his luchadore mask any more!
…no not right.
SHOCK! Jesus Saiz’s art is really great on this!
…NO! Everyone know that!
OKAY here is the real shocker. Click for a real fork dropper!
That’s right, Steve Rogers was trained from birth to be a member of a not-so-nice group, and I don’t mean Stucky fans, who are actually very very nice.
Editor Tom Brevoort and writer Nick Spencer talked about this revolting development in a few places, but I’ll direct you to this Newsarama write-around which captures the most important sound bytes, including Spencer’s own claim that
“Issue 2 will lay a lot of our cards on the table in terms of what the new status quo is, but the one thing we can say unequivocally is: This is not a clone, not an imposter, not mind control, not someone else acting through Steve. This really is Steve Rogers, Captain America himself.”
You’ll notice he did not say “mole” or “triple agent.” Or “Cosplayer.”
To get a bit more serious here, writer Spencer is one of the more politically trenchant contemporary Marvel writers, like Ed Brubaker before him, and one could say that Steve Rogers turning out to be a mole for hate and racism could be a metaphor for America itself, caught in an election cycle of base pandering unprecedented in the mass media era, just as Brubaker’s “Death of Cap” storyline was one for the dark days of the Iraq War.
Jesus we’ve had a lot of dark days, haven’t we?
Also, for anyone who is upset or cynical.. IT’S A FREAKING STORY IN A COMIC BOOK, people. Nothing is permanent, nothing is irreversible. Maybe, just maybe you MIGHT get entertained by a clever twist to a long running and beloved characters.
Plus, Jesus Saiz is great. As you were.
They seem to have some big, fundamental change for the character every 2 years or so.
Was that always the case? Where they doing this in the 60s-90s?
Back in the 50s and 60s DC would often do stories like this. The covers showing Superman or Batman betraying their friends or country, only for the whole thing to be revealed as a deception designed to capture a villain. Back then, the story would wrap up in a single issue, and next month you’d get another adventure about the hero you were paying for.
Today, if you pick up a random superhero comic, you might find yourself in the middle of one of these story lines — trapped there for months and months to come. Or worse, you might pick up an issue of any given superhero title only to learn that the hero has been “dead” for months, and you’re actually reading about some replacement person wearing a similar costume (and will be for many months to come).
I guess some readers like these stories, but just as obviously, some readers will walk away and never return. Marvel and DC have been able to count me in that second group for a long time, and gimmicks like these keep me away (fortunately, there’s a TON of great stuff happening elsewhere in comics). Plots may not be irreversible, but lost readers seem to be.
I sometimes wonder if the writers and editors aren’t working for Hydra. It’s incredible that the current Hollywood people actually seem to “get” these Marvel characters better than the current batch comics creators do (DC characters seem to be a mystery to both parties these days).
Having been digging through Englehart’s run lately, I can say “Yeah, pretty much.” Remember the Secret Empire (headed by EVIL RICHARD NIXON!!!), newly-revived Peggy Carter with the fragile psyche, and Nomad, to say nothing of his on-again off-again bromance with Falcon? All within the span of a year? Maybe it seemed like more time, just because they were taking down villains of the moment every ish or two. This current issue reads to me like a story beat, and I’m right entertained and looking forward to more of Spencer’s Steve Rogers; the media blitz around it seems kind of ridiculous, though.
amazes me that the mainstream media cares about shit like this. Don’t these organizations have anyone on staff who actually reads comics and can be like “this is a frigging non-story fake out that will be resolved within six issues and never referenced again”
Shocking. Just shocking!
Or not. Definitely not something I’m putting $5 down for.
“Nothing is permanent, nothing is irreversible.”
Then nothing matters and if nothing matters, why are you reading/watching it?
Mike
sigh. Is Marvel really this desperate? they need to steal a meaningless hedline. This is aimed at people like me, who claim not to care about this superhero bullshit anymore. Of course, hearing this just makes my blood boil.
I predict that a recantation of Spenser-Cap speedier than the one that attended the debacle of the Spider-Clone saga.
“will be speedier”
Cap’s really a H***a Agent. Doc Strange can’t eat real food and pukes up black goop when he uses magic.
The one thing I can say unequivocally is: This is why I’m not buying a lot of Marvel comics these days.
Nick Spencer is getting death threats over this?
Do people have no idea what cliffhangers are anymore? This is why corporate-owned superhero comics should all die in a fire, because their fanbase is too stupid to read them.
Heidi said: “Also, for anyone who is upset or cynical.. IT’S A FREAKING STORY IN A COMIC BOOK, people. Nothing is permanent, nothing is irreversible. Maybe, just maybe you MIGHT get entertained by a clever twist to a long running and beloved characters.”
Heidi said it all. Maybe some readers have gone off their meds or something, but they need to calm down.
I’m sorry, I don’t get why people are upset and shocked that readers are upset and shocked by a shocking twist!
Especially when, unlike in the Silver Age, it isn’t all solved by the end of the issue, but instead people are blathering on, on television, about how “Captain America is HYDRA!!!” at the exact same time that they’re having a huge push selling Captain America to the general public and small children.
You want to shock fans, you’re going to have shocked fans.
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