New Cap, new clothes

Alex Ross is living in the past. It still looks like it belongs in the golden age.

You know how you know he’s Captain America? Because he carries a gun! Preserve the second amendment! NRA forever!

Is that a sword on the other hip? And what is with the black segments of the costume? Doesn’t that kind of draw attention to his brightly covered torso and head, making it more natural to aim a gun at those parts of his body, the really vital parts. Not the most tactical of wardrobe choices. So the new cap is a wuss (carrying a gun) and is dumb. Neat.

I place this storyline of his “death” and impending resurrection on par with the “Fighting Chance” storyline circa 1998 where they introduced such winning characters as “Americop” and “American Spirit”. Captain America’s death should have reverberated through the Marvel Universe the way the death of Hector reverberated through Troy.

Pretty picture. No denyin’ that.
But Cap with a GUN?? Give me a break.
Way t’go Marvel. (Once again.)

I’m guessing this Cap is Bucky Barnes (Winter Soldier), who’s obviously not as averse to using deadly force as Steve Rogers was.

I think the design looks fantastic.

It looks like The Silver Surfer swallowed Captain America.

It also looks VERY similar to The Silver Agent that he created in Astro City.

(IMO, They should have given him a Peter Parker body style)

Black arms and legs look kinda cool in a John Byrne FF-era kinda way. Not entirely sold on the shiny torso of shiny shiny…stuff that shines.

Wait…wait. They’re bringing captain america back? WHAT? Damn it! That’s so unfair. I thought my copy of captain america 25 would help me pay for my kids college fund. Now it’s worthless, WORTHLESS!

Curse you Marvel!

“Captain Chromerica” works if it’s the Winter Soldier. Otherwise, it’s John Walker all over again.

Man, you know what a gun is a metaphor for right? Do I see Marvel’s own crotch-gate?

Painting a target on your chest is a proven superhero tactic. (Batman has extra armor under the costume.) Also, Cap has worn the A for some sixty years, and has yet to take a plug there. His costume doesn’t stop bullets, does it? (He was wearing it when killed,no?) I believe it’s his tactical training and bulletproof shield which keeps him protected.
The gun… well, it’s just another weapon. I wonder why he doesn’t carry a utility belt, or utilize ninja tactics. Or would that make him too much like Batman? (Fanboys will recall that they fought each other to a standstill.)

That’s It! The new Cap will be a brainwashed warrior from a secret organization! Bucky will have to fight this replacement, upholding Cap’s ideals as the ruthless double runs rampant through the Marvel Universe! Cap will be resurrected, after his tomb is found empty, there will be a fight for the Soul Of America, and Cap’s victory will shock the status quo set by Civil War. This will then lead into the tragic downfall of Tony Stark, featuring an iconic cover of Stark contemplating the helmet of Iron Man.
Or maybe Cap will remain in a Barbarosa coma until the country needs him, and then he’ll team up with Elvis and JFK!

Oh please let it be John Walker. Please!

I think UGMO is an appropriate term…

I think Strongbad said it best

“Plastic Wrap!!!”

aww…cap’s shiny. and never mind the gun, he’s got a knife. with a ribbed grip. and…

man, that sure looks like an o-face.

yep…we’ve got ourselves one ‘seminal hero’ right here.

jeez.

RIP, cap.

Pretty art. Dumb design. The folks at Project Rooftop would’ve done a much better job. This outfit is just… goofy, but not as goofy as the newer Spider-Man outfit or that god awful Ultimate Fantastic Four logo.

Marvel does occasionally hire people with design skills, yes?

I think it’s Iron-Cap, sort of like the armor they made Spidey when he joined the pro-registration group. Kind of makes sense given the current storyline, I guess. I wouldn’t be surprised if it turns out to be Bucky.

I like the design. You know, in that “temporary-because-they’ll-change-it-back-once-they-bring-back-the-real-one” sort of way.

…like Iron-Spidey.

“Marvel does occasionally hire people with design skills, yes?”

I always sent my resume … no response … so, no, they don’t.

“I like the design. You know, in that ‘temporary-because-they’ll-change-it-back- once-they-bring-back-the-real-one’ sort of way.”

That’s called branding these days. They’ll feature a “new” suit for a few months. Once they revive the old costume, the “new” suit will go to a “new” character.

Cite Spider-Man’s black costume …

oooooooo…..shiny….
Gun, I guess “Cap can blast a cap in yo @ss.”

It makes Cap look fat.

Whats with the black V-tights? And why does the black part come up to part of his arms? Why does he have to wear a costume anyways?

His little red gloves are so dainty and cute. *swoon*

“Whats with the black V-tights? And why does the black part come up to part of his arms? Why does he have to wear a costume anyways?”

The basic design is just Cap’s original 1940s shield molded to fit around a torso. It had 3 stars and now the new one does, too, with the outside stars on his shoulders so it works from both the front and back.

http://content.answers.com/main/content/wp/en/thumb/5/50/200px-Captainamerica1.jpg

Kill me once — shame on me!

Kill me twice…

WON’T GET KILLED AGAIN!

“The basic design is just Cap’s original 1940s shield molded to fit around a torso. It had 3 stars and now the new one does, too, with the outside stars on his shoulders so it works from both the front and back.

”

Its 2007 already not the 1940’s anymore. Why does he wear a costume based on the 40’s?

Ha ha. It’s Code Name C.O.U.R.A.G.E.

So this is how Captain America comes back, eh? I’m not quite sure where Marvel is going with this, but I’m pretty sure it’s the same way DC went when they “killed” Superman, only to bring him back and say, “his solar cells were depleted and he went into a coma”.

Then again, that gunshot was fatal. And there’s that whole nasty impersonating Skrull thing that I’ve heard tell about.

I think it’s Frank Castle.

Real heroic, Marvel — a Captain America with a gun.

Representative of the sickness that is America? Yes.

Representative of a Hero? Uh, no.

While over at DC, you have Judd Winnick’s latest triumph of artistic genius in Green Arrow Black Canary #1: the last line has the hero, Green Arrow calling a group of Amazon women big bitches.

Green Arrow: “You big bitches are in deep $#@%!”

Against a villain or not, heroes just don’t speak or act like that.

That would be Heroic-Common-Sense 101.

But then with the amateurs running DC and Marvel these days, who can tell the difference between a hero or villain?

Ross and Winnick are so knee deep in their own overbloated sense of self, they must have been too busy smiling at themselves in the mirror when news hit the papers and tv of the latest kid blowing fellow human beings away with a gun or, when Don Imus, Isiah Thomas and James Dolan shot themselves in the foot when they believed there’s nothing wrong with calling women of any kind, for any reason, bitches.

I’m pretty sure Ross didn’t just add the gun and knife on his own. I could be wrong but I’d bet that was handed down by editorial.

Also, let us not jump to conclusions! Perhaps his gun shoots happiness and rainbows. And his knife, perhaps, symbolizes the cutting of bureaucratic red tape and is only ever truly used to cut the ribbons at elaborate theme-restaurant opening ceremonies. All with a swell new techno beat, to boot! This is a new Cap for a new era! And it is an era of shiny, metallic costumes!

Do you think this A stands for Aluminum Foil?

Wow that’s awful. And shiny.

In the 21st century, Marvel revives a WWII hero who overstayed his welcome in the 20th century to replace him with a guy who looks like he’s going fly-fishing with Charles Kuralt.

The canteen is a bit much, no? Wouldn’t he be better off with a knap-sack or maybe a St Bernard with a utility keg.

I dunno what’s worse, killing Captain America or just mutilating his image.

Ad the gun, oh… the gun. Don’t forget the Jimmy Cagney vernacular… “You dirty rat, you… “

I guess I trust Brubaker to do what he’s doing, and I have to admit that except for Batwoman, Alex Ross’ designs always struck me as weird, as if they’re purpousely unbalanced and tacky, but also kinda cool.

Why does Cap need a gun? That would merely occupy his punching hand!

New Cap duds, huh?
Oh he’s an icon alright!
An icon for what’s wrong with current mainstream American super-hero comics and the ego maniacs that are creating them these days.
It would be nice if Marvel and DC would start concentrating on trying to produce good stories and knock off the multi-issued “events”.
Well,…at least he ain’t the god damned Batman!

I’m reserving judgment, until it comes out. It’s funny to me how much complaining this has sparked. Has no one considered that these changes may be relevant points in a hard hitting, possibly controversial story, that has something to say about the state of things (superheros, people, the world) today. I’m not saying that I don’t know any different (that’s just the possibility that came off the top of my head) then anyone else, but people are acting like kids do when you ask them to try something new. “Noooooooooo!!!!! I haaaaaaate thaaaaaaat!!!!!”
“But you’ve never had it before.”
There may be something new, exciting, and interesting here, that will pass many by, just because their minds are made up already. If you hate change and new ideas that much, buy a back issue. We all know normal programing will come back on, in just a bit.

I’m not a big fan of the design — the shiny torso kind of hurts my retinas, actually — but I really don’t mind the sidearm at all. I mean, throwing his shield at the bad guys… really? Yeah, that makes all kind of tactical sense in a firefight.

If you’re going to use Cap in goofy superhero battles where he fights the Serpent Society or Whirlwind, then he probably shouldn’t be shooting people in the face. But if he’s going up against an army of nihilistic terrorists planning to release poison gas on a playground, then I want to see the super soldier do a little actual soldiering.

Reminiscent, if only slightly, of the bug-eyed Ross-designed rejected Spider-Man movie design.

I don’t like the vest, if only because it looks like a budget fancy-dress outfit – like those Spider-Man costumes that only have the red web motif on the front, and naught but blue on the back.

The weiner gun makes me larf, though: if that’s a penis substitute, then…

//Oo/\

Let’s see what we have here.

Yet another played out wannabe bad@$$ superhero carrying a gun and knife. CHECK

A “dead” iconic hero being replaced by either his sidekick or a brand new character. CHECK

A new costume. CHECK

A big announcement designed to get national mainstream media attention and to get comic shop dealers to up their orders on CA #34. CHECK

Gimmick. CHECK

Yep, it looks like the 90’s are officially back. Of course, I have been saying this for a while now.

I don’t mind the sidearm at all in this instance, didn’t the golden age Cap carry guns into battle?

http://www.medinnus.com/winghead/comics/ga/usa_12.jpg
http://www.medinnus.com/winghead/comics/ga/usa_13.jpg

He’s actually throwing some sort of tank round in that second one. HE IS A SOLDIER. Isn’t saying that he is not heroic because he carries a gun like saying the men who fought in WWII were not heroic? In my opinion, cap’s actions are what make him heroic, so yes, if he shoots some unarmed man in the face, that’s pretty slimy and un-heroic, but simply possessing a gun does not invalidate heroism.

What people need to be quibbling about here is this horrible costume. There are three separate and completely different things going on here. On one hand, there is the classic shield callback, which is understandable. Then editorial I imagine wanted it to be all shiny, or maybe Ross thought that would actually look good. Who knows. The two things together don’t work out well though. The last is the generic black Punisher garb underneath, which makes no sense whatsoever. This tells me that Ross wanted that shield callback SO BADLY that he committed to it at the expense of everything else that was going on with the costume. “Hey, I got this top part looking good… let’s draw as little attention to the non-design of the rest of the costume as possible.”

This is troubling to me because I really enjoyed Ross’ design work at one time. I loved what he came up with for Kingdom Come and while I didn’t read Earth X, I thought the concepts were exciting and fun to look at. To me this looks like three different puzzles that Ross slammed together to make fit into one picture.

“I think it’s Frank Castle.”

Agreed.

2007 Captain America is the new Azbats? Looks like a hybrid of Cap’s and the Punisher’s threads.

Most people don’t seem to realize this isn’t the first time Cap sported a pistol. He was packing a piece throughout the 1944 Captain America serial, and didn’t carry a shield.

Cap has morphed so many times in the past 30 years, I’m numb to any changes.

I don’t think it’s Bucky.

I think it’s Steven Colbert. It explains the title for his new book “I Am America”.

“He was packing a piece throughout the 1944 Captain America serial, and didn’t carry a shield.”

Yes, but the movie serial is hardly faithful to the Captain America legend. In the movie serial he sported a luger instead of a shield, but they also changed the character’s name and profession. Instead of Steve Rogers, soldier, the serial portrayed him as Something Or-Other, District Attorney.

Faithful to the Captain America legend??? Cap hasn’t been Cap since the 1960s!!!

In the past 35 years he’s become a whiney, hand-wringing shell of his former self, and has had more personality changes than Sybil!!!

I just don’t see how this new look is any worse than some of his past incarnations — including the 1944 serial.

The black in the uniform is there to make the viewer think of the black in the Superman costume in Kingdom Come, thereby borrowing gravitas from a previously existing known classic. That’s just basic marketing/propaganda techniques—make people feel good about life by touching on their pleasant memories from the past.

Wow, what a fucking fiasco. Oh, well … they’ll change it back soon enough.

the kid in me says that’s awful! but the geek in me says the shininess makes it extra mockworthy!!! *two sarcastic thumbs up*

“Faithful to the Captain America legend??? Cap hasn’t been Cap since the 1960s!!! In the past 35 years he’s become a whiney, hand-wringing shell of his former self, and has had more personality changes than Sybil!!!”

Whatever.

Point is, he carried a pistol in the movie serial, not the comics. The movie studio had a generic super-hero script and just dropped in Cap’s name.

“The black in the uniform is there to make the viewer think of the black in the Superman costume in Kingdom Come, thereby borrowing gravitas from a previously existing known classic. That’s just basic marketing/propaganda techniques—make people feel good about life by touching on their pleasant memories from the past.”

I dunno …

When DC did their Batman 10 cent adventure, Marvel followed with the FF nine cent adventure. Quesada joked at a show that they decided early on, whenever DC came up with a good idea, they would copy it so fast that everyone would think it was Marvel’s idea.

Well, you can draw the parallels between Death of Superman and Death of Cap … for that matter … what about that recent Spider-Man mini-series that was written and illustrated just like Dark Knight Returns? Same premise, same style. Except Bruce Wayne’s private parts were hidden in shadows.

How is the death/return/new look Cap storyline anything but a retooling of something that worked very well for the Distinguished Competition?

The fact of the matter is,…we’re all reserving some judgement. I don’t think the complaining that this has sparked has as much to do with the actual changes in the costume as it does for what this change most likely portends for the character and the comic. It’s all together possible that someone with a coherent vision of the character has initiated the changes because of,…”relevant points in a hard hitting, possibly controversial story that has something to say about the state of things today,”…but, that hardly seems likely. It’s not as if we’re dealing with a new medium here. This sort of gimmicky switch-up happens pretty regularly in comics. Seldom does one come away from these digressions with much more than an empty pocket book and the feeling that they’ve been taken. I think you can count on one hand the number of these things that have actually “worked” in the past.
The best part is that we get a groovy new illustration by Alex Ross.
One can only hope that when the real deal reappears at the end of this whole thing that we will get another cool illustration by Ross of the original character.
If I were a gambling man,…I’d bet we do.

No, I just hate the costume. Ross didn’t finish designing it, and he knows it. Why else did his groovy new illustration do it’s best to cover up the parts he gave up on, and highlight the only part he put any thought into.

You’re right Rich, on both counts.

Yes, Cap did use a gun back in the 40’s but that would be because he was fighting nazis in a war.

Yes, this isn’t that much different than the Death of Superman.

So….

Yes, Marvel doesn’t really have a single new or original idea in their whole house of ideas, hence the need to copy DC (although that wouldn’t be something to brag about these days…)

and…

Yes, when one uses a stupid idea causing another to follow their lead, it does’t make the original idea any less stupid.

It just means you have two fools doing stupid things.

Steve Taylor said:
“One can only hope that when the real deal reappears at the end of this whole thing that we will get another cool illustration by Ross of the original character.
If I were a gambling man,…I’d bet we do.”
—–
Nope. When Cap is “reborn”, Liefeld will do the new design.

YIKES!!!

Holy crap, is that ugly.

Cap has a gun! Look out!

So I wonder who this new (old?) Captain America is. it’s probably not Steve Rogers, because of the gun and all, but at least cap has a new look. It’s classic cap meets soldier. I don’t like it that much, but it’ll grow on me.

I think.

THAT LOOKS AWFUL!!!!!!!!!

I am huge Cap fan and at first hated this. But after awhile it kinda grew on me. It’s not sooooo bad, I kinda like it.

Maybe it’s knowing it will be replaced with the original at some point makes it easier not to hate it.

kirby’s cap was best!! ” nuff ” said!!

I thought the new captain amaerica was guna be the punisher but in red white and blue tribute or something, this is kinda gay, i wish if punisher would be the new cap they would still call it the punisher and just let him carry on with the stars and stripes but not make a new guy, comics are lacking real originality

I thought the new captain amaerica was guna be the punisher but in red white and blue tribute or something, this is kinda gay, i wish if punisher would be the new cap they would still call it the punisher and just let him carry on with the stars and stripes but not make a new guy, comics are lacking real originality

can anyone say ‘half assed hallow’een costume’ ?