Captain America #1 Preview

[jackolover]

My money was wasted on this issue. I did not care for it at all. Maybe I have been away from comics too long, but this is not the CA I am used to. I felt a weird vibe from the story, and it was depressing and more like a Daredevil moody story than any Cap story I have ever read. I will not be buying any more of this run; I will wait until Cap feels like Cap again to me. No offense to those that liked the issue, just wasn't my cup of joe.

Yes, I think you struck the right tone of Steve’s demeanour as “moody”. But I found that Steve Rogers is back, after all the depression of the post Secret Empire meandering they gave Steve. I think I detected Steve is finding a purpose again. Something bubbling up again, especially with his references to “The Dream”. I think Steve is coming out of his malaise, something he never had to fall into in the first place. Leinil Yu refreshes that stature Steve purveys as Captain America, and anybody who thinks they can keep him out, are in for a huge surprise, like Ross and Sharon will find out.

[jackolover]

Rogers definitely believes in American Exceptionalism to at least a degree, otherwise he'd call himself Captain Freedom or Captain Democracy. It may be mitigated by other things, but it must exist to a degree, or his name simply makes zero sense.

That really paints Steve Rogers as a flawed character. Not that I can’t accept Rogers is flawed, but your statement certainly makes Rogers a bit starry eyed about his gingoism towards how great America is. I would have thought Steve was well aware of all the flaws of his country by now. Being Captain AMERICA shouldn’t mean “everything about America is the best”. It should mean, “I love my tradition, but I am under no illusions of the dirt bags who have run this country and the mistakes they have made over the years”. Hell, if they can murder the Kennedys to keep the Military Industrial complex going (note Thaddeus Ross), no ones safe from the fascists of America. You either tow the line or get eliminated. As long as everyone knows that’s how America works, then the super heroes will be fine. See Civil War 2006, the Event.

[jackolover]

someone at daily scans cleared up what Coates said which sorta won me over in getting Cap,

http://www.baltimoresun.com/entertai...718-story.html

During the event, Coates, 39, read a chapter about his meeting with Mable Jones, a Philadelphia radiologist whose son, Prince, was fatally shot in 2000 by an undercover Princes George's County police officer. The officer claimed that the unarmed man — the author's friend and former classmate at Howard University — had tried to run him over.

"My son was a month old at that point, and I couldn't distance myself from what Prince had done," Coates said. "If I'd been followed through three jurisdictions by someone who didn't identify himself as a police officer, by someone who was dressed as a criminal and by someone who pointed a gun at me, I might have done just what he did. It's very, very easy for me to see how I could have been killed that day."

[...]

The following passage in the book gave me pause, and I'm wondering if you wished you'd softened it. You were living in New York on Sept. 11, 2001, and you write:

"I could see no difference between the officer who killed Prince Jones and the police who died, or the firefighters who died. They were not human to me. Black, white or whatever; they were the menaces of nature; they were the fire, the comet, the storm, which could, with no justification, shatter my body."

No, I wouldn't soften it. That was a state of my raw emotion at that time. Later, I came to grips with the fact that each of the folks who died were individual humans with likes, dislikes, hates, loves, etc., and I was able to grieve for them.

Yeah, that article you referenced on Coates does encapsulate how slavery exists still as racism, and anytime someone shoots people in Charlston churches. That makes them slaves. It makes people slaves anytime someone thinks he can kill you, because that dehumanisation is slavery. I don’t think it’s ever going away, because it’s not restricted to just race. Slavery can be white on white. It just takes the dehumanisation element, and that makes it easy to kill people. When you profile a person as someone that’s not you, you can kill them.

So I understand how that can make you scared of society and how you aren’t protected. It’s the Wild West. We can’t depend on the cops or trust them, because they profile everybody. That’s their MO. They can’t help themselves. Everybody is a suspect and already we are slaves. That’s life. We have to deal with that.

[jackolover]

I’d like to know where Coates will go with his story of Cap. Are super heroes here as the alleviation to the cops? The cops don’t stop crime. They are responders to crime, and when they get there too late, they just vacuum up the evidence. There could be cops everywhere, but generally, they get called when the dead bodies appear, and then they turn up. Super heroes don’t turn up after the bodies turn up. They go into action when the shooting starts in the crime.

[butterflykyss]

just read the issue and loved it!!! coates is knocking these out the park.

[Lucas 35]

[Lucas 35]

[Cloudman]

I liked this issue on its own, but I fear this run will go downhill very quickly. As enjoyable as this book was, if Coates can't curb his over-reliance on narration (and general wordiness), this is going to get boring just as fast as his Black Panther run did. And just like BP, this issue failed to bring real focus to its titular character, instead focusing on the setting and his supporting cast. It feels like Coates is trying to write a great book before he knows how to write a good one.

I know this is a first issue so Coates has to move all the pieces onto the board, but he needs to get the story moving a lot quicker than he did with BP. Thematically, the Cap FCBD issue covered much of the same ground as #1. And Coates can conjure up as many clever political allegories as he cares to (although this book wasn't as political as I had expected it would be), but it means nowt if readers don't get an enthralling story out of it.

[Mr MajestiK]

exactly people getting upset about mutants popping up here and there sound petty and silly. these characters share the same universe (and some even the same city) it would be odd if they didnt ever cross paths.

And people deliberately mischaracterizing what others have actually said and diminishing same on some out of context shenanigans are totally beyond the pale.

We get that Coates is a self confessed X-men junky and mutant loving aficionado especially as his recent turning of the BP solo into a stealth X-book indicates.

The day when the totally insular X-world opens up to the rest of the supposedly "shared" universe will be an interesting one.

Until then, readers who notice this writers penchant for using other books as a template for showcasing his obvious ability to write X-characters, should be able to state their opinions without being called petty or silly.

The preview pages I've seen for Coates take on Captain America, seem a tad more action packed and coherent than the turgid dreck he churned out for a full two full years in the BP solo, so I guess editorial are keeping a closer watch on him in this regard.

Let's see if he'll find some way to weave rape camps into this book whilst getting the entire population of America to "pray" to some guest character to give Steve a pyrrhic victory over Selene.

[Ying Ko]

This was a lot better than I thought it would be... I'm in for now.

[The Cool Thatguy]

And people deliberately mischaracterizing what others have actually said and diminishing same on some out of context shenanigans are totally beyond the pale.

We get that Coates is a self confessed X-men junky and mutant loving aficionado especially as his recent turning of the BP solo into a stealth X-book indicates.

The day when the totally insular X-world opens up to the rest of the supposedly "shared" universe will be an interesting one.

These days, comics are barely a shared universe on the same title, after a writer change. Don't single out the X for being like everyone else

[UltimateTy]

Very solid first issue. I'll stick with this