Steve Rogers: Captain America Appreciation 2019

[capandkirby]

I remember the forum pages on here at that time, it was pretty crazy, the line in the sand was definitely drawn. The one good thing to come out of it, IMO, was Uncanny Avengers.

Very true.

Totally agree. One of my personal favorites was already mentioned in Avengers: Under Siege where Zemo tried to break Cap and couldn’t, even after destroying Caps possessions especially the picture of his mother.

Love that storyline. Roger Stern was a gift.

[tg1982]

Concerning Civil War, Cap was and is right about it. But the one part where his stubbornness was a flaw and not a strength, IMO, was at the end, where Cap and Iron Man are fighting and it gets to the point where the civilians had to jump in and attempt to restrain Cap and help him see the damage and danger he was putting the civilians in. That’s where I think he took it too far. Which makes that line in AvX I mentioned even worse. In Civil War once he realized innocent people were getting hurt or being put in danger, Cap immediately surrendered, in AvX once innocent civilians were getting killed all he thought about was being proven right, geeze even now that AvX line leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

[capandkirby]

Concerning Civil War, Cap was and is right about it. But the one part where his stubbornness was a flaw and not a strength, IMO, was at the end, where Cap and Iron Man are fighting and it gets to the point where the civilians had to jump in and attempt to restrain Cap and help him see the damage and danger he was putting the civilians in. That’s where I think he took it too far. Which makes that line in AvX I mentioned even worse. In Civil War once he realized innocent people were getting hurt or being put in danger, Cap immediately surrendered, in AvX once innocent civilians were getting killed all he thought about was being proven right, geeze even now that AvX line leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

Yeah, okay, you do have a point there. The fight with Stark at the end, before Steve stopped and surrendered, did take things too far. Would never claim that Steve, once he gets worked up, doesn't have a temper.

Trust me, no one on this planet shares your disdain of AvX more than I. It was a poorly written event wherein all the characters were out-of-character and made to look horrible, Steve included. What would possess Marvel to do that to their characters, when, at that point, sales were already showing signs of falling, I'll never understand. Flaws are great, they make characters more relatable, gives them that human element, I accept Steve's flaws, they make him dynamic, but AvX was missing the two essential elements of a good story: 1) a good story needs to revolve around the characters first, plot second, because at this point most of Marvel's characters are decades old IPs and cultural juggernauts and they are what draw the readers. And, in writing, the best way to get an audience to empathize with a character is with a character's reaction to and with other characters. Not to give the original Civil War any credit, but Stark and Steve fighting each other was given weight by their decades of friendship. And it was stressed that neither of them particularly enjoyed fighting each other, it's just that their friendship did not supersede their philosophical beliefs. Another example I can think of to illustrate my point is Kirk and Spock. When Spock died in Wrath of Khan, it was Kirk's reaction to Spock's death that created the biggest emotional impact, because at that point these characters had been friends for decades, had saved each others lives for years and were damn near inseparable. When Into Darkness pulled a reverse of the same plot, only with a much younger and greener Kirk and Spock, and Kirk was the one who died, Spock's reaction had no weight because at that point in the story those characters barely knew or tolerated each other, and therefore the audience couldn't really experience loss through Spock in the same way they had through Kirk decades earlier. There was no emotional fall-out for the audience because there was no emotional investment. AvX sacrificed the characters for the plot, which was a tenuous plot at best to begin with and therefore not sustainable. But worse yet, there was no heart to the conflict And 2) it forgot it's essential purpose, meaning a superhero story is supposed to be a story about heroes, which none of the characters acted like, at all.

[capandkirby]

Speaking of Star Trek, enjoyed the Trek nod in this panel from last week's Avengers...



Steve would make an excellent Starfleet Captain.

[Huntsman Spider]

Speaking of Star Trek, enjoyed the Trek nod in this panel from last week's Avengers...



Steve would make an excellent Starfleet Captain.

Indeed. Also, generally agree with both your and tg1982's assessments of Civil War and Avengers Vs. X-Men, especially the latter. What tg1982 brought up about Captain America almost crowing about Phoenix-Namor's rampage against Wakanda proving he was right about the X-Men being unable to control the Phoenix Force and thus posing a danger to the world --- right to the face of Wakanda's king, who was also his friend and comrade and likely in a state of severe emotional distress (which he hid pretty well because he was a king and didn't have the luxury of an immediate emotional breakdown) --- was something I'd actually repressed from memory, maybe because it was so disgustingly uncharacteristic for him, and just disgusting, period. Whoever wrote that particular chapter and passage of AvX ought to be ashamed of themselves.

As for Civil War, I was with Captain America all the way, given how you outlined earlier all the casual and blatant civil, constitutional, and human rights violations the pro-registration side was committing throughout said event, though I could understand his reasons for standing down and surrendering at the end. Beating Stark wouldn't win the argument where it counted, with the American public that had lost faith and trust in superheroes as a whole, so come to think of it, it might have been a better idea instead for him to go to the public with what Hill tried to do to him and the other abuses of the pro-registration faction. The option he went with, waging a kind of guerrilla warfare on the streets, only gave the pro-registration faction room to make him look like the bad guy for not going with what the public wanted, never mind their grief was being manipulated by opportunistic politicians looking to capitalize on a tragedy to get superheroes under their thumb.

[capandkirby]

Indeed. Also, generally agree with both your and tg1982's assessments of Civil War and Avengers Vs. X-Men, especially the latter. What tg1982 brought up about Captain America almost crowing about Phoenix-Namor's rampage against Wakanda proving he was right about the X-Men being unable to control the Phoenix Force and thus posing a danger to the world --- right to the face of Wakanda's king, who was also his friend and comrade and likely in a state of severe emotional distress (which he hid pretty well because he was a king and didn't have the luxury of an immediate emotional breakdown) --- was something I'd actually repressed from memory, maybe because it was so disgustingly uncharacteristic for him, and just disgusting, period. Whoever wrote that particular chapter and passage of AvX ought to be ashamed of themselves.

As for Civil War, I was with Captain America all the way, given how you outlined earlier all the casual and blatant civil, constitutional, and human rights violations the pro-registration side was committing throughout said event, though I could understand his reasons for standing down and surrendering at the end. Beating Stark wouldn't win the argument where it counted, with the American public that had lost faith and trust in superheroes as a whole, so come to think of it, it might have been a better idea instead for him to go to the public with what Hill tried to do to him and the other abuses of the pro-registration faction. The option he went with, waging a kind of guerrilla warfare on the streets, only gave the pro-registration faction room to make him look like the bad guy for not going with what the public wanted, never mind their grief was being manipulated by opportunistic politicians looking to capitalize on a tragedy to get superheroes under their thumb.

I think the problem here was a matter of escalation. If you recall, initially the anti-registration side were not thinking in terms of being purposely antagonistic towards the pro-SHRA side, as in proactively starting battles, initially, SHIELD and Stark were the ones doing most of the initial confronting, the anti-registration side was just trying to continue being heroes without signing. In fact, the battle that sort of escalated things beyond being able to work it out like reasonable human beings, aka Steve using the power dampener on Tony/the Thor clone being released and killing Bill Foster (all the same battle) happened BECAUSE the pro-registration side set a trap for the anti-registration side by faking a crises that required superheroes, that's how they flushed the anti-registration side out...



...but after Bill died, there was just no turning back from that. Spider-Man deflected and Stark sending convicted murderers after him who nearly beat him to death. Daredevil got locked up in the Negative Zone, a place that literally made people go crazy. The death of Happy and Stark blaming Steve for it. By the time we got to the end it ceased being about heroism at all, and there was just too much anger, and resentment and flat-out open hostility. So while I'm not excusing Steve's lashing out by the end of things, I do understand it. I, too, would be really, really, superbly angry if I were witnessing tactics used during WW2 by freakin Nazis being used again in modern times to enforce what largely amounted to law that, in canon, by President Obama, no less (Captain America: Who Will Wield the Shield) was referred to as being "unAmerican".



Plus, Steve did try to explain his side to a reporter (Front-line series), the press was a bit biased against him. Apparently not knowing what MySpace was (hilarious in retrospect considering what happened to MySpace and how easily forgotten it became) was somehow considered a deal-breaker on determining whether human rights violations, profiling and freedom versus security were things worth fighting for/against. Steve really was in a no-win scenario. Before the SHRA had passed and before he started the anti-movement, SHIELD was actively hunting him. They even sent Dum-Dum Dugan to arrest him, which was a low blow. In New Avengers, they had discovered his safe-house and chased him down the streets and he was forced to sleep in the sewers, which was where Sam found him to join up.

Again, I'm not saying Steve was an angel throughout. Steve, himself, regretted how far he let things get. I'm stating that I can easily see how things unfurled the way they did. It's understandable.

As for AvX, it's just bad writing. No one looked good in AvX, no one. I don't blame Steve for it anymore than I blame Spider-Man for making a deal with the devil.

[Huntsman Spider]

I think the problem here was a matter of escalation. If you recall, initially the anti-registration side were not thinking in terms of being purposely antagonistic towards the pro-SHRA side, as in proactively starting battles, initially, SHIELD and Stark were the ones doing most of the initial confronting, the anti-registration side was just trying to continue being heroes without signing. In fact, the battle that sort of escalated things beyond being able to work it out like reasonable human beings, aka Steve using the power dampener on Tony/the Thor clone being released and killing Bill Foster (all the same battle) happened BECAUSE the pro-registration side set a trap for the anti-registration side by faking a crises that required superheroes, that's how they flushed the anti-registration side out...



...but after Bill died, there was just no turning back from that. Spider-Man deflected and Stark sending convicted murderers after him who nearly beat him to death. Daredevil got locked up in the Negative Zone, a place that literally made people go crazy. The death of Happy and Stark blaming Steve for it. By the time we got to the end it ceased being about heroism at all, and there was just too much anger, and resentment and flat-out open hostility. So while I'm not excusing Steve's lashing out by the end of things, I do understand it. I, too, would be really, really, superbly angry if I were witnessing tactics used during WW2 by freakin Nazis being used again in modern times to enforce what largely amounted to law that, in canon, by President Obama, no less (Captain America: Who Will Wield the Shield) was referred to as being "unAmerican".



Plus, Steve did try to explain his side to a reporter (Front-line series), the press was a bit biased against him. Apparently not knowing what MySpace was (hilarious in retrospect considering what happened to MySpace and how easily forgotten it became) was somehow considered a deal-breaker on determining whether human rights violations, profiling and freedom versus security were things worth fighting for/against. Steve really was in a no-win scenario. Before the SHRA had passed and before he started the anti-movement, SHIELD was actively hunting him. They even sent Dum-Dum Dugan to arrest him, which was a low blow. In New Avengers, they had discovered his safe-house and chased him down the streets and he was forced to sleep in the sewers, which was where Sam found him to join up.

Again, I'm not saying Steve was an angel throughout. Steve, himself, regretted how far he let things get. I'm stating that I can easily see how things unfurled the way they did. It's understandable.

As for AvX, it's just bad writing. No one looked good in AvX, no one. I don't blame Steve for it anymore than I blame Spider-Man for making a deal with the devil.

You raise very good points here, especially the last one. As for the rest of it, I would agree that Steve was in a serious catch-22, and I might even posit that the entire Civil War event was set up for him to ultimately fail no matter what, mostly because it was an allegory for (what the writer perceived as) the death of American ideals and values after 9/11, as exemplified by the willingness on the general public's part to accept abridgements of its own freedoms and unleashed brutality toward its perceived or actual enemies. Captain America surrendering to the authorities, then being mocked as out of date and out of touch by the media, and finally assassinated as he was on his way to trial, while Iron Man ascended to director of S.H.I.E.L.D. after having betrayed his former comrades and compromised his principles --- such as they were --- in increasingly heinous ways, was symbolic of that.

[tg1982]

Yeah, okay, you do have a point there. The fight with Stark at the end, before Steve stopped and surrendered, did take things too far. Would never claim that Steve, once he gets worked up, doesn't have a temper.

Trust me, no one on this planet shares your disdain of AvX more than I. It was a poorly written event wherein all the characters were out-of-character and made to look horrible, Steve included. What would possess Marvel to do that to their characters, when, at that point, sales were already showing signs of falling, I'll never understand. Flaws are great, they make characters more relatable, gives them that human element, I accept Steve's flaws, they make him dynamic, but AvX was missing the two essential elements of a good story: 1) a good story needs to revolve around the characters first, plot second, because at this point most of Marvel's characters are decades old IPs and cultural juggernauts and they are what draw the readers. And, in writing, the best way to get an audience to empathize with a character is with a character's reaction to and with other characters. Not to give the original Civil War any credit, but Stark and Steve fighting each other was given weight by their decades of friendship. And it was stressed that neither of them particularly enjoyed fighting each other, it's just that their friendship did not supersede their philosophical beliefs. Another example I can think of to illustrate my point is Kirk and Spock. When Spock died in Wrath of Khan, it was Kirk's reaction to Spock's death that created the biggest emotional impact, because at that point these characters had been friends for decades, had saved each others lives for years and were damn near inseparable. When Into Darkness pulled a reverse of the same plot, only with a much younger and greener Kirk and Spock, and Kirk was the one who died, Spock's reaction had no weight because at that point in the story those characters barely knew or tolerated each other, and therefore the audience couldn't really experience loss through Spock in the same way they had through Kirk decades earlier. There was no emotional fall-out for the audience because there was no emotional investment. AvX sacrificed the characters for the plot, which was a tenuous plot at best to begin with and therefore not sustainable. But worse yet, there was no heart to the conflict And 2) it forgot it's essential purpose, meaning a superhero story is supposed to be a story about heroes, which none of the characters acted like, at all.

Very true..

[tg1982]

Indeed. Also, generally agree with both your and tg1982's assessments of Civil War and Avengers Vs. X-Men, especially the latter. What tg1982 brought up about Captain America almost crowing about Phoenix-Namor's rampage against Wakanda proving he was right about the X-Men being unable to control the Phoenix Force and thus posing a danger to the world --- right to the face of Wakanda's king, who was also his friend and comrade and likely in a state of severe emotional distress (which he hid pretty well because he was a king and didn't have the luxury of an immediate emotional breakdown) --- was something I'd actually repressed from memory, maybe because it was so disgustingly uncharacteristic for him, and just disgusting, period. Whoever wrote that particular chapter and passage of AvX ought to be ashamed of themselves.

Sorry for reminding you of that AvX debacle. Lol.

[capandkirby]

Captain America #17 preview...

[capandkirby]

Captain America #17 preview (cont.)...



Oh wow. That’s not good. Wonder if we’ll find out the identity of this latest incarnation of Scourge in this issue. Still leaning towards Jack Monroe.

Source

[capandkirby]

You raise very good points here, especially the last one. As for the rest of it, I would agree that Steve was in a serious catch-22, and I might even posit that the entire Civil War event was set up for him to ultimately fail no matter what, mostly because it was an allegory for (what the writer perceived as) the death of American ideals and values after 9/11, as exemplified by the willingness on the general public's part to accept abridgements of its own freedoms and unleashed brutality toward its perceived or actual enemies. Captain America surrendering to the authorities, then being mocked as out of date and out of touch by the media, and finally assassinated as he was on his way to trial, while Iron Man ascended to director of S.H.I.E.L.D. after having betrayed his former comrades and compromised his principles --- such as they were --- in increasingly heinous ways, was symbolic of that.

True enough, Millar has flat-out stated as such. I didn’t particularly enjoy Civil War when it was originally released but I do have to acknowledge how on point the metaphor was/is, now more than ever.

[Huntsman Spider]

Sorry for reminding you of that AvX debacle. Lol.

It's cool.

True enough, Millar has flat-out stated as such. I didn’t particularly enjoy Civil War when it was originally released but I do have to acknowledge how on point the metaphor was/is, now more than ever.

Indeed, which is a shame, really. And yeah, I could say the same, though Civil War was the event that got me fully into Marvel when I was a politically conscious college student, so it did have a certain place in my heart. That, and Captain America's interactions with Spider-Man in the ASM tie-in issues were personal highlights for me.

[Frontier]

Captain America #17 preview (cont.)...



Oh wow. That’s not good. Wonder if we’ll find out the identity of this latest incarnation of Scourge in this issue. Still leaning towards Jack Monroe.

Source

If only he had his shield he would probably have recovered quicker from the grenade...

[tg1982]

If only he had his shield he would probably have recovered quicker from the grenade...

Yeah. I get changing the uniform, putting the classic suit way until his innocence can be proven, but why not keep the shield? Why voluntarily make yourself less effective?