Spencer's Captain America

[Snoop Dogg]

I suspect Sam giving up the shield was executive meddling and Spencer intended his run to end with Sam and the real Steve both being Cap (Marvel Legacy #1 seemed to show a duplicate of the shield). After all, he did create a new Falcon, and during Secret Empire, a second, patriotic themed, sidekick was given to Sam as well.

A lot of the stuff in the later part of the run and in Generations about how Sam doesn't need to be Cap or have the shield to be a real hero and carving his own legacy and how he and Steve inspire each other doesn't really ring true if the plan was to have them both be Cap. The story where he goes back to being Falcon is better IMO, even if other writers have been dropping the ball since Nick moved to Lowe's office.

[Agent Z]

Yup, pretty much.

The story sucked. The excution was poor, the build up sucks and Spencer wrote himself into a corner. A better 'question authority' message miht have been if Cap had led the Avengers to into one defeat after another, advantaging Hydra at every turn.

As for Sam, the constant critism was clearly meant to reflect Obama's treatment, IMO. Especially with the other poor, hamfisted stories that came with it ("You can't arrest me for murder! I'm too big to fail!"). But, again Obama never gave up. Sam did. Obama had many accomplishments to his presidency, Sam...what good character moment did he have the entire time?

There was that time he convinced the board of directors of a corrupt company to sell out one of their own.

And as for Sam giving up, the guy is only human. Even is his treatment was meant to reflect Obama it doesn't change the fact that Sam was being judged by an unfair standard. It's a good story about what happens when the legend becomes bigger than the person.

[Agent Z]

It feels like they used Sam the way they use Green Arrow on TV: as a version of Batman who can make mistakes. They wanted a more human Captain America. Steve Rogers isn't really allowed to be human.

Batman makes mistakes all the time.

[Snoop Dogg]

Sam's pyyrich victories in his solo arcs were bundled with great speeches and character moments. Before SE, I'd say the best one is the speech right before it that he puts on the internet about retiring the shield.

[charliehustle415]

I knew the minute the real Steve showed up in the first issue of Secret Empire, in the Vanishing Point, what Spencer was doing. So even though Steve is my favorite character, my own displeasure with Secret Empire had nothing to do with the outrage going around twitter at the time or with Stevil or Sam’s characterization. I disliked Secret Empire for its treatment of its supporting characters and what I saw as often one dimensional and stereotypical storytelling. This is my opinion, it’s not going to change, so don’t bother arguing with me about it.

As for the controversy surrounding it, I once put this in another thread so I’ll put it here, these are the reasons Secret Empire was divisive with the general audience...

Secret Empire wouldn't have been half as divisive if:

a) they didn't market it as 'oh yes, this is the real Cap, not a copy' when in reality, it was a copy.
b) they didn't send pro-Hydra paraphernalia to the shops to promote it.
c) Donald Trump didn't win the presidency and Charlotteville didn't happen. In other words, Marvel used extraordinarily bad timing for a story like that, and made the mistake of using a hero synonymous with WW2 to do it, who was created by two Jewish creators to be the world's first SJW.
d) They used a character made wildly popular by the MCU. Those of us who have been reading comics forever just kind of rolled our eyes and went, 'this will be ret-conned before the run is even done'. But the bulk of the protesting came from non-comic readers who aren't familiar with how comics work.

...having said all this, Spencer did NOT deserve death threats (no one does). The hate heaped on him was unwarranted and awful. As a long-time comics reader I got second-hand embarrassment over how over-the-top people reacted to this story.

I wonder why did the top brass at Marvel insist on Evil Cap being the true Cap, I mean in the books themselves it overtly hinted at that the real Steve is somewhere in the either (which later was known as the Vanishing Point). I mean it happens all the time in comics, weird move.

I didn't even realize Spencer got death threats, I knew he was constantly harassed; so sad especially since these are just the "funny books"

[Snoop Dogg]

I wonder why did the top brass at Marvel insist on Evil Cap being the true Cap, I mean in the books themselves it overtly hinted at that the real Steve is somewhere in the either (which later was known as the Vanishing Point). I mean it happens all the time in comics, weird move.

Technically, Stevil was the true Cap until the story ended, because the new history of the Marvel Universe was his beginning from Standoff until it was set back. So they were speaking lawyer during marketing.

[responsarbre]

I’m personally not fully convinced that the plot of Secret Empire as it was realized was the same plot that Spencer intended to write at the beginning of the saga, and I suspect that might play into some of the cagey statements we got.

I'm not convinced Rage was shown to be in the wrong. I thought that was very much left ambiguous and was a major catalyst for Sam Wilson's actions after that point.

The consequences Rage faced were meant to be tragic, yes, but Spencer never actually had Sam fully renege his position that Rage shouldn’t have done so much against the Americops. The later incident with the Bombshells is more-or-less a reaffirmation of Sam’s earlier position that respectability > confronting dangerous bigotry.

[capandkirby]

I’m personally not fully convinced that the plot of Secret Empire as it was realized was the same plot that Spencer intended to write at the beginning of the saga, and I suspect that might play into some of the cagey statements we got.

Are you referring to those reddit spoilers that came out about the state of Marvel Comics? Those were debunked for the most part, weren’t they? Except for Coates getting Cap, which they actually stole from Bleeding Cool, who was the first to break that news.

Not trying to argue with your assessment, you might even change my mind on the topic, just genuinely curious why you feel that way?

[responsarbre]

Are you referring to those reddit spoilers that came out about the state of Marvel Comics? Those were debunked for the most part, weren’t they? Except for Coates getting Cap, which they actually stole from Bleeding Cool, who was the first to break that news.

Not trying with your assessment, you might even change my mind on the topic, just genuinely curious why you feel that way?

Oh, I don't actually have any proof! I don't mean it in a wide, sweeping, "EVERYTHING MARVEL WANTED TO DO WITH THE MU AFTER SECRET EMPIRE WAS DIFFERENT" way like with those rumors, more in the way of significant plotlines getting dropped or swapped because Spencer was writing up to 3 issues a month and things moving quickly and being rushed into the event stage. (E.g. the mysterious nu-Kraken, who I am pretty sure was meant to be Ian Rogers, but Spencer just didn't have the time to work in a reveal so he just told people that he left it open-ended on purpose.) Basically, I was thinking more along the lines of Hickman's comments about his Avengers, when he said that things move too fast to preserve original plans, which is why he wasn't able to meticulously fill out that diagram of core Avengers member that he had going on at the beginning of his run.

I vaguely(?) remember different rumors from the ones you mentioned that said things along the lines of the idea Stevil was supposed to stick around longer or that Stevil was supposed to be "turned back to normal" and not outright replaced, but I'm not sure if those are true. I do think that Secret Empire getting blown up to event size naturally resulted in bloat and weird changes to boost spectacle, along the lines of what gurkle said, which could have had an effect on the intended resolution of the plotline.

[CrimsonEchidna]

Secret Empire was this weird amalgamation shitstorm of MCU fans who didn't read comics but got pissed over the fact that "Marvel made Captain America a Nazi," the proto-Comicsgate crowd who was convinced that this was all a way to denigrate Steve and make Sam the "real" Captain America, and sites clickbaiting the entire thing.

Divorced from the controversy, I do think that Secret Empire is a good book, and will only continue to get "rediscovered" going forward. My only real complaint is that Marvel's buckling under pressure ultimately completely undermined the ending of the comic.

[capandkirby]

Oh, I don't actually have any proof! I don't mean it in a wide, sweeping, "EVERYTHING MARVEL WANTED TO DO WITH THE MU AFTER SECRET EMPIRE WAS DIFFERENT" way like with those rumors, more in the way of significant plotlines getting dropped or swapped because Spencer was writing up to 3 issues a month and things moving quickly and being rushed into the event stage. (E.g. the mysterious nu-Kraken, who I am pretty sure was meant to be Ian Rogers, but Spencer just didn't have the time to work in a reveal so he just told people that he left it open-ended on purpose.) Basically, I was thinking more along the lines of Hickman's comments about his Avengers, when he said that things move too fast to preserve original plans, which is why he wasn't able to meticulously fill out that diagram of core Avengers member that he had going on at the beginning of his run.

I vaguely(?) remember different rumors from the ones you mentioned that said things along the lines of the idea Stevil was supposed to stick around longer or that Stevil was supposed to be "turned back to normal" and not outright replaced, but I'm not sure if those are true. I do think that Secret Empire getting blown up to event size naturally resulted in bloat and weird changes to boost spectacle, along the lines of what gurkle said, which could have had an effect on the intended resolution of the plotline.

Ah, okay, I gotcha. And yes, you’re probably correct in that.

[Michael Watkins]

After hearing about the "controversies" of Secret Empire I decided to read Spencer's Captain America run, both Sam and Steve, and I am absolutely loving it.

I don't understand why people were so mad about it, I am not that active on the boards but this story was being talked about on my local news station at the time. So, now reading it after some time has passed, I'm scratching my head as to why it was so controversial?

Both Sam's and Steve's titles were riveting with the former looking at institutionalized injustices and the latter belonging to said institution, epic stuff.

I personally loved the ripped outta the headlines storylines because it pushed character into the modern era. Don't get me wrong I love the spy vs spy, cold war, espionage stuff that the Captain America book was best known for, but no one can touch that kind of story once Brubaker was done with it.

I thought Spencer's writing of Maria Hill was great too, albeit a bit too snarky at times.

Being removed from the immediacy of the storylines, is there still a visceral hate for Spencer's take?

I loved his run.

[charliehustle415]

Secret Empire was this weird amalgamation shitstorm of MCU fans who didn't read comics but got pissed over the fact that "Marvel made Captain America a Nazi," the proto-Comicsgate crowd who was convinced that this was all a way to denigrate Steve and make Sam the "real" Captain America, and sites clickbaiting the entire thing.

Divorced from the controversy, I do think that Secret Empire is a good book, and will only continue to get "rediscovered" going forward. My only real complaint is that Marvel's buckling under pressure ultimately completely undermined the ending of the comic.

That's how I felt, I just picked the trades up and couldn't believe how good the run was. I mean I was a huge fan of Spencer especially after Superior Foes

[TheMaker1610]

Reposting this from the Marvel Most Controversial Moments' Thread

- - - - -

After Hickman's Avengers, and Secret Wars, there were no Marvel Books I was interested at, as the ANAD era bored me to no end (with the exception of Ms Marvel)
Then, Avengers Standoff happened, which picked my curiousity, and I really liked it a lot (that Red Skull ending was great imo)
After that, I got Spencer's 1st Cap Run which I liked, and then, the whole Steve's HAIL HYDRA thing exploded worldwide (oh Lord, those days were WILD, to say the least.. the whole internet went nuts, and becam warzone-like)
But, the whole premise really raised my interest, and imo, Spencer was killing it
Seeing Steve manipulating and outplaying the whole MU was a great, and well executed imo
Civil War II: The Oath is my favorite book of all time for a lot of reasons (I will explain why later), and the Secret Empire tease pumped me up
Unsurprisingly, I LOVED Secret Empire, as it wad the culmination of Spencer's work on both Steve and Sam

Yeah, the timing for the whole thing was poor as someone above said (writing about Fascism post-Trump lmao), but I am sure most of you cant deny that Spencer did an awesome work building up to that event since the end of Standoff, and I greatly commend him for that (as most current events happen with little or zero build up, see civil war 2)

In short, while highly controversial for all reasons mentioned above, I really enjoyed the Caps' Runs, and Secret Empire, and I really think the hate was unwarranted imo (specially since the ones that complained the most were non-comicbook readers at all)
Also.. death threats? Uh..

On another one, I find funny how different Spencer's Spidey seems in comparation to his Cap(s), like if a different writter was on it instead (His Spidey I highly recommend also, 10/10 atm)

[Snoop Dogg]

Nick's Spider-Man run has intentionally been taking time to set up characters for the nightmares coming ahead, don't you worry! It's the power of double shipping!