Captain America's 78th Anniversary

[capandkirby]

March 1941 is the cover date for the release of the first Captain America comic (although the comic was actually released December 20, 1940). Making March 2019 his 78th anniversary.

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A lot of people assume that Cap was a propaganda tool used to improve enlistment. And he was. But that was not his original intent. As the release dates of his comic attest, Cap was created before America joined the war. One of his creators, Jack Kirby, was first generation American, his mother was actually born in Austria, and Kirby, who was Jewish, had family still in Austria stuck under Hitler's reign of terror. Joe Simon, also Jewish, once said this about Captain America's inception:

"We both read the newspapers," Simon said. "We knew what was going on over in Europe. World events gave us the perfect comic-book villain, Adolf Hitler, with his ranting, goose-stepping and ridiculous moustache. So we decided to create the perfect hero who would be his foil. I did that first sketch of Captain America, and Jack and I did the entire first issue before showing it to (publisher) Martin Goodman at Timely Comics. He loved it immediately."

https://www.nj.com/entertainment/ind...aptain_am.html

Jack Kirby, the firecracker between the two, was a little more succinct in what Cap meant to him.

"Captain America was myself. Captain America was my own anger coming to the surface and saying, “What if I could fight 25 guys? How would I do it?” And I figured it out and it would become sort of a ballet, in which Captain America would fight 25 guys and I’d work it out so he could lick ’em all. Of course, in real life, I’d probably get smeared. In real life, it doesn’t work out that way. You can’t keep track of everybody and you don’t know what the next guy ia doing, but over here, I could."

https://kirbymuseum.org/blogs/effect...rby-interview/

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The first issue of Captain America, featuring cover art of Steve Rogers punching Hitler in the jaw, sold roughly a million copies. In fact, it outsold Time Magazine that month. But it wasn't popular with everybody, in fact, as anyone can imagine the Nazi sympathizers in New York did NOT receive the comic well.

Said Joe Simon:

"But when Captain America came out, America wasn't yet in the war, so the American Nazis weren't happy with what we did to their beloved Fuhrer. ... We had a couple of personal encounters with the Bund (an American Nazi group). But that didn't stop us. If anything, it added fuel to the fire."

And remember how I said that Kirby was the firecracker between the two? Well, when a few of these Nazi sympathizers showed up at Timely's headquarters and threatened physical harm to Simon and Kirby, Kirby was ready to go down to the lobby and teach them some manners, all five foot something of fury (fun fact: Jack Kirby was short in stature but huge in personality).

Excerpt from the book Kirby: King of Comics by Mark Evanier:

“…Jack took a call. A voice on the other end said, ‘There are three of us down here in the lobby. We want to see the guy who does this disgusting comic book and show him what real Nazis would do to his Captain America’. To the horror of others in the office, Kirby rolled up his sleeves and headed downstairs. The callers, however, were gone by the time he arrived.”

Bless the man, honestly.

As a side note: a police escort started guarding the Timely offices after that threat.

But then, December 7, 1941. Pearl Harbor happened, and America did join the war. Simon voluntarily joined the National Guard. Kirby was drafted into the Army. His position in the Army? Scout. A position assigned to him because he could draw. Kirby would go on to participate in the Battle of the Bulge. At one point he helped free a concentration camp...

Article Excerpt:

"As Kirby described to Ray Wyman, in “Conversations With Jack,” which was excerpted in Jack Kirby Collector: “There were mostly women and some men; they looked like they hadn’t eaten for I don’t know how long. They were scrawny. Their clothes were all tattered and dirty. The Germans didn’t give a shit for anything. They just left the place; just like leaving a dog behind to starve. I was standing there for a long time just watching thinking to myself, ‘What do I do?’ Just thinking about it makes my stomach turn. All I could say was, ‘Oh, God.’”

https://www.pastemagazine.com/articl...t-fascism.html

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Meanwhile, back home, Kirby and Simon's creation was being used as a recruitment tool, because of his popularity. And as a result, enlistment surged. They say fiction is molded from reality, but once in a great while, something truly special will come along, a rare piece of fiction that actually helped to mold reality and alter the course of history.

Happy 78th, Cap. And thank you Simon and Kirby for gifting him to us.

[Frontier]

Happy 78th to the Star-Spangled Avenger and Sentinel of Liberty .

And here's to another 78 years of Cap inspiring and throwing his mighty shield .

[TheCape]

Happy 78th to Steve Rogers, i hope that he keeps giving us more entertaiment in the years to come.