Is Steve Rogers,Super Soldier, In The Wrong World And Not Suited To The 616?

[vitruvian]

That brings up an interesting point- have we ever seen cap deal with german people after WWII?

Yes, a fair number of times, most recently with the new Iron Cross in Invaders. He really doesn't have an issue with anybody who doesn't hold to Nazi ideology or have complicity in actual WWII war crimes. Nor has ever evinced any racism while dealing with Japanese characters such as Sunfire.

[jackolover]

You just described a bunch of heroes, Marvel, DC, etc. Spider-Man certainly doesn't do it to make a buck. You could say he profited from it at one point, but as a photographer he was barely scraping by, he did it more so out of a sense of responsibility. Daredevil fits that mold as well. He'll beat the crap out of villains and then the next day turn around and represent them in court out a sense of duty for American justice. Batman, although in DC, is a billionaire who only fights the good fight because he doesn't want to see his city get any worse than it already is and he has the means, money wise, to invest in both Batman and in the city.

I never thought of it that way. So you think some Marvel characters are actually trying to profit from being Heroes?

What I meant by that statement you quoted was that the heroes first instinct in their origin stories were very mercinery. Sure they got a conscience later and they turned it around. But Steve Rogers was not like them.

[jackolover]

Is Steve Rogers,Super Soldier, In The Wrong World And Not Suited To The 616?

Ummm...No, Cap is fine where he is. That is a fairly 'broad brush' you use, jackolover, to taint the whole of 1940's society and just because Cap is an idealist and believes in people beyond their skin color, gender or orientation does not make him the odd man out of the MU 616. My folks came of age in Steve's era and they (and many of their peers) believed that a man is judged by his character and his actions, not by race or gender or whatever. They taught such standards to my siblings and myself. Not everyone of that day was a bigot. Yes, there were considerable difficulties regarding race throughout the country (and much of it in the deep south), but it wasn't then nor is it now the opinion of the majority of folks trying to survive. Most of my folks friends had little problem with such issues and lived their lives with respect towards their fellow man (much like young Steve Rogers). Steve wasn't and is not so much the exception to the rule as he is endeavoring to hold the standard of the rule. So, he's just fine in the 616.

As to Martin Goodman, he was a man with issues and not the best example of an altruistic business man...but he's not alone--then or now. There are plenty of folks today who have as serious a character flaw as Goodman, many are just better at putting up a facade.

To say that Steve Rogers is in the wrong world...you might as well ask, are you...am I? No, the world is made up of a vast array of individuals--some good--some bad--but most caught in the middle trying to find their way. Just like Steve who embraced the Ideals of the BEST of the American Experience and rejected the worse, acknowledging that we can grow beyond our world and strive to embody the best that human character can be--respect, courtesy, honor, faith, and justice for all.

It was difficult for me to compare the breakup of bigots/non-bigots in the world at post Depression 1930, 1940, and 1960 and even today. You are saying that I have a morbid appraisal of the rate of bigots in the USA at the time Steve Rogers became Cap, his re-entry into the 1960's and how he is today? I have to say that citizens of America who sat idly by while people of another colour were being Beaten over the head with a plank for daring to enter a whites only Restuarant, are not devoid of blame while this is going on, purely because they had a better disposition. It tainted everyone. The point I'm trying to get at is that while racism was at its height in the USA nobody was exempt from fault. But that's only part of it. Bad people became super heroes in that time, starting from a point of being mercenary, and turning, to become sympathetic to us, the reader.

Steve Rogers didn't have to do that. He rose up in a world that weighed different people with a different status in society. In the Martin Goodman example, we have people who despise other people below them and try to take them for all they've got. Don't get me wrong, I'm sympathetic to Goodman who rose up in a cut throat world, and had to make do supporting his family in the process, but the people that those times produced were pretty brutal people, and that was the sign of the times. I experienced it in my time in the work place myself. I'm not immune from it either. This is the mire the super heroes had to drag themselves out of in the 1960's when they emerged. Steve Rogers was brutalised up to the time of his origin. But Steve Rogers, though also a product of this world, didn't succumb to temptation, and appeared the most squeeky clean, a little unsuited to where he came from. An idealist.

[jackolover]

No, everything here is wrong. No aggression and psychosis for most of the other Marvel heroes, any more than it would be right to call Steve a war monger because he volunteered to be enhanced to fight in WWII.

Would you really call Steve Rogers a warmonger? I wouldn't, but I'd like to read more about why he would be considered one.

[jackolover]

What on Earth are you talking about? 'Tainted' backgrounds? Stop with this BS, it could all too easily be taken as anti-Semitism, although I'm pretty sure that's not how you mean it.

EDIT: Sorry if that was a bit harsh. You've really got to think about wording and the resulting tone when you post these theories, though. I suspect that you were thinking more of them growing up less than wealthy and wanting to make a living at this comics thing... but it's a real big stretch to suggest that makes their backgrounds 'tainted' in any way. There are also issues with your characterization of the rest of the Marvel heroes - it's not like the FF were primarily motivated by profit rather than discovery and exploration in making their rocket flight, or that Spider-Man fights villains for money or his health, etc.

And just because the 40s were far more (openly, anyway) bigoted than the present doesn't mean that every character from that era would or should be that way, especially not somebody who was always intended to represent the best of the country, and when there certainly were plenty of liberal and egalitarian folks around even then. Steve in particular strikes me as always very much on the side of the little guy, having been that guy himself, and politically (as much as Marvel would or should define it) probably a very New Deal Democrat (having seen how his mother struggled to support him and died due to a lack of health care) and artistic bleeding heart type who never believed in bigotry of any kind, and would probably have been upset to learn just how much minorities were excluded from the New Deal and from the post-War GI and other social benefit programs. But he's far from alone among the Marvel heroes in being primarily motivated by altruism.

I never even approached it from an anti-Semitic viewpoint. I would never bring up,anything like that.

As to how Kirby at least was brought up in gangs and constant street fights, I can't see him coming out of that period smelling like a rose

I do point out the start of the 1960's super heroes included a surgeon who only worked for those who pay, a weapons manufacturer, a space explororer who recklessly took his friend into an unprotected vehicle so the USA could beat the Russians, and did it illegally, a teenager who used his powers for fame and money, a scientist who made a shrinking serum out of spite for his perceived peer pressure, and a God who was sent to Earth for being reckless and unheroic by his father. These are just some examples of the characters dredged up as super heroes. I can see they were tainted to start with.

[jackolover]

Cap not only belongs in 616; he's indispensable.

He & his values, belong in our world, as well.

It's not Cap and his values, who are out of place. It's the rest of society. They just don't know it yet, and tend to get nervous & dismissive when the truth so bluntly hits them in the face.

Certainly when represented by the Illuminati, who were supposed to be Steve Rogers peers, and chose to betray his ideals. That certainly displays how Steve Rogers doesn't fit into this world.

[jackolover]

That brings up an interesting point- have we ever seen cap deal with german people after WWII?

Not that I recall. What are you getting at?

[vitruvian]

Would you really call Steve Rogers a warmonger? I wouldn't, but I'd like to read more about why he would be considered one.

No, I wouldn't. That's the point, your statements about the other Marvel heroes being full of aggression and psychosis or being heroes in order to profit from their activities are just as inaccurate.

[jackolover]

I think the OP is being rather harsh toward the other Marvel heroes. The Marvel formula was heroes with problems, not heroes with psychosis.

Also, I'd argue that Cap, as written by Stan Lee in the 1960s, was even more "Marvel" than the others. Steve Rogers had some pretty thinly veiled PTSD going on. He was traumatized, moody, clingy, overprotective, and desperate.

He had bad dreams about Bucky, and he hallucinated about taking revenge on Baron Zemo. He freaked out when Rick Jones dressed up as Bucky or became endangered, to the point that he physically lashed out at his fellow Avengers. Same with Sharon Carter, whom he proposed marriage to at the beginning of their first ever date.

When Hawkeye talked crap to him, he talked crap right back. He often recited platitudes about freedom and patriotism, but he wasn't written as a boyscout back then.

Somewhere down the line (people who are much more well versed on comics can go into this much better than I) he began to be treated as the perfect moral paragon of the Marvel universe. That's the perception that has stuck, despite the much more troubled portrayal from the Silver Age of all places.

Well, it's nice that you bring up some of the flaws in Steve Rogers at the time Stan and Jack brought him back in the 1960's. I didn't see moody, clingy, or desperate, but I did notice the others. I can't recall Cap hallucinating getting revenge on Baron Zemo, but I can imagine everyone has those daydreams, but they aren't what Steve Rogers acts upon.

"He wasn't written as a boyscout back then". I thought Steve Rogers acted very heroically in Avengers #4 (1964), the way he became detective, organized the Rick Jones teenage Gang to help save the Avengers, and eventually treated the Alien with respect. Looked pretty boyscout to me. Can you clarify?

[jackolover]

No, I wouldn't. That's the point, your statements about the other Marvel heroes being full of aggression and psychosis or being heroes in order to profit from their activities are just as inaccurate.

I'm not saying the other heroes are being heroes to profit from it, just that's how they started.

[vitruvian]

I never even approached it from an anti-Semitic viewpoint. I would never bring up,anything like that.

As to how Kirby at least was brought up in gangs and constant street fights, I can't see him coming out of that period smelling like a rose

Your use of 'tainted' to describe the backgrounds of real people is problematic to say the least.

I do point out the start of the 1960's super heroes included a surgeon who only worked for those who pay, a weapons manufacturer, a space explororer who recklessly took his friend into an unprotected vehicle so the USA could beat the Russians, and did it illegally, a teenager who used his powers for fame and money, a scientist who made a shrinking serum out of spite for his perceived peer pressure, and a God who was sent to Earth for being reckless and unheroic by his father. These are just some examples of the characters dredged up as super heroes. I can see they were tainted to start with.

And every one of them turned it around by the end of their origin story and was operating as a hero for altruistic motives, even assuming that their initial motives were wholly ignoble - which is far from indisputable in many of these cases. Richards and the rest of his crew took that flight to further discovery and exploration as much as patriotic/jingoistic reasons, and not at all out of a profit motive, and even Parker, while he may have been interested in his own fame and gain, was primarily trying to make money as Spider-Man to help out his aunt and uncle, hardly the worst motive in the world. Lee and his collaborators were adding wrinkles to their origins by giving them, in some cases (the FF trying to beat the Commies in the space race might well have been seen as heroic as well) feet of clay or a redemptive path to take, but by the time they're superheroes they've already mostly redeemed themselves.

So even for these fictional characters, the term 'tainted' doesn't seem appropriate. Flawed, perhaps, or human... and as others have noted, the defrosted Cap of the Silver Age had some of these same features grafted on to his uncomplicated Golden Age nature, by virtue of the man out of time thing and his angst over both that and the loss of Bucky.

[vitruvian]

I'm not saying the other heroes are being heroes to profit from it, just that's how they started.

Of them all, that still only seems true of Stark, Strange, and Parker. The FF were in it for Science! and to beat the commies, Pym was in it for Science!, and Blake was apparently an exemplary doctor who, by contrast to Strange, probably did a lot of pro bono work. And recall that initially, it wasn't necessarily considered a bad thing that Stark made weapons for the US military, his abandonment of weapons manufacturing was a long time coming and at first he was a semi-heroic figure even before Iron Man; the idea that he becomes Iron Man in payment for his sins is much newer. And like I said before, at least some of Parker's motivation was to repay the good his aunt and uncle had done for him, so even at the beginning he was far from entirely selfish.

Apropos of nothing but some of the characters brought up in this discussion... have we ever seen stories in which Blake and Strange had interactions in the medical community prior to their respective origins? With Blake being the kind of innovative doctor who could come up with superscience inventions only peripherally connected to medicine, and Strange as supposedly the best and most ambitious surgeon around, you'd think their paths might have crossed....

[t hedge coke]

I'm not saying the other heroes are being heroes to profit from it, just that's how they started.

No, they didn't. Spidey, the Thing, Ant-Man and the Wasp weren't heroes for profit. Even Nick Fury isn't a hero for profit. They've had jobs that sometimes brought them closer to the fight, just like any journalist or any police officer, but they were heroes because they're heroes. Putting on a costume and fighting in a ring for money wasn't Parker selling out his ethics or anything. Taking a paycheck, even, to go into a dangerous situation, like piloting a spaceship or fighting in a war, doesn't make a person bad or unfit to be a hero. How they accord themselves in those situations, that defines their heroism. Spidey, the FF, the Wasp have always stepped up and done their best to save people, to help people. That's what makes them heroes, not whether they got a paycheck to go look at a place or made some money off having a wonderful superpower.

The idea that the only true heroism is in being a vigilante is one of the dumbest things superhero comics could ever have imparted on their audience.

[vitruvian]

No, they didn't. Spidey, the Thing, Ant-Man and the Wasp weren't heroes for profit. Even Nick Fury isn't a hero for profit. They've had jobs that sometimes brought them closer to the fight, just like any journalist or any police officer, but they were heroes because they're heroes. Putting on a costume and fighting in a ring for money wasn't Parker selling out his ethics or anything. Taking a paycheck, even, to go into a dangerous situation, like piloting a spaceship or fighting in a war, doesn't make a person bad or unfit to be a hero. How they accord themselves in those situations, that defines their heroism. Spidey, the FF, the Wasp have always stepped up and done their best to save people, to help people. That's what makes them heroes, not whether they got a paycheck to go look at a place or made some money off having a wonderful superpower.

The idea that the only true heroism is in being a vigilante is one of the dumbest things superhero comics could ever have imparted on their audience.

And of course, even in the good old uncomplicated Golden Age, I'm sure Steve Rogers drew his pay from the military, though I'm not sure whether it's ever been established whether that was at his PFC 'secret identity' rank or as an actual Captain. So even then, writers were fine with superheroes getting paid under the right circumstances and didn't regard it as mercenary.

[t hedge coke]

And of course, even in the good old uncomplicated Golden Age, I'm sure Steve Rogers drew his pay from the military, though I'm not sure whether it's ever been established whether that was at his PFC 'secret identity' rank or as an actual Captain. So even then, writers were fine with superheroes getting paid under the right circumstances and didn't regard it as mercenary.

I think I actually love Silver Age Marvel for pushing so hard on superheroes who needed their day jobs. Most Golden Agers and DC's Silver Age heroes had jobs, but they rarely needed their job or even invested in it all that much. Clark Kent is rarely even half the journalist that Lois Lane is, seemingly content to promote himself above the fold, more than anything, but when he cares about his job, it's beautiful, and that's something 60s Marvel really pioneered in superheroes. Hank Pym cared about his work. Peter Parker needed to sell photos or win a wrestling match, otherwise, bills don't get paid or they don't advance, as a world or as an individual, as the case may be. The FF's mailman was heroic.