This had me rolling on the floor when I read it. At
first I thought it was a montage.

http://community.livejournal.com/scans_daily/3099698.html?#c utid1

This has nothing to do with the comic book being discussed, but rather in response to David's post:

More than likely, in a number of years, TV will be more like YouTube. In fact, I believe that TV and computers will be combined. The concept behind YouTube is not a faddish idea, it is the future of entertainment and communication between people all over the world. Like eBay before it, and any invention of merit, YouTube fills a demand. It's more than just people posting clips of TV shows and posting music videos.

Back on topic about the comic:

I hate the way Captain America is being portrayed in that story.

Amen, Brother Gatsis!

I agree, if you couldn't tell. ;-)

In the future, porn will download us.

I prefer the old Marvel comics, where Cap fights other heroes for half a comic, laments over Bucky for a few pages, then bangs Zemo on the head with his shield.  THAT'S CAP!

I wonder if an artist had submitted that page for a job at M***** 20 or 30 years ago, would they get hired?

The "reporter" seems to demonstrate a very real need for the State Department of Compassionate Indulgence of Not Very Important Dullards.

It's a terrible endictment of our society that no one has provided her with a chicken wrap, a diet soda, a TV running in the backround , and a caring professional in a white coat to nod and say "uh huh" every time she expresses herself.

Huh ...

Guys, believe me, I am not a fan of most of Marvel's output these days, and in general I hate what has been done to characters like Captain America, but I think thisscene seems legit.  A character mentioning to Cap that while he's supposed to be a hero for all Americans, he's not really in touch with the daily life of Americans?  Sounds like something that Stan Lee or Roger Stern or Mark Gruenwald might write.  It reminds me a great deal of "Hey, you saved a planet of green skins and you work for blue skins, but what about us black skins?" (as flawed as that logic is)

Yeah, the specific references will be dated quickly, but what does that matter?  I assume this wasn't followed by a six-issue arc about Cap tracking badguys through Facebook.  10 years ago it would have been "When's the last time you did a search on Yahoo or videotaped an episode of Friends or bought a new Hootie and the Blowfish album?"  In 1987 it would be "When did you last eat at a sushi bar or go to a video arcade or see a Sylvester Stallone movie?"  1977 -- "When did you do the Hustle at a disco or buy a pet rock or talk to friends on a CB?"  1967 -- "When did you last listen to the Beatles or watch The Beverly Hillbillies, or buy a hi-fi?"  The specifics don't really matter.

Now, I do think it's legit that these are all very much middle class touchstones -- the people for whom these things are important don't need all that much championing.  And maybe it's not important that Cap understand them.  But having a character bring them up seems like part of a tradition.

Would I read a whole issue of this?  No.  Would I rather this were demanded of Cap by somebody in a more dynamic pose?  Definitely.  (Am I talking like Donald Rumsfeld?  Apparently.)  But a few panels like this would be okay in just about any era of Cap, post suspended animation.

Well, Stern and Byrne had him with a big stack of Jazz and Big Band records in 1980 ...

On the other hand, I just picked up Essential Captain America Volume 3, and I was surprised that Stan Lee had him speaking pretty contemporary late-60s/early-70s slang and even dropping the occaisional pop culture reference. 

Cap's response may well be "Hey, I just watched two 'Lazy Sunday' parodies on YouTube over lunch!" but I can still imagine a character asking him these questions.  Y'know, it's like asking a politician if he or she knows the price of gasoline or a loaf of bread.

Well, Joe, you're asking me to support a point I didn't ever make.  I never said Cap is out of touch with regular Americans.  But it makes sense to me that regular people in the Marvel Universe might think he is.

But okay, let's pretend I did make that point ... Specific instances of Cap not being in touch with American culture?  Well, the first thing that leaps to mind is him not knowing the UN Building in Avengers #4 ... though there's no way he could have known it, unless the Avengers had given him a really thorough briefing on the submarine ride back to New York.  In that Essential volume I'm reading, there's a scene where Cap is amazed that the movie stars of his youth are only enjoyed as nostalgia now and modern kids think he, Captain America, is corny.

It seems like a fundamental schtick used by every good Cap writer since Lee and Kirby brought him back is that other characters think he's a dinosaur and he proves them wrong -- Hawkeye comes to mind. 

I don't know what this above scene sets up.  If the reporter is shown to be short sighted and wrong, that's definitely in the tradition.  If she's shown to be a bit naive, but Cap decides to spend a little more time getting to know "regular Americans" ... maybe we're still in the tradition.  If Cap is shaken to foundation by this and renounces superheroing to start reading blogs and watching reruns of Gray's Anatomy, then, yes, this is more masturbatory crap from Marvel.  But taken by itself, out of context (as it was never meant to be taken), this seen seems more or less okay.