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Brian Floyd
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 07 July 2006
Location: United States
Posts: 8353
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| Posted: 18 September 2014 at 12:06pm | IP Logged | 1
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What about Marvel's retcon that Steve vanished earlier in
the war and was replaced by not one but TWO other heroes
(Spirit of 76 and the original Patriot) as Captain
America? If I remember right, it was alleged that Steve
and Bucky went into the water sometime in 1943 or 1944.
Spirit of 76 was Captain America II but was killed on a
mission, and Patriot finished the war as Captain America
III.
Has that been tossed out? I hope so.
(I could see Steve disappearing near the end of the war
and someone posing as Captain America so people don't
think he's dead or missing to boost morale. But the idea
of someone else fighting as Captain America during
WWII....meh.)
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Greg Kirkman
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 12 May 2006
Location: United States
Posts: 15775
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| Posted: 18 September 2014 at 12:18pm | IP Logged | 2
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It should be noted that the "Tuskegee Experiment"-retcon was an
attempt to /recreate/ the Super-Soldier Serum. It takes place after
Captain America was born. The honor of stripping away Steve Rogers
being the first person to receive the Super-Soldier Serum goes to Dan
Jurgens' Protocide story.
+++++++++++++
To borrow a Byrne-ism...
Sigh.
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Greg Kirkman
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 12 May 2006
Location: United States
Posts: 15775
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| Posted: 18 September 2014 at 12:25pm | IP Logged | 3
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What about Marvel's retcon that Steve vanished earlier in
the war and was replaced by not one but TWO other heroes
(Spirit of 76 and the original Patriot) as Captain
America? If I remember right, it was alleged that Steve
and Bucky went into the water sometime in 1943 or 1944.
Spirit of 76 was Captain America II but was killed on a
mission, and Patriot finished the war as Captain America
++++++++++
Stan and Jack went about it the right way--Captain America, the hero
and symbol created to bolster America's spirit during the war,
disappeared just before the war ended. His post-war adventures in the
late 40s, and the short-lived 50s revival were simply ignored. And, at
the time of AVENGERS # 4, no one cared that Cap's disappearance
was a huge retcon!
While I like the idea of exploring the impact of Cap's disappearance in
1945, I do think that the retcons involving the Spirit of '76 and the
Patriot were a case of anal-retentive overkill.
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Stephen Robinson
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 16 April 2004
Location: United States
Posts: 5835
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| Posted: 18 September 2014 at 12:32pm | IP Logged | 4
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BRAD: Heck, I hated how the Nazis never really got a mention in Captain America: The First Avenger. I know, I know - HYDRA are super-Nazis - but it just seems like an awful lot of white-washing is being done in the name of being more diverse, all the while carefully and subtly sweeping the true evils of the past under the rug.
SER: I felt the same way -- Nazis are great villains! -- but then I started to wonder if there's some logic in disconnecting Captain America from World War II, a specific point in time.
Yes, that sounds crazy, but I was a big supporter of replacing the "commies" as bad guys with Marvel-specific villains (Skrulls, for example). The latter never ages, and there's less chance of our looking back and cringing at a "one-dimensional" depiction of "Skrulls." They can be wholly evil without complexity because, well, they're bad guys and aren't based on any country or group in existence.
Replace Nazis with HYDRA and the latter can serve as whatever threat you want -- the global domination of the Nazis, perhaps, or even the specter of modern terrorism.
So, at some point in Marvel's "past," you can have HYDRA's threat against the free world be so great that a desperate U.S. experiments with "super soldiers."
Arguably, does spending "X" amount of years in suspended animation constitute a critical part of Captain America's character? The "man out of time" stories were amazing and some of my favorite, as they placed a man from the '40s in the very different '60s and early '70s but that's not been a major factor of a Captain America story in decades and perhaps it shouldn't be.
We're already 70 years from when Cap went into "suspended animation." Put in perspective, that would be like a man from the Victorian Era being discovered by the Avengers of 1964. "Twenty years" ago now is 1994. That's like characters from a sci-fi show discovered the frozen body of Fox Mulder.
(And the same can be said for Namor but that's another post)
So can we modernize Cap? Replace Nazis with Hydra? Or do we lose the man? Is what makes Steve Rogers CAPTAIN AMERICA a product of 1940s and a very specific war?
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Michael Penn
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 12 April 2006
Location: United States
Posts: 12436
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| Posted: 18 September 2014 at 12:33pm | IP Logged | 5
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Stan and Jack went about it the right way -- yes, let's just all go back to that!
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Steve De Young
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 01 April 2008
Location: United States
Posts: 3488
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| Posted: 18 September 2014 at 12:38pm | IP Logged | 6
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It's like Nick Fury being Sam Jackson. Sure, it works great in the movies for what they are, but... the real Nick has to be white, because there's NO WAY the U.S. government let a black guy lead a team full of white guys in WW2.
--------------------------------
I do like that in the movies, once they went with Sam Jackson, they at least followed the logic through and removed Nick Fury from WW2, making Cap the leader of the Howling Commandos. Real Nick would have been better, but at least after the Sam Jackson casting, they didn't insult our intelligence, or the very real struggles of black soldiers during World War II.
Heck, I hated how the Nazis never really got a mention in Captain America: The First Avenger. I know, I know - HYDRA are super-Nazis - but it just seems like an awful lot of white-washing is being done in the name of being more diverse, all the while carefully and subtly sweeping the true evils of the past under the rug.
-----------------------------
Beyond the toy issue that others pointed out, people have become ultra-sensitive about how Nazis are presented. There's a boardgame called Fortune and Glory that's based on movie serials ala Indiana Jones and the villains are Nazis. When Wil Wheaton did an episode of his web show about the game, he had to put a big disclaimer on the front about the Nazis.
There are some, I'm guessing particularly among those who had family members and loved ones who suffered under the Nazis, who think that Nazis being portrayed as comic book villains or making action figures of them belittles the evil that the Nazis represent and the acts they committed. I don't necessarily agree, but I think it was less a case of white-washing history and more a case of trying to be sensitive to that point of view.
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Greg Kirkman
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 12 May 2006
Location: United States
Posts: 15775
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| Posted: 18 September 2014 at 12:49pm | IP Logged | 7
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So can we modernize Cap? Replace Nazis with Hydra? Or do we lose
the man? Is what makes Steve Rogers CAPTAIN AMERICA a product
of 1940s and a very specific war?
++++++++
I do think that his WW II origin is something intrinsically important to the
character, yes. I can't quite see a sliding scale that would allow for the
creation of Cap during, say, the Vietnam War or the first Gulf War.
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John Byrne
Grumpy Old Guy
Joined: 11 May 2005
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| Posted: 18 September 2014 at 12:52pm | IP Logged | 8
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We're already 70 years from when Cap went into "suspended animation." Put in perspective, that would be like a man from the Victorian Era being discovered by the Avengers of 1964. "Twenty years" ago now is 1994. That's like characters from a sci-fi show discovered the frozen body of Fox Mulder.••• If Cap went into the ice in 1945 and came out "a few years ago," he'd find the world very much changed, but not as much as a man from the 1890s would have found 1964. For the sake of ease of discussion, let's say "Marvel Time" means Cap came back in 2008, about six years ago. Unlike that Victorian gentleman, he would be familiar with automobiles and airplanes -- even jets! And he probably went to the 1939 New York World's Fair (Jack Kirby did!) which predicted "The World of Tomorrow." In many aspects he'd find the world LESS changed than he'd been told it would be! The computer age would certainly amaze him, but Cap is an intelligent guy. Contrary to the opinions of some at Marvel, he would not be bewildered by Twitter and Facebook. He's not Jethro Bodine. He's not going to spend years unable to figure out what a doorbell is! And remember, IN CONTEXT this is a guy who has met mutants and androids and robots, even back in the Forties!
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Andrew W. Farago
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 19 July 2005
Location: United States
Posts: 4067
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| Posted: 18 September 2014 at 1:24pm | IP Logged | 9
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When did Marvel begin to treat their pre-1961 material as being in-continuity? Or did they? It seems like the Golden Age Captain America, Human Torch, and Sub-Mariner stories may have happened, may not have happened, but weren't "official" unless they were referenced in a flashback, plus their histories were altered a bit to allow for groups like The Invaders to have existed.
Re-reading the Silver Age Marvels, it feels like Fantastic Four #1 is the real starting point, and that the only history that counted prior to that is that Captain America and other characters were active during World War II.
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Matt Hawes
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 16 April 2004
Location: United States
Posts: 16429
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| Posted: 18 September 2014 at 1:24pm | IP Logged | 10
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Michael Roberts wrote:
| ...It should be noted that the "Tuskegee Experiment"-retcon was an attempt to /recreate/ the Super-Soldier Serum. It takes place after Captain America was born... |
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But wasn't that yet a retcon of the retcon? I remember that the original plan was for Isaiah in "Truth" to have been the first super-soldier, but the dates in that series did not match the established history of Captain America (who received the super soldier serum BEFORE the attack on Pearl Harbor).
Regardless, it still does not make sense that a racist military would experiment with a super serum on people of color for the very reason that JB explained in his post.
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Matt Hawes
Byrne Robotics Member
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Location: United States
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| Posted: 18 September 2014 at 1:30pm | IP Logged | 11
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Andrew W. Farago wrote:
| ...When did Marvel begin to treat their pre-1961 material as being in-continuity? Or did they?.. |
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I believe it started with Roy Thomas at Marvel. His fondness for the Golden-Age of comics is pretty well known. He brought back Red Raven in X-Men, had the Avengers fight the team that would be later named The Invaders (his creation, too), and even had Rick Jones conjure up Golden-Age heroes to stop the Kree-Skrull war.
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Doug Centers
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 17 February 2014
Location: United States
Posts: 5464
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| Posted: 18 September 2014 at 1:53pm | IP Logged | 12
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"There are some, I'm guessing particularly among those who had family members and loved ones who suffered under the Nazis, who think that Nazis being portrayed as comic book villains or making action figures of them belittles the evil that the Nazis represent and the acts they committed. I don't necessarily agree, but I think it was less a case of white-washing history and more a case of trying to be sensitive to that point of view."
...
I agree with you Steve, this is probably the thought process that is going on. Along these same lines the biggest modern day "villain" may be al-Qaeda. To those of you reading current comics is that name being replaced by a close facsimile terrorist group?
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Topic Closed)
