By Scott Tipton
September 10, 2003
EVERYBODY’S ALL-AMERICAN
By 1941, public opinion on whether or not the U.S. should get involved in the fighting in Europe was decidedly mixed. One place that wasn’t quite so conflicted was the comic books, particularly the comics published by Timely. Having already had a taste of success with Carl Burgos’ Human Torch feature and Bill Everett’s Sub-Mariner character, Timely opted to go for broke with their newest creation. Capitalizing on the jingoistic national mood of a country on the brink of war, the company’s publisher, Martin Goodman, enlisted the already-established creative team of Joe Simon and Jack Kirby to create him a patriotic hero, one that the company, and ideally readers everywhere, could rally around.
Simon and Kirby more than came through when they delivered Captain America to Timely. Goodman must have been impressed, because Captain America was the first Timely character to make his debut in the pages of his very own magazine, namely the March 1940 issue of CAPTAIN AMERICA COMICS.
Unlike many comics of the period, CAPTAIN AMERICA COMICS actually bothered to start off the series with a proper origin, and it is here that we begin our look back at the greatest of comics’ patriotic heroes.
The tale opens with the destruction of an American munitions factory (helpfully labeled “AMERICAN MUNITIONS INC.” on the side of the building) by Nazi agents working undercover in the United States.
This and other acts of sabotage have spurred President Franklin Delano Roosevelt to the creation of a new project to stem this wave of destruction, and he sends several military leaders to personally witness the culmination of the plan.
The military brass are escorted by a female agent, disguised as an aged shopkeeper, to a secret laboratory, where they sit to observe the results of years of research. Entering the lab is a frail, skinny young man, who, declares the scientist injecting him with a mysterious seething liquid, “volunteered for army service, and was refused because of his unfit condition.” Within moments, the young volunteer, Steve Rogers, is transformed into a perfect specimen of humanity, as Professor Reinstein boasts: “The first of a corps of super-agents whose mental and physical ability will make them a terror to spies and saboteurs.”
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Professor Reinstein’s triumph would be short-lived, however. Just as the scientist dubs Rogers “Captain America” (“because, like you – America shall gain the strength and the will to safeguard our shores!”), one of the military observers reveals himself to be a traitor, pulling out a Luger and firing through the observation window, murdering Professor Reinstein. The spy fires again, destroying the only remaining supply of the Super-Soldier Serum that transformed Rogers, then turns his gun on the remaining Americans in the observation booth.
The furious Rogers leaps in and mops the floor with the Nazi agent, who in an effort to escape stumbles into some nearby high-voltage equipment and is electrocuted.
Unfortunately, the Nazi’s mission was a success, with the destruction of the serum and its sole creator. Despite the hopes of Professor Reinstein, there would only be one Captain America.
Given a red, white and blue uniform and shield by the government (and, one hopes, some training), Rogers is soon making headlines foiling spies and saboteurs in the U.S. as Captain America. Stationed at Camp Lehigh as Private Steve Rogers, Cap befriends the camp’s young mascot Bucky Barnes, who excitedly follows the exploits of Captain America. One night, as Bucky visits Steve in his quarters, he stumbles upon Rogers changing out of his Captain America uniform. Now privy to his secret, Rogers decides to train Bucky and allow him to operate as his partner, complete with his own mask and uniform.
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Whether it was intentional or not, the Captain America costume, designed by Joe Simon, made the perfect statement about America’s role in the upcoming war, or at least how most Americans preferred to think it. Aside from the obvious notion of a man wrapped in the flag, it’s important to note that Captain America has no offensive weapons: no gun nor sword. Instead, Captain America has a shield, which is purely a defensive weapon, just as the U.S was moving in to protect the peoples of Europe from fascism. And the shield is unbreakable, representing the strength of America’s intentions. Even when Cap throws the shield offensively, the analogy holds, as Cap is extending the strength and protection of the United States to defend the weak and helpless.
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Simon and Kirby only produced the first 10 issues of CAPTAIN AMERICA COMICS, in which Cap and Bucky faced all manner of spies, saboteurs and Nazi monsters. In fact, Cap’s #1 nemesis made his debut in the very first issue – the Red Skull. Although, the original 1940s version was unmasked in his very first appearance as traitorous aviation magnate George Maxon, the character would have much more of an impact when Cap was revived in the 1960s.
Cap’s original 1940s adventures were action-packed if not particularly exciting (nor, I hesitate to say, well-drawn; I’m not sure how much of the work is Simon and how much is Kirby, but the crude art lacks the dynamic punch and storytelling of Kirby’s solo work, even then) and by 1949, with post-WWII patriotism ebbing, Cap’s sales began to drop, leading to the comic’s cancellation. Cap and Bucky saw a brief revival in 1953, this time fighting Communists, naturally, but the return was short-lived.
By 1964, The Marvel Age of Comics was just getting into gear, and Marvel editor Stan Lee was looking for a way to punch up his newest superhero team book, THE AVENGERS. Having already revived Timely’s other Golden Age success, the Sub-Mariner, in the pages of FANTASTIC FOUR, it was time for lightning to strike twice, which it did, in AVENGERS #4, “Captain America Joins the Avengers!”
The story opens with a bitter, disgruntled Sub-Mariner, still nursing his wounds from the previous issue’s battle with the Hulk and the Avengers (namely Iron Man, Thor, Giant-Man and the Wasp, all previously discussed herein), coming across a band of Eskimos worshipping a mysterious figure frozen in a block of ice. As was his tendency in those days, the belligerent Sub-Mariner busts up the party, rousting the Eskimos and hurling the chunk of ice far out to sea. The floating chunk hits the gulf stream, where the warmer waters begin to melt away the ice, revealing a human figure.
The figure is spotted by the undersea craft of the Avengers, returning to New York from the aforementioned battle with the Sub-Mariner and the Hulk. Giant-Man’s oversized mitt reaches through the hatch and pulls the now-defrosted figure inside. The Avengers recognize his costume beneath the tattered shreds of his army fatigues, just before Captain America awakes, screaming his partner’s name.
After a brief skirmish with the Avengers to establish his bona fides (always a good idea inside a cramped submarine), Cap tells the tragic story of what became his final mission. While operating in Europe during WW II, Cap and Bucky were assigned to guard a new explosive-filled drone aircraft. The pilotless plane takes off, with Cap and Bucky in hot pursuit. Bucky leaps on the plane, but Cap can’t hang on, and before Bucky can reach the fuse, the plane explodes, and a horrified Cap drops into the frigid ocean below.
Eventually being frozen in an ice flow, Cap had remained in suspended animation for decades until his discovery by the Avengers. (It was later revealed that the Super-Soldier Serum kept his blood from crystallizing in his veins, allowing him to survive being frozen.)
The rest of Cap’s return issue is fairly routine stuff involving misunderstood aliens looking for a way home, but along with it comes the basis for Cap’s characterization for the next 40 years, and one that still holds up when used properly. Captain America is a man out of time, lost in a new world. In this issue we see a bewildered Cap wandering around modern New York marveling at the technology and the fashions (hopefully someone was good enough to tell him that we won the war), and wondering how he could find a place to belong.
His membership in the Avengers filled that void, and while Cap eventually adjusted to the modern world, the best Captain America writers managed to keep Cap from coming across like a fossil while still reinforcing his 1940s origins and values.
There have been several exceptionally good runs of Captain America since his return in ’64. First off, naturally, are the Stan Lee/ Jack Kirby stories in TALES OF SUSPENSE.
Initially, the series focused on Cap and Bucky’s exploits in World War II, and featured frequent appearances by the Red Skull (including at long last a look at his origin: believe it or not, the Red Skull was originally Hitler’s bellboy). Later, the series shifted to the present day, and injected Cap’s adventures with a good dose of science-fiction and high-octane espionage, enlisting Cap as a freelance agent of SHIELD, and introducing the high-tech terrorists known as A.I.M. (Advanced Idea Mechanics). Not only was A.I.M. responsible for the creation of the Cosmic Cube, which could convert the holder’s very thoughts into reality, but they also revived Cap’s greatest foe, the Red Skull, who had also fallen into suspended animation due to exposure to mysterious chemical gases. Served the A.I.M. boneheads right when the Skull turned on them and swiped the Cube for himself, leading to a titanic battle with Captain America in a remote island locale. Unfortunately, for all the Skull’s grand dreams of conquest, he winds up to have some problems with short-term planning, as his command to destroy the very island beneath them in an attempt to kill Cap backfired, and he plunged into the ocean, weighted down by the heavy gold armor he had created out of pride, seemingly consigning both he and the Cosmic Cube to oblivion.
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Writer Roger Stern and artist John Byrne came through with a very solid 9-issue run in 1980, in CAPTAIN AMERICA #247-255. While Stern provided some of the most consistent and historically accurate characterization for a man who grew up in the 1930s, it didn’t overwhelm the character, so Steve Rogers still seemed like a youthful, outgoing type. Byrne’s art is clear and appealing, if a little simple compared to his later work, and his storytelling is just about as good as it gets. The Stern/Byrne run introduced future Cap love interest Bernadette Rosenthal and placed an emphasis on Steve Rogers attempting to build a personal life for himself with his new career as a commercial artist. In a story that seems even more relevant for those of us living in California these days, CAPTAIN AMERICA #250 features Cap finding himself suddenly a candidate for President, and struggles with the issue of whether an unqualified man best known for beating up bad guys is really qualified to hold executive office.
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Also, the Stern/Byrne run is significant as being one of the few times when we see Captain America kill an enemy, when he’s forced to put an end to the Nazi vampire Baron Blood, in a moody tale that sees a still young Cap reunited with some of his now-elderly friends from World War II.
The Stern/Byrne run was collected in CAPTAIN AMERICA: WAR AND REMEMBRANCE, but is currently out of print.
In 1985, Marvel editor and writer Mark Gruenwald took over the scripting on CAPTAIN AMERICA and remained for an astounding 136 issues, over 10 years on a single book; an impressive achievement by anyone’s standards. The highlight of Gruenwald’s run came with issue #332, entitled “The Choice.”
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In “The Choice,” Captain America is summoned by a secret presidential commission, and informed that, since the federal government created the uniform and identity of Captain America, therefore they own the concept of Captain America, and if he wanted to continue in the role of Captain America, he had to put an end to his operations with the Avengers and SHIELD, as well as his solo operations, and report directly to them. After much deliberation, Steve Rogers refuses, citing his loyalty to the American dream and not one particular administration, and turns in his uniform and shield, giving up his life’s work as Captain America. Over the next year and a half, the commission attempts to replace Captain America, with disastrous results, while Steve Rogers searches for a way to adjust to his loss and find a new way of serving the American dream. While the “Replace the superhero with a crazy, dark version” storyline was a popular one at Marvel and DC in the late ‘80s and early ‘90s, Gruenwald did it first on CAP, and did the best job of it as well.
Gruenwald seriously downplayed the emphasis on Steve Rogers’ civilian life, preferring instead to emphasize his duties as Captain America as the primary motivator in Rogers’ existence. The relationship with Bernie Rosenthal, which had progressed to an engagement, was quickly dispensed with, and instead Cap entered into a flirtation, and then an uncertain relationship, with Diamondback, a reformed super-villainess whom Cap had first encountered in his battles with the Serpent Society, a team of snake-themed supervillains that was featured heavily in Gruenwald’s run.
The latter half of Gruenwald’s run was uneven, with a tendency toward hokey transformations in lieu of plotlines (“Cap becomes a werewolf/Cap becomes a teenager/Cap becomes a woman”), but the first 80 issues or so are rock-solid.
When Gruenwald left the series, writer Mark Waid and artist Ron Garney took over with CAP # 444 and kick-started the series out of its creative doldrums. Waid and Garney approached the series more like a Tom Clancy thriller, and suddenly Cap did a lot less speechmaking and a lot more ass-kicking. When Cap did speak, however, the voice was dead-on.
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After an excellent 5-issue debut storyline that brought back not only the Red Skull and the Cosmic Cube, but also Cap’s long-thought-dead love interest Sharon Carter, Waid and Garney only had six more issues to strut their stuff before they were unceremoniously booted from the series by Marvel higher-ups, who had elected in a disastrous move to hand over four of Marvel’s hallmark series (FANTASTIC FOUR, AVENGERS, IRON MAN and CAPTAIN AMERICA) to Image creators Jim Lee and Rob Liefeld for the HEROES REBORN experiment. While Lee’s books were moderately successful, Liefeld’s versions of AVENGERS and CAPTAIN AMERICA were both a creative and financial failure, and soon enough the books were back in the hands of Marvel editorial, who wasted no time getting top-flight talent on the series, including returning Waid and Garney to CAPTAIN AMERICA.
Waid and Garney’s return to CAP started off strong, particularly in a series of issues that dealt with Cap losing his shield, and his difficulties in dealing with the loss. Soon, however, disagreements with Marvel editorial resulted in Waid’s leaving the series, sending CAPTAIN AMERICA into a creative downturn, which it’s been in ever since. And ever since the tragedy that was September 11, Marvel has only seemed interested in using Captain America as a symbolic device to make overblown political statements, as opposed to simply telling good stories.
Cap’s career in other media has been a decidedly mixed bag. Actually, it hasn’t been that mixed; it’s been pretty much all bad. Cap was in movie theatres as early as 1944, thanks to the 15-episode Republic Saturday-morning serial CAPTAIN AMERICA. Starring Dick Purcell, the serial pitted a shieldless Captain America (who was really crusading D.A. Grant Gardner) against the villainy of the Scarab, who was plotting to destroy the city with a sound-vibration device.
Pretty routine Republic cliffhanger stuff here. Nothing terrible, but certainly not up to the standards of Republic’s earlier effort, the outstanding ADVENTURES OF CAPTAIN MARVEL. The Republic CAPTAIN AMERICA is available on VHS, but it’s really only for the hardcore fan.
Captain America first hit the small screen in 1966, in the often-discussed-here MARVEL SUPER HEROES cartoon series from Grantray-Lawrence, which featured barely animated cutouts taken directly from the original Marvel comics.
Of all these cartoons, Cap’s theme song seems to have stuck with viewers the most:
When Captain America throws his mighty shield,
All those who chose to oppose his shield must yield…
And so on.
Following the 1977 television success of THE INCREDIBLE HULK, CBS was hoping to strike gold again, and quickly churned out the pilot TV-movie CAPTAIN AMERICA in 1978. Starring the mannequin-like Reb Brown, the TV-movie was, to say the least, less than satisfying. Cap’s redesigned costume looked absolutely hideous (he was given his traditional outfit in the movie’s closing moments) and his transparent shield, which doubled as the windshield of his motorcycle, was a neat idea that looked awful silly in practice.
The ratings were good enough to warrant a second TV-movie, CAPTAIN AMERICA II: DEATH TOO SOON. The second telefilm involved a plot to infect America with an aging drug, and featured a clearly slumming Christopher Lee as its villain. These movies are memorable mostly for the scenes of Cap on his motorcycle blasting out of the back of his cool 1970s-style Chevy van, and I suspect that’s where most of the budget went.
As bad as those movies were, they were still low-budget TV-movies, so you can’t really expect too much. The 1991 CAPTAIN AMERICA film, however, has no such excuse.
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Directed by Albert Pyun from an atrocious script by Stephen Tolkin, the film is awful in every category. I remember reading interviews with Pyun and Tolkin at the time in which they profess their total lack of interest in the history of the character, and boast of having never read a CAPTAIN AMERICA comic. Believe me, fellas, it shows. Their disinterest in the character is apparent: Captain America is in costume for maybe 25 minutes out of the entire excruciating 2-hours-plus running time. Pyun, who had previously directed such gems as THE SWORD AND THE SORCERER and the abysmal Kathy Ireland vehicle ALIEN FROM L.A., can’t even get a good performance out of stalwart character actors Ned Beatty and Ronny Cox. Actor Matt Salinger, J.D.’s son, is stiff and uncharismatic, showing neither Steve Rogers’ all-American charm or Captain America’s gritty determination. I won’t even discuss Scott Paulin’s horrendous performance as the Red Skull; even through what looks like pounds of latex makeup, he’s dull and uninspired.
The real fault in this dog lies with screenwriter Stephen Tolkin. I hate to beat a long-dead horse, but let’s go over some of the most egregious moments in this root canal of a movie. First off, the Red Skull, the Nazi terror? He’s Italian now, for some reason, and given an awful “feel-my-pain” childhood trauma origin story. Always a good idea to make your ultimate bad guy sympathetic. When Captain America (with truly awful-looking rubber ears sticking out of his headpiece, by the way) is sent off on his first mission, to stop a Nazi rocket headed for America, he just throws his shield at things, and they blow up -- cars, trucks, buildings, it doesn’t matter – KA-BOOM!, then right back to his hand. Okay, whatever.
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Things get truly stupid once Cap confronts the Red Skull. Cap throws his shield at the Skull with even more velocity than when he was demolishing buildings with it, and the Skull casually catches it in one hand, uttering some sort of sound not unlike one would make getting a deep tissue massage : “Aaaaaaahh.” It’s freaky, I tell you. After Cap gets swiftly beaten in hand-to-hand combat by the Skull and strapped to the rocket, the wily Cap lures Skull close and grips him by the wrist, threatening to take the Skull along for the ride. What does the Skull do? Does he stab Cap or punch him to shake his hand loose? No, no. The Skull cuts off his own hand. Things just get dopier from there, including the worst montage sequence ever to portray Cap’s years in hibernation, a horrific power rock ballad to accompany Steve Rogers’ journey home, and more coincidences than in a whole season of THREE’S COMPANY. Even the Red Skull’s hot Italian daughter and her band of motorcycle assassins can’t make this interesting. This movie should be avoided like the flesh-eating virus.
There have been some fun Captain America merchandise to hit the market over the years. Back in the ‘70s, Mego released a Captain America action figure in their 8-inch WORLD’S GREATEST SUPERHEROES line, and even gave him a funky vehicle to cruise around in, the “Captain Americar.”
More recently, Toy Biz released probably the best Captain America action figure ever in their Marvel Legends line, which is still available in stores if you look hard enough.
However, the zenith of all Captain America merchandise has to be the replica Captain America’s Shield prop from Factory X.
An exact duplicate of Cap’s shield, this bad boy is manufactured from aircraft aluminum and even has real leather straps on the interior. With a retail price of $275 and a very limited production run, they’re exceedingly difficult to find these days. For the true Captain America connoisseur only.
Anybody who read Captain America comics in the ‘70s might remember Steve Rogers wearing his shield under his shirt and jacket when he was in his civilian clothes. If you ever get a close look at one of these Factory X shields, you’ll realize that that may not have been quite so realistic. If you have any other questions about what the well-dressed superhero is wearing, or comics in general, send them to Scott Tipton at stipton99x@moviepoopshoot.com.
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