The world of comic books can be a strange and wonderful place, but it can be hard to find your way through the multi-verse alone. That's where I come in. Every week I'll update you on the news of the comic world, the comics you should be reading or the things that make my heart flutter with fangirl love. It will be geeky. It will be awesome.
Hey there, True Believers! Last week we looked at the current state of DC Comics. This week we’re shifting gears to Marvel Comics and their oldest heroic member, Captain America.
Hopefully you’ve all seen last summer’s epic WWII era Cap movie, Captain America: First Avenger, which had Chris Evans playing the sensitive super soldier. He’s also the central character for the upcoming ensemble film The Avengers.
What you need to know
Captain America, also known as Steve Rogers, first appeared in print in Captain America Comics No. 1 in March 1941 (created by comic legends Joe Simon and Jack Kirby) where he famously punched Hitler in the face. Originally a skinny and sickly young man from New York, Rogers volunteered to undergo a secret experiment to turn him into the world’s first Super Soldier. Long story short, a one-of-a-kind special serum turned him into a human powerhouse, and he spent the war fighting Nazis alongside his teen sidekick Bucky (real name James Buchanan Barnes).
By the end of the war, Cap was old news. There were some ill-fated attempts to bring him back, but all failed until Marvel comics was created in the early '60s, and former Cap artist Jack Kirby, along with Marvel creator Stan Lee, revived him for their new team, The Avengers. In continuity, Cap was presumed dead when lost on a mission but was actually frozen in ice only to be revived by The Avengers years later. Poor Bucky, however, apparently died on the mission, leaving a grieving and time-displaced Cap to join Marvel’s other angst-ridden heroes. Rogers worked for years in The Avengers on his own, and most often with the government organization SHIELD alongside his superior Nick Fury, his on-and-off partner since the '70s Sam Wilson (the Falcon), and his on-and-off love interest Sharon Carter (Agent 13).
The bad guys
Every hero needs a good villain, and Captain America gets some of the best. At least to me, there are no better bad guys than Nazis (they’re just perfectly evil in movies), and Cap's got a surplus. Just like in last summer’s film, his big nemesis is the Red Skull, but he also fights crazy-named Europeans like Baron Zemo, Arnim Zola and the evil cult HYDRA.
Nobody stays dead
Now, there’s an unwritten rule in the comic book world that has existed since the early '90s: If somebody dies, don’t worry; nobody stays dead. This has caused a lot of debate and anger amongst fans, especially when creators bring back characters that have been dead for decades. One of the more high-profile returns happened in 2005, when Cap’s former sidekick Bucky reappeared after being gone for more than 50 years.
In the Marvel world, it turns out Bucky had gotten kidnapped by the Russians who then turned him into a brainwashed assassin and, through a complicated storyline, gave him a robotic arm, stopped his aging and froze him for the last few decades. Luckily Cap was eventually able to get his old friend to remember, and thus Bucky, now guilt-ridden from his unwitting criminal past, rejoined the Captain America team.
What Cap's up to now
Since Bucky’s return, Rogers has been through a lot. He was on the anti-superhero registration side of a civil war that pitted him against one of his best friends, Tony Stark (Iron Man). And if that wasn’t enough, Cap actually died for a while immediately after, leaving his old partner with the title Captain America from 2007-2009. But, since comic deaths don’t stick, Cap came back (he had been shot, but it turns out he was really phasing in and out of time. Yeah, comics don’t always make sense). Thankfully it was to a world where the superhero registration had been repealed, so Cap could once again work for SHIELD and lead the Avengers (he actually now leads their covert ops team, the Secret Avengers), just in time for his cinematic premiere.
What you should be reading
Cap’s history may seem a bit ridiculous, but his comics are some of the best. His old school attitude actually feels refreshing in the modern world, as he is both a sensitive and caring guy while being a completely badass fighter who never gives up. Plus, his shield is one of the coolest superhero gadgets around.
–Cap’s early Marvel adventures: written by Stan Lee and drawn by Jack Kirby and others. Nothing beats the original, and in the Marvel world that means anything Stan Lee.
–Captain America: Operation Rebirth: written by Mark Waid (a personal favorite) and drawn by Ron Garney and Pino Rinaldi. Rogers is reunited with his old girlfriend Sharon Carter in one of the best storylines of the '90s.
–Captain America: Winter Soldier: written by Ed Brubaker and drawn by Steve Epting. Brubaker is my absolute favorite Captain America writer, and he’s been on the series for the last decade. This arc, which sees the return of Bucky, is action-packed and emotionally charged.
–Marvel Civil War: an epic universe-wide crossover focused on the superhero registration debate. It’s sometimes known amongst fans as Iron Man and Captain America’s very messy and public divorce. Cap is central to the main storyline, written by Mark Millar and drawn by Steve McNiven, which follows all of the civil war in regards to Cap, Iron Man, and the other heroes, but he also has his own story arc, written by Ed Brubaker and drawn by Mike Perkins and Lee Weeks.
–Death of Captain America: written by Ed Brubaker, drawn by Steve Epting and Mike Perkins. Coming off the heels of Civil War, this arc, obviously, deals with Cap’s “death” and its impact on the Marvel heroes.
Finally, there is an ongoing Captain America series currently written by Brubaker and drawn by Alan Davis, which is pretty good. Again, anything with Brubaker and Cap can’t be bad. But it is the new Winter Soldier series by Brubaker and beautifully drawn by Butch Guice that everyone should be reading. The series follows Bucky and his badass lover and partner the Black Widow, Natasha Romanoff, as they go on a covert mission to track down and destroy the remnants of the old Russian Winter Soldier program that once brainwashed Bucky.
There you have it, True Believers, Captain America in a nutshell. His history is a little ridiculous, his costume even more so, but damn is he one wing-headed, flag-wearing BAMF.