It’s been an interesting 24 hours in mainstream comics. Both Marvel and DC have made massive changes to big parts of their respective universes, and the comics internet is still reeling from both. Neither change has gone down particularly well—with many readers crying foul over what they perceive as an intentional misdirect or a cheap gimmick—but both tell us an awful lot about the tensions inherent in writing mainstream comics right now.
Let’s start with the Star-Spangled Man with the, it now seems, Insidious Plan. Captain America relaunched yesterday, with a new issue #1 and a new creative team. Jesus Saiz’s artwork has been some of the most consistently impressive in the industry for over a decade; Nick Spencer’s massive ambition and intricate plotting has marked him out as one of the best of the new wave of writers. This is very close to a creative dream team, and it shows: The art is brawny, clean, and expressive, and the script is well-designed and neatly expands Cap’s world. Steve Rogers was, for some time, aged to the point where he couldn’t serve as Captain America anymore and handed the shield off to everyone’s favorite pararescue specialist, Sam Wilson. Now de-aged, Steve is back in the field next to Sam and fellow superheroes Jack Flag and Free Spirit. This is a really smart call because not only does it not undercut SamCap (who’s GREAT, by the way), but it also makes Captain America more of an idea than an individual. Seeing the paragon of virtue represented not by one man, but by a diverse group, is smart and, honestly, pretty inspiring.
Which is why the ending is so shocking.
While extracting Doctor Erik Selvig (Hi, Stellan Skarsgård! Welcome to comics!) from the custody of Baron Zemo, Cap’s life is saved by Jack Flag. He rewards the young man by apologizing and hurling Jack out of a plane to his apparent death. Then he says two words: “Hail Hydra.”
Twenty-four hours after publication, Nick Spencer has received death threats, the issue has gotten massive press coverage. and a lot of people are very, very unhappy. Spencer has been accused of destroying a multi-decade legacy, of rendering Cap meaningless as a character, and of insulting the memory and ideals of the two Jewish comic creators who gave us Steve in the first place.
That last charge we’ll come to in a moment. The first two really don’t stick because, well, firstly Disney just made a billion dollars from the third Captain America movie so Cap 4: The Nazi Years isn’t even in the room, let alone on the table. To be clear, there is no way Cap is going to be a Nazi forever. That would destroy an immensely bankable movie franchise. Not to mention be complete anathema to a character defined by his opposition to those ideals. Spencer’s run will certainly explore the idea, but there’s no way this will stick.
Secondly, this—like very nearly every run on very nearly every Western comic that’s gone before it—is going to have little or no long-term impact on the character. Batman used to be paralyzed. Green Arrow used to be dead. She-Hulk… well, She-Hulk has always been fabulous, her wardrobe has just improved. All longform comics, especially superhero comics, eventually return to an equilibrium. They’re a reset button with speech bubbles and an issue number, and this run is no exception.
So, looked at that way, no, this run has not destroyed a multi-decade legacy. It also hasn’t rendered the character meaningless in the slightest. Rather, the views he expresses here seem designed, as the run goes on, to bring what Cap truly is into even sharper focus. That’s why there’s the larger cast, too: because Captain America is an ideal, not an individual. With Spencer taking Cap into dark waters, it looks like the extended cast will be carrying that ideal by themselves for a while.
Which just leaves us with the charge of insulting the memory of his creators. And that’s harder to shake off.
The MCU hasn’t made many mistakes, but arguably one of its biggest is tying Hydra irrevocably to the Nazis. Metatextually, it makes perfect sense to make Cap a World War II veteran because it grounds the movies, and him, in a way that’s helped them immensely. Cap’s role as part of the Greatest Generation has powered him towards a level of fan engagement and investment that’s not been seen before.
Cap is in his seventh decade as a character, and across that time, there have been evil Cap stories. But he has never essentially sworn loyalty to Hitler before; and by having Cap aligned with Hydra, that’s exactly what he’s doing. So in that way, the twin forces of the immensely successful movies and the constant need to do (temporarily) new things with the character push him, and the readers, down a path a lot of them are going to have very serious problems with.
But does this run insult the memory of Cap’s creators, Joe Simon and Jack Kirby? That’s an impossible question to give a universal answer to, especially with only a single issue in print. Some people will say yes; others will say no; and still more will be uncomfortable, interested, and keep reading. That last group, Marvel are gambling, will be the largest. I know I’m part of it.
And speaking of gambles, DC’s own Hail Mary pass has had less of a direct, visceral response but is arguably a far more complex and, in some ways, more troubling move.
Also released yesterday, DC Universe: Rebirth Special #1 is a special issue that lets lots of genies out of bottles. The long-banned romantic relationships between characters are back, the original Wally West has returned to the DCU, and there are hints of much more to come. Most significantly, the issue reveals that the entire cast has had a decade of their lives stolen by a malevolent unseen force that’s been monitoring them. A force that, at the end of the issue, is revealed to be Doctor Manhattan from Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons’ Watchmen. And he’s preparing to attack again…
This plot will unfold across the next two years in many DC titles, because massive longform continuity is apparently also back. Or, to put it another way: The chances of this ending in two years’ time with the DC heroes all clustered on one side of a cover punching a very large, very naked, and very blue man on the other side?
Pretty high right now.
Alan Moore has, for very good reasons, long been in dispute with DC over a variety of issues, including Watchmen. He’s gone as far as saying on the record that he would prefer the prequel series, Before Watchmen, not happen at all than to be paid for it. It happened anyway. With the decades-long and very public dispute with Moore in mind, tying one of his greatest works to the DC Universe at the atomic level feels, bluntly, like a cheap shot.
In fairness, that may not be the intention. Speaking to The Wall Street Journal, writer Geoff Johns said:
I think Watchmen is a great book, but I don’t think a cynical take on superheroes is the truthful one.
Johns’ reasoning is sound—Watchmen was the grim and gritty superhero story that broke out into the mainstream in the 1980s—but using the series this way feels both dangerously backward-facing and reductive. Mainstream comics have constantly buckled under the weight of metatextual commentary for decades now. With that in mind, a two-year visual fisking of Watchmen’s ideas and motifs seems more likely to exhaust than entertain. That’s even before we get to the frankly weird idea that longform continuity is going to attract new readers, or that this won’t play like an extended attack on a book—and a creator—that simply isn’t needed or warranted. Worse still, laying the blame for the excesses of the New 52 at the feet of Watchmen is a little like blaming the career of Michael Bay on John Woo.
So, Captain America is a Nazi and Doctor Manhattan is probably about to be the DCU’s much more naked version of The Beyonder. Like I say: busy 24 hours.
So what do we do, as readers and fans?
Well, the bad news is, there’s no right answer. The good news is that—death threats, harassment, and actual violence set firmly aside—there’s no real wrong answer. Read what you love, step away from things you don’t, and always be open to new ideas. Because as long as mainstream superhero comics are being produced, there will always be something new, and there will always be these choices to make.
And in the mean time? I recommend that you read Princeless. It’s great.
Alasdair Stuart is a freelancer writer, RPG writer and podcaster. He owns Escape Artists, who publish the short fiction podcasts Escape Pod, Pseudopod, Podcastle, Cast of Wonders, and the magazine Mothership Zeta. He blogs enthusiastically about pop culture, cooking and exercise at Alasdairstuart.com, and tweets @AlasdairStuart.
Ok guys. and buy guys i mean the jerks who are freakng out. Stop itemizing everything. Wait for the whole package.
I refer you to Peter Parker, whose parents worked with the Red Skull but it was revealed they were Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. whats to make Captain America not in the same situation. How about this: Maybe, just MAYBE, baby Steve was taken to a Hydra meeting by an unsuspecting Mrs. Rogers. 70 years later, after finally going through all the old Hydra files from the 70’s, and its found a manifest with Mr and Mrs Rogers names, and possibly even a photo of them and baby Steve. So, S.H.I.E.L.D its its infinite wisdom of covert ops, sends Steve to roll with it. And there you go. Cap is still good, and his ‘Hail Hydra’ was like Jon Snow killing Qorin Halfhand it GoT.
@1
I’m not buying those, they are overpriced and I’ve nowhere to put them.
Joking about purchase of jerks aside, I endorse your view. I’m firmly a member of the Wait and See tribe of comic buyers. Marvel has earned a lot more leeway than DC and has generally handled their event comics, and all comics really, pretty well recently. I wouldn’t be screaming based on a single panel anyway, but I will cut them some slack and wait and see how they handle the storyline before reacting. I am concerned, there is a small grain of truth in the freakout guys case, but it all comes down to how they play it out.
DC can get stuffed as far as I care. I’m waiting for their next reboot, possibly following the inevitable big event “Leadership Crisis” where Didio finally leaves and his successor can clean house and bring in some actual talent, before I’ll give them a shot again. Until they clean house at the top, they’ve lost me. It is that simple with DC.
You know? I don’t care about what they are doing or what they could be doing. I was with Marvel during The Clone Saga, and Superior Spider-Man, Civil War 1: The First One. Brand New Day. My issue with this issue (see what I did there?) is that it’s so blatantly a stunt. Just like Pete really was REALLY dead. Like for real guys. He was TOTALLY dead, Steve has always been Hydra.
Ignoring that this makes no narrative sense. He has had plenty of opportunities in the past to just let Hydra win. How many times has Cap been in the pivotal position of just not doing anything other than shout “Hail Hydra” from the top of the mountain? No, this is just as lazy a character swap as it was when Tony Stark became a fascist in Civil War 1: When Heroes Punch Each Other. At Best, Cap is just being set up to be the Crazy One in Civil War II: Those Who are Less Civil, at worst he is being established as a Donald Trump Straw-Man that can be punched by Sam Wilson — The More Captain America. It’s just the same lazy bull crap thrill seeking that caused me to walk away from Marvel those years ago.
I’m not reading Marvel comics for profound story telling. I’m reading it for the myth-making and Good Guys punching Bad Guys. If I want morally ambiguous heroes there are less ham-fisted stories and mediums out there.
Also, I would not worry about Cap. I had the good fortune to read the issue before I knew how it ended. And based on Cap stories in the past, it’s clear that someone went back in time to change Steve then. The way that the Hydra agent went out of her way to target Steve’s mom and continually mention Steve’s bravery. They even used the B/W with a spot of red that was used in the Red Skulls nightmare issue. Where his personal hell was living with multi-ethnic people being happy with each other (great story if you can find it). So this will just be the what the conflict will be over until resolved. And great ending shocker to get the press anticipation for the next issue. Like the revelation of the female Thor.
But death threats? I understand that most children have poor impulse control, but seriously!
I hadn’t heard about the Watchmen thing until just this article. I guess to a certain degre I can understand the outrage over the Cap reveal, but honestly, it doesn’t bug me that much since it’s so obviously a short term either ploy or altered-reality thing, rather than saying Cap was REALLY secretly a badguy (and what’s more, a Nazi-associated badguy) all along. Not that Marvel’s not made mistakes that dumb, or dumber, before, but… I mean, come on, this just screams “imaginary story” rather than “new continuity”.
But tying in Doctor Manhattan to DC’s Rebirth? That looks like somebody legitimately thought that was a good idea to have happen. And you know what, Johns, it’s totally a copout to blame it on Watchmen. It was people. It was sales. It was you, yourself, at times. In fact, arguably, the New 52 was more your fault than Watchmen, the urge to “fix” characters by bringing them back to how they were when you loved them, and throwing away everything built after them. YOU did that. It was practically your schtick. Watchmen didn’t have a damn thing to do with it. You want an antagonist for your new series, don’t drag someone from another story and spit on them so you can have a convenient scapegoat, have it be the DC editorial offices. Because you did it, and you’re still doing it.
Not that I’ll be reading it. I gave up on DC at the start of the New 52, when they made Oracle into Batgirl again, because everybody loved and recognized Barbara Gordon as Batgirl. Another thing you can’t pin on the supposed Grim and Gritty reality since Watchmen, but was a perfect symptom of the “they gotta be the most iconic ever!” philosophy.
I’m a casual Marvel reader and am curious to see how the Cap Steve story plays out. It’s certainly different. As for DC, well, I grew up devouring DC comics and since New 52, I’ve found most of their books so unappealing. If Rebirth can make my favorite characters recognizable and fun again, I’m for it, no matter who is the ultimate villain who screwed up the DC ‘verse. Tell good, interesting stories with characters that intrigue me and I’ll read it.
I liked DC Rebirth a lot. Lots of great moments and Manhattan coming to the DC Universe is very interesting, a continuation to his story is very welcome IMO.
I think that the arms race analogy is a good one. The comic book companies are now small parts of big corporations that are in the game to make a buck, and are under constant pressure to increase sales; move the product. This leads to increasingly strained attempts to get attention, not just in the world of comic readers, but among the public at large. So the companies go for big crossover events, deaths of characters, destruction of not just worlds, but whole universes. And at some point in this process, the art stops driving the process, and it is all about money, and consistency and quality be damned. It has gotten to the point that many comic stories are so garish, and the stakes constantly so large, that it all becomes meaningless.
Which leads me to the new Captain America story. A story that made me very sad. You see, I have been reading Captain America for fifty years. Those books that I read in my youth inspired me to join the military, and to take up a life of public service. Cap has been many things over the years. He has been angry, and comical, and edgy, and silly, and conflicted. But he has always been an inspirational character, and he has never been evil. You can argue that he may be revealed to be a double agent, but I don’t think that is where this story is going. Those flashback scenes are setting up a Captain America who has been part of an evil, fascistic organization for most of his life. And that is a Cap that just doesn’t square with what he has been for decades.
Captain America is more than just a character at this point. He has become an icon, and the tale of this decent and honest ordinary guy who strives to do his best has become an inspiration for countless people. The people at Marvel are not just writing stories, they have been entrusted with an inspirational icon. And this issue read not like an adventure of Captain America, but more like a cheap cry for attention. An attempt to be dark and edgy, and paint things in shades of grey. However, while betraying everything your character stands for might attract some attention, it is a sad way to do so. I met Joe Simon in his later years, during the time when Bucky replaced Cap, and carried a pistol. He was upset with that, because it violated what he thought Captain America stood for. I can only imagine what he would think of this current issue of the comic. He is probably rolling over in his grave.
I hope Marvel comes to their senses, and all this is revealed to be a dream, or an alternate universe, or a situation where a fake Cap has replaced the real one. The sooner they fix this, the better. In a world where it is sometimes hard to find a hero to look up to, we need Captain America to live up to our best aspirations, and the better angels of our natures.
To be honest…I am more upset at Black Cat turning heel and becoming the Crime Boss of New York. That’s not my Felicia Hardy… :( p.s. I want my MayDay back.
Looks to me like the Red Skull wised up. Used the Cosmic Cube or whatever to make Captain America have always been a Hydra Agent. Probably be sorted out in a few issues.
Then notion that a sensational storyline that defies reason for a quick buck would offend Jack Kirby is hilarious though.
I really don’t get why some people go directly into outrage (and death threats!) mode. Surely the appropriate response is “O…kay. Let’s see how this turns out first…”
There’s obviously a lot of Annie Wilkes clones out there in comic fan world.
@12 I think part of it was that two days before the issue came out there was a Twitter storm whipped up by the Bucky/Steve shippers on a hashtag along the lines of #GiveCapABoyfriend and feelings were running high already. They took Hydra Cap as a direct insult, and were already taking Marvel’s silence on the Twitter storm as an insult (a few nutcases even accused them of publishing this as a direct insult to slash-shippers, because you can write, illustrate, edit, publish, and distribute a comic in two days! /sarcasm), and when people are all whipped up over something then feelings tend to overspill and they’ve been willing to condemn first and think later because they are already feeling condemnatory. That never excuses death threats (but there had already been some of those on Marvel for not instantly announcing Bucky and Cap would get into bed together) however it does explain why this found traction so quickly.
Cap is in his seventh decade as a character, and across that time, there have been evil Cap stories. But he has never essentially sworn loyalty to Hitler before;
But he did just that, as far back as in Tales of Suspense #66, over 50 years ago. He was over it by #67. And the story was by Stan Lee …and Cap’s co-creator Jack Kirby, which should probably end the discussion on whether he would mind Nick Spencer’s plot.
I am mentioning this not to brag about how well-versed in Marvel history I am (I’m not; I only read those issues because they were collected in a Captain America: Rebirth one-shot a while back, which in turn was free on Comixology a couple of years ago), but to drive home what other commenters already pointed out: the superhero comics are all about gimmicks like that, and always have been. Does it mean anything and everything is appropriate? Of course not . But to paraphrase Roger Ebert, the story is not about what it is about, but how it is about it. Judging its appropriateness based on one designed-to-shock cliffhanger of the opening issue is …well, “hasty” is the nicest word that comes to mind.
Given what Marvel has said in interviews — that it isn’t a shtick, it isn’t time travel, it isn’t a nightmare, this is the real Steve Rogers and it’s always been this way — it is offensive. I am sorry, but to take a character that was created in no small part to give Jews hope during the holocaust and go “oh, btw, he was always a Nazi” is, well, gross. What do you say to the guys with a Captain America tattoo because they believed in that hope?
There’s a difference between breaking a character like Barry Allen or Superman by having an event happen to them that could warp them and being like “Oh, and Superman was actually a double agent for Zod the whole time!” or “Lol, Barry was always Thawne in disguise! TAKE THAT READERS!”
It’s a stunt. It’s a gimmick. It’s cheap. There’s good writing and then there’s that.
On the flipside, Dr. Manhattan makes for a great villain on SO many levels. I get that Alan Moore doesn’t like the idea, but then…negotiate your contracts better? I don’t know what to tell you. It’s a business and you sold your IP.
Dr. Manhattan as a villain is not only keeping in the spirit of the Watchmen and the character, but really is quite interesting in how it impacts the rest of the DCU.
So, Marvel has decided to piss off the casual fans, and DC the hard core fans.
Shall be interesting to see if either works in sales.
@15: I can’t speak to what Marvel interviews you saw, but the only one I saw said this specifically:
With these kinds of statements, even when they’re not outright lying (which they’re free to do) you have to parse like a lawyer. They’re not saying “We’re now saying Steve has always been this way.” What they’re saying is that it’s not a clone, imposter, mind control, or someone else acting through Steve. That still leaves reality manipulation/time travel alterations that will be undone. It still leaves a deep cover assignment (maybe Jack isn’t really dead, and the betrayal was set up in advance to sell the con). It still technically leaves a version of Steve from a parallel world pulled in while Steve is tied up in a closet somewhere (he’s not a clone and also arguably NOT an imposter if he, on his own world, is Steve Rogers and Captain America).
Threatening someone’s life or physical well being over anything short of an immediate clear and present danger is wrong. Full stop.
Similarly, fundamentally altering the character, story or developmental arc of cherished stories (and even not so cherished) by anyone other than the original creator is also wrong. Why? I think it’s simple… story telling and story listening / reading / watching are incredibly intimate acts of trust and cooperation between the author / creator and the reader / viewer. The author “creates” a unique and original “take” on their characters, stories, situations and messages that they choose to share with an audience (with all its inherent risks of rejection and disapproval). Once “shared,” the story is then “consumed” by the “reader / viewer” who, in turn, then brings their own ideas and powers of the imagination to bear, and makes the story their own – and in each and every case what they create together is special and unique.
This belief in the special relationship between an author and his audience is why I’ve always been saddened and disappointed by “re-imagined” versions of well loved stories…not because they don’t demonstrate the skills of the “re-teller” (they can and often do) and not because they are always poorly done (they’re not… some are entertaining). No, the real problem is that they both trade on the courage of the original creators decision to share their story AND violate the special relationship between the author / creator and their audience. That is wrong, and seemingly, something other “creators” would wish to avoid at any cost.
So, if Saiz and Spencer have a story worth telling, by all means, tell it! Just create your own characters and go to town.
While I will fully recognize that the exact same challenges exist when translating a book / comic/ musical for the big screen – even when done with the cooperation of the author and every effort is made to remain true to the source material – but at least there is some level of integrity to the work and respect for its fans.
It is something else again to knowingly and deliberately hijack someone else’s vision and go in a totally new and alien direction… for me. it is the very definition of lazy and wrong. Whats more, trying to justify it by claiming that the story / character has to change and evolve to remain relevant is equally lazy and wrong. Endings are not evil… they are a natural and necessary. “To everything there is a season…”, and when a story is over and the storyteller gone, that season is passed.
So I’d say to studio’s, publishers and authors… want to explore the nature of power, corruption, hope, cynicism, heroism, gender roles, relationships, nationalism, pop-culture, capitalism, our relation to the divine, nature, time or any one of a million other great themes? Do it! Create your own characters and worlds and get to work. I can’t wait to read or watch it… I love a good story. But do your own work. Create your own reality. Don’t steal someone else’s vision and try to claim it as your own. It cheapens both you and your work – and fundamentally damages the very thing that inspired you. Worst of all, for me at least, it means one less opportunity to discover something new and great. Saiz and Spencer have shown great promise and I would have loved to read something new from them. But, despite what the cover might say, this isn’t a Captain America story… its a lazy knock-off trying to capitalize on an iconic brand… and one I’ll be giving a pass.
@11 “Then notion that a sensational storyline that defies reason for a quick buck would offend Jack Kirby is hilarious though.” You do have a point, there. Those days when Kirby was not just drawing Cap, but writing the book as well, were wild times, with all sorts of unbelievable twists and turns. Simon, on the other hand, while he followed the sometimes outrageous comic book conventions of the time, took the character and its integrity much more seriously.
I’ve had a couple of days to digest this news, so I have settled down a bit, but I am still very unhappy with what Marvel has done. Hopefully, after a few issues of the writers toying with us, we will find that this is a result of a glitch in the cosmic cube transformation that made him young again, and things will be set right.
The seemingly constant barrage of the all new, all different, revamped, rebooted, crossover-event to top all events – this is why I typically only read limited runs, miniseries and completed arcs.
The movies and tv series have created a lot of fans over the last 20-30 years, but most of those people are completely baffled by the gimmicks, the decades of history that may or may not still be relevant currently depending on the phase of the moon, “see issue #37 of Other Comic Title” wormholes, the never-ending serialization with no clear end in site until sudden death cancellation, all that jazz.
When you give good teams creative control, without having to worry about the universe suddenly ending, or the title character suddenly being conscripted into some other series, great things can happen. If you want to create things that attract new readers, don’t ask of them to collect five different series over the span of as many years – or hunt for out of print issues and trades to ‘catch up’.
The quality of the thing, and it’s being of a modest size and obtainable quantity will reward in steadier sales.
At least, that’s my take.
Before I get to what I want to talk about I just want to say that this evil Captain America thing sounds stupid as fuck to me, YMMV of course.
That being said, what I really want to talk about is the constant rebooting that has been going on. I don’t really read comics anymore, I might pick up a trade paperback or graphic novel every once in a while but I haven’t followed any books in about 20 years. When I did read them, from sometime in the early 80s until the late 90s, I was a Marvel fanboy and there was 20 to 30 years of comics continuity.
For example, when they wanted to introduce a new team of X-Men in Giant Size X-Men #1 they didn’t just hit the reset button and pretend that the original group never existed or the old stories didn’t happen. They brought in the new team to save the old team and then had a whole bunch of X-Men and they just let the story unfold and some of the old team stayed and some left. It felt very organic and didn’t shit all over the older stories.
Then sometime around the mid 90s the big event comics and the crossovers and the reboots really began to take over the industry. Yes, DC did reboot their entire line in the mid 80s with The Crisis on Infinite Earths series, but it can be strongly argued that the DC line was a mess after X number of years of continuity and a cleaning of the house was in order. But in the mid 90s we had the Death of Superman, the Ultimate Marvel line, the crippling of the Bat, the Age of Apocalypse and a number of sequels to Crisis. I got so tired of the constant changes and reboots and having to read ten different titles just to know what was going on with the X-Men that I just stopped reading comics altogether.
How many times has both Marvel and DC hit the reboot button in the last few years? Why do they keep starting over with new issue #1s? When I was still reading, Uncanny X-men was getting close to issue #400, that’s like 30 some years worth of continuity. Now they just like to start over with new #1s. I took my daughter to a comic store a couple weeks ago and I swear none of the books were even in the teens issue number wise.
@cmorgan: “No, this is just as lazy a character swap as it was when Tony Stark became a fascist in Civil War 1: When Heroes Punch Each Other.”
This, as well as the rest of your comment, had me LITERALLY laughing out loud, which annoyed my sleeping cats (who are clustered around me because the air conditioner is in the bedroom). So I now hold you responsible for Cat Annoyance (TM).
Also, “When Heroes Punch Each Other” needs to be the subtitle of every superhero movie EVER. :P
On a slightly more serious note – I’m a “casual” comics reader and have never been invested in Captain America’s character. However, over seven decades of storytelling about the same character, it makes sense that the narratives have gone a bit “flat” and writers are doing whatever they can to make it new. Also, I kind of wonder – like cmorgan-if this isn’t a thinly-veiled political commentary on Donald Trump’s presidential bid…and his unabashed facism.
@21: In fairness, with Marvel, they very rarely actually rebooted anything. They may have changed the numbering, and they did crazy sprawling events, sometimes which involved the whole universe changing temporarily, but not like DC that wiped its own history again and again for a “fresh start.”
Age of Apocalypse wasn’t a reboot, because it wasn’t intended to continue, it was just a somewhat longer term line-wide storyline, like a Star Trek mirror universe episode that somehow got extended for a whole season.
Ultimate Marvel wasn’t a reboot, it was simply a new incarnation, like DC’s “Earth-Two”, where they could try out different things and retell old stories with new twists, but it didn’t affect the regular universe at all (until recently with the death of Ultimate Marvel, and they brought a few elements over)
Heroes Reborn was about the closest thing to a true, deliberate, line-wide reboot Marvel’s done until recently with the new Secret Wars (and even that, I believe mostly it’s the same, but honestly, that’s where they lost me as a reader so I can’t be sure). And Heroes Reborn, also, was mostly the same continuity as before, just certain books got a fresh start while they were “dead” in the Marvel universe, and when they returned, they got “released” from their pocket dimension (and a few of the changes stuck).
That’s usually been Marvel’s pattern… they might tweak the continuity of a single book, a little more rarely they might do something that alters continuity for a particular character, like with Spidey being no longer married, and a little more often there are soft retcons where they simply never mention something again… but the bulk of their history was still considered “true”. It’s just events that happen and get reverted to status quo, characters die and are found actually still alive, characters give up the costume in favor of someone else, then the original comes back and the other one dies or fades away or takes on a new identity. But yeah, they’ve done plenty of huge status-quo changing events that it can get exhausting.
As for the numbering, well, lately Marvel (and DC for that matter, although they go back and forth on it) has taken the philosophy of “Even if it’s in the same continuity, a #1 tells readers that this is a great place to start, with a new storyline and probably new creative team.” I don’t like it, I prefer having the 551th issue of X-Men to the 30th #1, but I can understand the thinking.
I like it when they give a book to a good artist and writer team for a good long run, and let them do their thing without too much interference from ‘big events’ and crossovers. Like the Brubaker/Epting run on Cap, which did something I never thought they would do (or should do), bring Bucky back, and do it in a way that felt like it was respectful of the past continuity. Of course, even that run got interrupted for the whole Civil War/Death of Cap thing.
If I am not mistaken, Brubaker and Epting are the ones who introduced the idea that the WWII Cap comics existed in the Marvel world, and were just a shadow of what Bucky and Cap were doing in the real world. And aged Bucky up a few years, so he was not the teen mascot that he was in the original WWII era books. That went over very well, because it was thoughtful, and actually made more sense than the original stories did.
I appreciate the debate and the need to evolve characters and stories over time.
But this to me, these basic changes to iconic characters, seems more about money and less about storytelling. I am sure we will find out something like Jack Flag was the guy secretly with Hydra, and Cap was giving him a sarcastic goodbye (or something of the like). All wrapped up in a nice bow. Move on to next issue, more books sold, more free press gotten. Rinse. Repeat.
Growing up, I loved comics. I have a collection of books from the 70s and early 80s that reaches into 7500+ books. But somewhere along the way, DC and Marvel seems to have lost their love for their characters and what made them unique or special.
I gave up on comics, cause it seemed that the publishers gave up on them a long time ago in favour of revenue.
it just makes no sense. If Steve Rogers has been a Hydra agent from the beginning, then he could have let Hydra win any dozen of time’s. And he stole many victories from the Red Skull – all he had to do was let him win.
This is what we call bad writing.
The Captain America thing just strikes me as gimmicky. Either he’s undercover, mind-controlled, replaced by an evil clone or robot, or whatever. I don’t think the “real” Captain America has secretly been Hydra-boy all along. If so, he sure did wait a long time to do something dastardly and Hydra-ish. Pshaw.
The DC one is a bit more interesting, imho. I picked up the introductory issue, expecting another silly DC blow-up-the-timeline bit of nonsense. But surprisingly, the issue was really good. Using the flash to tie it all together was really smart, and worked well. The comic actually plucked at my emotional strings, which few comics do for me. After that, I’ve been picking up the “rebirth” issues. So far, most seem interesting, but I won’t be getting all. (Although Green Arrow is an early favorite. The first issue showed hints of some very complex characters being made, and it’s one I’ll watch for the next few issues, see if it can develop that more.)
Just wish they would leave things alone. So tired of odd and nonsense changes to characters for shock or PC. Just let them be heroes.