essay on captain america

Why I'm Writing Captain America

And why it scares the hell out of me

Two years ago I began taking up the childhood dream of writing comics. To say it is more difficult than it looks is to commit oneself to criminal understatement. Writers don’t write comics so much as they draw them with words. Everything has to be shown, a fact I knew going into the work, but could not truly know until I had actually done it. For two years I’ve lived in the world of Wakanda, writing the title Black Panther . I’ll continue working in that world. This summer, I’m entering a new one—the world of Captain America.

There’s a lot to unpack here. Those of you who’ve never read a Captain America comic book or seen him in the Marvel movies would be forgiven for thinking of Captain America as an unblinking mascot for American nationalism. In fact, the best thing about the story of Captain America is the implicit irony. Captain America begins as Steve Rogers—a man with the heart of a god and the body of a wimp. The heart and body are brought into alignment through the Super Soldier Serum, which transforms Rogers into a peak human physical specimen. Dubbed Captain America, Rogers becomes the personification of his country’s egalitarian ideals—an anatomical Horatio Alger who through sheer grit and the wonders of science rises to become a national hero.

Rogers’s transformation into Captain America is underwritten by the military. But, perhaps haunted by his own roots in powerlessness, he is a dissident just as likely to be feuding with his superiors in civilian and military governance as he is to be fighting with the supervillain Red Skull. Conspirators against him rank all the way up to the White House, causing Rogers to, at one point, reject the very title of Captain America. At the end of World War II, Captain America is frozen in ice and awakens in our time—and this, too, distances him from his country and its ideals. He is “a man out of time,” a walking emblem of greatest-generation propaganda brought to life in this splintered postmodern time. Thus, Captain America is not so much tied to America as it is, but to an America of the imagined past. In one famous scene, flattered by a treacherous general for his “loyalty,” Rogers—grasping the American flag—retorts, “I’m loyal to nothing, general … except the dream.”

I confess to having a conflicted history with this kind of proclamation—which is precisely why I am so excited to take on Captain America . I have my share of strong opinions about the world. But one reason that I chose the practice of opinion journalism—which is to say a mix of reporting and opinion—is because understanding how those opinions fit in with the perspectives of others has always been more interesting to me than repeatedly restating my own. Writing, for me, is about questions—not answers. And Captain America, the embodiment of a kind of Lincolnesque optimism, poses a direct question for me: Why would anyone believe in The Dream? What is exciting here is not some didactic act of putting my words in Captain America’s head, but attempting to put Captain America’s words in my head. What is exciting is the possibility of exploration, of avoiding the repetition of a voice I’ve tired of.

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And then there is the basic challenge of drawing with words—the fear that accompanies every effort. And the fear is part of the attraction because, if I am honest, the “opinion” part of opinion-journalism is no longer as scary it once was. Reporting—another word for discovery—will always be scary. Opining, less so. And nothing should really scare a writer more than the moment when they are no longer scared. I think it’s then that one might begin to lapse into self-caricature, endlessly repeating the same insights and the same opinions over and over. I’m not convinced I can tell a great Captain America story—which is precisely why I want so bad to try.

In this endeavor, I’ll be joined—hopefully for all my time doing it—by the incredible Leinil Yu on interior panels and Alex Ross on covers. Both Leinil and Alex are legends. Even if you don’t consider yourself a comics-head, you should check out their work to see what the best of the form has to offer. I’m lucky to have them—and have been luckier still to have a community of comic creators ( Matt Fraction , Kieron Gillen , Jamie McKelvie , Ed Brubaker , Kelly Sue DeConnick , Chip Zdarsky , and Warren Ellis , among others) who’ve embraced me and helped me learn the form. And I’ve been lucky in my editors— Sana Amanat , who brought me on; Wil Moss , who edits Black Panther; Tom Brevoort , who’s editing Captain America; C.B. Cebulski , who just helped me refashion the script to the first issue; and Axel Alonso , who first broached the idea of me writing Cap.

Finally, but most importantly, I have to thank the black comic creators I admired as a youth, often without even knowing they were black— Christopher Priest , Denys Cowan , Dwayne McDuffie , specifically—without whom none of this would be possible. There has long been a complaint among black comic creators that they are restricted to black characters. I don’t know what it means to live in a world where people restrict what you write, and the reason I don’t know is largely because of the sacrifices of all those who were forced to know before me. I have not forgotten this.

Captain America #1 drops on the Fourth of July. Excelsior, family.

The Moral Philosophy of Captain America

In a story from the early 1980s, Captain America uses his amazing powers to destroy a renegade American intelligence agency that is plotting an attack on the Soviet Union in order to make the United States the last remaining superpower. Confronting the plotters, the comic-book hero makes one of many declarations of faith that resound throughout his more than 70-year-long career as a fighter against evil: “I represent the American dream! A dream that has precious little to do with borders, boundaries, and the kind of blind hatred your ilk espouses!”

The authors of Captain America’s early adventures were liberals, and something of the universalistic spirit of American liberalism has infused the character they invented. Created as a contribution to the U.S. struggle against the Axis powers that was already on the horizon, the Captain first appeared on the scene nine months before the attack on Pearl Harbor. Throughout the war years the comics were an enormous popular success, but the Captain failed to make the transition into the bleak peace that followed. His sterling qualities ill-suited to the grim intrigues of the cold war, he vanished from view, seeming at times to have been killed off.

The heroic fighter resurfaced in the 1960s and with occasional intermissions has been saving the world from darkness ever since. Selling hundreds of millions of comics in many countries, the character has spilled out into television and movies. A sequel to Captain America: the First Avenger (2011), in which Chris Evans played the superhero —Captain America: the Winter Soldier —has just been released, with Evans in the title role again and Scarlett Johansson as a former KGB agent who has defected to join the battle against evil. The action in these films is set in the present, and plans are afoot for further adventures. There is no sign of the Captain giving up his mission.

When he first appeared in March 1941, Captain America was the alter ego of Steve Rogers, a skinny art student from New York who had been transformed into a super-soldier by the U.S. army. Trying to enlist, but rejected because of his scrawny physique, Rogers agrees to be used as a subject in a secret project. Injected with a special serum and exposed to a course of radiation with “Vita-Rays,” the scrawny young man acquires astonishing strength, resourcefulness and courage. Captain America isn’t a superman; he is an average human being whose powers have been enhanced to the nth degree. It may be the fact that he is so recognizably human that makes him the most modern of the comic superheroes.

As the writer who launched the superhero in his most recent incarnation in 2012 put it, the Captain “is a patriotic soldier, directed by a personal ethical compass, belief in the American dream and faith in his fellow man ... He can punch bad people and jump through glass. He’s the person you wish you were.”

Appearing in the run-up to U.S. entry into a world-shaking conflict, the Captain has always embodied the good in human beings. In his new book, The Virtues of Captain America: Modern-Day Lessons on Character from a World War II Superhero , Mark D. White argues that there can be no better model of ethical behavior today: “Cap’s ‘old-fashioned’ moral code is exactly what we need to restore civility and respect in the 21st century in both our personal lives and our political debates. He is what ancient philosophers—yes, more ancient than Cap—called a moral exemplar.”

For White, who teaches philosophy at City University of New York and who has published widely on ethics as well as written about other comic-book heroes, the Captain is loyal to “timeless principles of freedom, equality and justice.” These principles are distinctively American, White believes, but he is keen to dispel “any illusion that Captain America is a jingoist flag-waver ... Instead he embodies an inclusive patriotism that balances idealism with clear-eyed pragmatism.” His principles are universal: as White puts it, he believes “American ideals apply to everyone—not just all Americans, but all people around the world.”

You might be wondering whether White is serious in making these large claims, but he means what he says—and says it with some style. Enjoyable and consistently stimulating, presenting complex arguments in ways that will be accessible to just about any reader, The Virtues of Captain America is popular philosophy of a high order. The trouble is that, because he takes Captain America so seriously, White doesn’t see any problem in treating the superhero’s American ideals as universal human values. Like the Captain himself, he thinks they are one and the same.

Captain America’s values, according to White, aren’t a product of America’s history as a modern country. They go all the way back to the Greeks: “I’m going to present Captain America’s personal morality in terms of virtue ethics, a type of moral theory originating with ancient Greek philosophers such as Plato, Aristotle and the Stoics ... If we look at them this way, Cap’s values are old-fashioned, dating from about 2,500 years ago, but many philosophers (including myself) regard the work of the early virtue ethicists as timeless.”

Examining five basic virtues—courage, humility, righteous indignation, sacrifice and perseverance—White aims to show how they are vitally necessary today: “The lessons of the virtue ethicists are more important now than ever—and a ‘man out of time’ such as Captain America can see that better than anyone.”

Sadly, the suggestion that Captain America embodies Aristotelian virtues verges on the absurd. That Aristotle assumed his account of the human good could be realized only by middle-aged, property-owning males is well known. What is more important, from the standpoint of White’s argument, is the absence in Aristotle’s thinking of any of the modern liberal ideals that Captain America embodies. Consider an idea such as personal autonomy. Certainly Aristotle believed that individuals are responsible for their actions; but there is nothing in him of the idea that they are the authors of their lives. Even the favored few, in Aristotle’s account, model themselves on the same conception of human excellence.

The modern belief that the good life comes in divergent forms, with each person’s containing something peculiar and unique, was unthinkable in ancient Greek times. If Aristotle could somehow have imagined the Captain’s mission of giving everyone freedom to live as they choose, he would undoubtedly have reacted with incredulous contempt.

It’s not just modern liberal values that Aristotle lacks. There is also a striking absence in his thinking of ideas and beliefs that have shaped western thinking over the past 2,000 years. A struggle against evil is the pivot of every one of the Captain America stories. Yet there is no idea of evil in Aristotle’s ethics or anywhere else in ancient Greek thought. Yes, there are bad states of mind and character such as imprudence and cowardice. But the Greek exponents of virtue ethics had no belief in evil as an active force on the world. That is an inheritance from monotheism, and more particularly from the rather strange version of Christianity that America received from the Puritans.

According to White, the Captain embod­ies principles and virtues that are timeless and universal. In fact, the Captain is shaped by moral ideas and beliefs that are historically highly specific. The view that the world is torn between the forces of good and evil is the most obvious example. It is often described as Manichaean, though this risks doing a disservice to the Iranian prophet Mani (216-276), who seems to have believed the outcome of the cosmic struggle was uncertain. In contrast, the Captain never betrays the slightest doubt that good will triumph in the end.

In terms of the longer history of theism, the Captain’s view is distinctly unorthodox. At least since St. Augustine—himself a convert from Manichaeism—the dominant theist position has been that good and evil are not separate forces; they run through every human heart. The Captain could only have appeared in America, which, more than any other modern society, has been shaped by an aberrant strain of Christianity in which the moral universe is understood in starkly binary terms.

Why White should have failed to notice the formative influence of American religion on the Captain’s mission of fighting evil is an interesting question. Part of the explanation may be the professional deformation of academic philosophy. Especially in America, contemporary philosophy is obsessively secular; showing any unduly sympathetic interest in religion is a quick way of committing career suicide. Some of the popularity of virtue ethics may have come about for this reason. Many philosophers have recognized that utilitarianism and rights theory are impoverished ways of thinking about ethics. Few have cared to explore the Jewish and Christian traditions from which modern western ethics actually developed. Instead they look back to the Greeks. Lacking any sense of the ways in which moral ideas change—because contemporary Anglo-Saxon philosophy is also thoroughly unhistorical—they do not realize that the ancient exponents of virtue ethics lived in a world in many ways almost unimaginably remote from our own.

A striking feature of White’s account of the Captain’s virtues is its unblinking moral parochialism. White praises the Captain for his humility, and it is true that the Captain is not known for boasting about his extra­ordinary feats. In one story he even tells the president that he is reluctant to speak to the press about his feats because it will sound too much like bragging. (In the end the Captain complies with the order of his commander-in-chief.) But there is nothing Aristotelian in the Captain’s behavior.

Never betraying any doubt as to his superior abilities and valuing others only to the extent that he can see something of himself in them, Aristotle’s conception of an ideal human being looks nowadays more like a model (always male) of arrogant pride. Alasdair MacIntyre—a contemporary philosopher who generally favors Aristotle’s way of thinking about ethics—described the Aristotelian ideal as being “almost an English gentleman,” and dismissed it as “appalling.” Whatever you think of the English gentleman, it is clear that humility isn’t a virtue Aristotle would have recognized.

The trouble with talk of timeless virtues is that not many virtues are timeless. It makes sense to think of prudence and courage as humanly universal—lacking these qualities entirely, no one can live well. But there have been many conceptions of what it means to live well, and they aren’t all compatible. The virtues of Homeric heroes aren’t just different from those of Jesus. For Hector, turning the other cheek would be mere cowardice. Again, Greco-Roman hedonist philosophers such as Epicurus and Lucretius wouldn’t have admired the all-embracing compassion of the Buddha; for them, such universal sympathy would have been an obstacle to peace of mind. The same kind of moral conflict breaks out today when believers (religious or secular) collide with skeptics. For skeptics, a capacity for doubt is a virtue. For believers, it looks more like a feeble refusal to make up one’s mind. What is virtuous in one moral outlook may be a vice in others.

There is not much sign of doubt in White’s account of human values. Along with most other English-speaking philosophers today, he writes as if every human being is born essentially a liberal and becomes anything else by accident or mistake. He tells us that the Captain embodies “the core ideals of the United States of America ... Refocusing our attention on these ideals, remembering what we have in common while debating our differences, is the first step toward recovering a sense of national unity and restoring civility to our political life.” A little skepticism might have been useful here. As Alexis de Tocqueville noted more than a century and a half ago, America is the most sectarian of all modern societies. Its deep divisions are unlikely to be healed any time soon.

However much at odds with itself America may be, there can be no doubt that the Captain is a peculiarly American superhero. What then accounts for his undoubted appeal beyond America’s shores? In one of his exchanges with the super-villain the Red Skull, the Captain indignantly rejects the idea that universal freedom and equality is a myth:

“A myth, is it? Then America herself is just a myth—as are liberty, and justice—and faith! Myths that free men everywhere are willing to die for! It’s tyranny which is the myth—and bigotry which is an abomination before the eyes of mankind! It’s you who are the fool! For humanity has come of age—and as long as love not hatred fills men’s hearts the day of the tyrant is ended!”

Maybe it is this simple-minded faith that accounts for the Captain’s wide and enduring popularity. Many will go to the film of his most recent exploits simply for the entertainment they provide—the fast-moving action scenes and powerful special effects. But there is also something soothing in the Captain’s adventures, and reassuring in the moral world he inhabits.

When Captain America first appeared on the scene, the world was faced by a threat that anybody halfway decent and not willfully self-deluding had to see as extremely malign. Today there is no single threat to civilization, just a morass of problems and conflicts that look more or less intractable. In such circumstances, it is not surprising that the Captain should make another appearance. The reason for his popularity isn’t that many people still believe in his black-and-white moral world. It’s that so many no longer can.

John Gray is the New Statesman’s lead book reviewer. His latest book, The Silence of Animals: on Progress and Other Modern Myths,  is published by Penguin.

This piece originally appeared on newstatesman.com.

Home — Essay Samples — Entertainment — Movie Review — Captain America: the First Avenger’: Exploration of Film Features

Captain America: The First Avenger': Exploration of Film Features

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Published: Aug 14, 2023

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Captain america as the change of traditional portrayal of a 'hero' .

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Captain America: Changing Conscience of a Nation

• R. Joseph Parrott

In March 1941, the United States remained neutral while World War II raged in Europe and Asia , but the country was inching toward war. Newspapers announced policies to support the Allies like the Lend-Lease Act, even as isolationist sentiment earned space in opinion pages.

Yet next to the adult fare at the newsstands was something far less ambiguous: a four-color spectacle featuring a red, white, and blue clad figure holding a shield in one hand and using the other to punch Adolf Hitler square in the jaw.

This was the first appearance of Captain America. Created by writer Joe Simon and artist Jack Kirby in the eponymous Captain America Comics #1 , the patriotic hero became a breakout star for Timely Comics (the company that would evolve into Marvel Comics ).

The cover of Captain America Comics #1 from March 1941 (left). Interior artwork from the same issue (right) . Artwork by Jack Kirby.

Joined by young sidekick Bucky Barnes, Captain America placed the United States firmly on the side of the Allies months before Pearl Harbor . Over the decades following his debut, Cap—as fans called him—has continued to anticipate and reflect our changing national attitudes toward war and patriotism.

Captain America was Steven Rogers, an undersized youth who wanted desperately to fight overseas. Classified “4-F,” or unfit for military service, Rogers accepted a role in an experimental program meant to create an army of super soldiers to defeat the Nazis, only to become the program’s sole success when German agents murdered the scientist leading the research. Together, he and the United States would—in the words of the first issue— “gain the strength and the will to safeguard our shores.”

Nine months after Captain America’s first appearance, the United States entered the war for real. While superhero rivals Batman and Superman mostly stayed home, Timely plunged Cap into battle in Europe and the Pacific.

Stories of fanciful Nazi invasions reinforced the real sense of insecurity that accompanied the war, while stereotyped depictions of Japanese enemies mirrored the dehumanizing propaganda used by allied governments.

Captain America’s Sentinels of Liberty membership card, 1941 (top). Captain America's Sentinels of Liberty kit postage, 1941 (bottom).

These dynamic adventures made Captain America an unofficial part of the war effort. His winged visage enlivened patriotic calls for children to collect scrap metal and buy war bonds. Fans could join the Sentinels of Liberty, whose card featured a saluting Cap alongside a set of principles that pledged members to honor God, the constitution, and their duties as citizens.

Captain America Comics continued to be published until 1949, but postwar sales faltered without a real-world conflict to give the character weight.

The Korean War brought Rogers (now a professor!) out of retirement as “Captain America, Commie Smasher!” in 1953, but Korea was no substitute for the “good war.” Four-color McCarthyism could not pull enough coins from adolescent pockets to prevent the superhero revival from fizzling.

Still, it was hard to keep a good character down. The iconic duo of artist Jack Kirby and writer Stan Lee brought Cap back for good in 1964, during the self-proclaimed Marvel Age of comics.

A 1992 photo of Jack Kirby from The Art of Jack Kirby (left) . Stan Lee speaking at the 2014 Phoenix Comic-Con. Image by Gage Skidmore (right).

Lee rejected the simplistic, perfect heroes that typified previous comics in favor of fantastical soap operas grounded in very human emotions, where heroes bickered and faced personal crises, punctuated by kinetic fights choreographed by Kirby.

Ignoring the 1950s revival, Lee and Kirby had the Avengers fish Captain America out of an ice flow where he had lain since World War II. They positioned the character as a time-tossed representative of old-school American values set adrift in the turbulent 1960s. This contrast became an essential element of the Captain’s mythos and a ready plot device for both celebrating and critiquing contemporary society.

The resulting stories increasingly distanced Cap from the realities of the day while reinforcing the national celebration of World War II as the good war fought by the greatest generation. After a brief trip into North Vietnam in 1965, Captain American generally avoided the conflict—and the larger Cold War—as it became increasingly unpopular with Marvel’s college-age fanbase .

Instead, the Captain faced a rogue’s gallery centered on unrepentant Nazis, such as the Red Skull and Baron von Strucker’s fascist Hydra organization. As anti-war protests roiled the nation, the best way to preserve the altruistic self-conception of U.S. power at the core of Captain America was to tie him inextricably to past glories.

More than just a man out of time, Captain America became a symbol out of time.

Cover of Secret Empire #1 (May 2017). Artwork by Mark Brooks (left) . Teaser poster for Secret Empire . Published by Marvel Comics (right).

The dramatic tension between Cap’s timeless ideals and the churn of contemporary politics reached its apex amidst the Watergate scandal of 1974. In an obvious allegory of Nixonian malfeasance, the multi-issue Secret Empire arc culminated at the White House, where writers implied the president—who commits suicide in the Oval Office before a stunned Rogers—had been at the head of an evil cabal.

The Secret Empire story fundamentally transformed Captain America’s relationship to the U.S. political project. Lamenting he had to watch “everything [he] fought for become a cynical sham,” Captain American temporarily gave up the shield.

Writers used Captain America’s disillusionment during this period to explore the darker side of American politics and policy, without abandoning the superhero genre’s ultimate optimism.

They rewrote (retconned in comic-speak) the McCarthy-era Captain America into a jingoistic stand-in, turned racist villain and temporarily replaced the idealistic Rogers with a brash, violent anti-hero during the Reagan Era.

Isaiah Bradley, a black Captain America born out of experiments on hundreds of African Americans. Promotional image from Marvel.com (left) . Artwork for the cover of Truth: Red, White & Black 1 (Jan, 2003) featuring Isaiah Bradley as Captain America. Art by Kyle Baker (right) .

In the 2000s, one miniseries even adapted elements from the historic Tuskegee Study to portray World War II era scientists creating a second, black Captain America by experimenting on hundreds of African Americans.

Even as the subject matter of Captain America 's storylines grew more morally complex, writers continued to position Steve Rogers himself as a paragon of increasingly rare virtue. He became Marvel’s personification of a vague, idealized “American Dream”—exemplified by 1980’s Cap for President! story—that contrasted with the more ambiguous reality.

This meant keeping the hero at arm’s length from the government post-Watergate, even when 9/11 gave Rogers a reason to fight. While Cap did square off against Al-Qaeda and bomb-wielding terrorists, by 2004 he was also defending an Islamic scholar held unjustly in Guantanamo Bay by overzealous military officers.

More than a patriotic hero, Captain America became a symbol of the nation’s conscience.

It was a version of this Captain America that formed the loyal opposition in major storylines like the massive 2006-2007 Civil War crossover event—with its allegorical allusions to the War on Terror and the PATRIOT Act—and ultimately moved beyond comics when Chris Evans’s affable Steve Rogers became the moral center of the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

The cover of Civil War: Front Line #01 . Published by Marvel Comics (left) . Cover of Civil War 7 (Jan, 2007). Art by Steve McNiven (right) .

Cap’s inherent morality made the 2017 storyline that saw a (false) Captain America lead Hydra’s takeover of the United States all the more shocking to many readers, even as a commentary on the global surge in authoritarian nationalism . (The real Steve Rogers won out in the end, of course, with help from longtime ally The Falcon.) Recent issues have seen writer Ta-Nehisi Coates explore the process of burnishing a tarnished symbol.

Such storylines have fed culture-war criticisms that comics have become too political in recent decades, or perhaps too politically correct. But as Captain America’s 80-year history reveals, this is far from a new development.

From his origins in World War II, Captain America waded into national debates with sometimes blunt force. Since the 1960s, his stories have reflected complex ideas about patriotism, recognizing national flaws while clinging stubbornly to an inherent, even exceptional belief in the United States.

Want to Learn More about Cap?

Joe Simon et. al. Captain America: Evolutions of a Living Legend (Marvel, 2019)

J. Richard Stevens, Captain America, Masculinity, and Violence: The Evolution of a National Icon (Syracuse, 2018)

Matthew J. Costello, Secret Identity Crisis: Comic Books and the Unmasking of Cold War America (Continuum, 2009)

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Marvel Revises Comic in Which Captain America Called U.S. ‘Deeply Flawed’

Changes to an essay in the hero’s voice cause a stir.

• Share full article

By George Gene Gustines

Marvel Comics No. 1000, a special issue in honor of 80 years of storytelling , was supposed to be a cause for celebration. But revisions to one page of the comic, which came out Wednesday , are casting a pall over the festivities.

The page, written by Mark Waid and drawn by John Cassaday, is narrated by Captain America. In earlier versions of the page that comic-book retailers received in July, the star-spangled hero opened with: “I’m asked how it is possible to love a country that’s deeply flawed. It’s hard sometimes. The system isn’t just. We’ve treated some of our own abominably.”

He went on to say that fixing America’s system is “hard and bloody work” but that it could be done when enough people take to the streets, call for revolution and say, “Injustice will not stand.”

Captain America concludes: “That’s what you can love about America.”

The version that arrived in stores and online, however, has new text, also written by Waid, in which Captain America ruminates on his own image, not the United States: “Captain America isn’t a man. It’s an idea. It’s a commitment to fight every day for justice, for acceptance and equality, for the rights of everyone in this nation.” The hero says that those qualities — “not hatred, not bigotry, not exclusion” — are the values of true patriotism.

Marvel and Waid declined to say why the page was changed. But in an email message, Waid expressed frustration at how his original text was being presented. “I’m disappointed that the cherry-picked quotes circulated by the media severely mischaracterize what was actually written,” he wrote. While the essay was critical, he added, “As written, Cap is supportive of America as a whole.”

The change to the Captain America text comes nearly two weeks after The Guardian reported that the cartoonist Art Spiegelman said he was asked to remove criticism of President Trump from a foreword for the upcoming book “ Marvel: The Golden Age 1939-1949 ,” published by the Folio Society. The essay, which The Guardian published , included the line, “In today’s all too real world, Captain America’s most nefarious villain, the Red Skull, is alive on screen and an Orange Skull haunts America.” Spiegelman said he was told by the Folio Society that Marvel was trying to stay apolitical. Folio and Marvel didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment on the change.

Captain America, who made his debut in 1940 (though the comic had a cover date of 1941), has a long and tangled relationship with American politics. In the issue of his own title that came out Wednesday, written by Ta-Nehisi Coates and drawn by Jason Masters and Sean Izaakse, he finds himself at the Southern border of the United States, helping to guarantee safe passage for a group of migrants. When one of them asks why they were being hunted, Cap answers: “Ignorance. Ignorance and hate.”

In 2016, a story twist made the hero an operative of Hydra, a Nazi-like organization that was out for world domination. Fans of the character did not like seeing the patriotic champion in such a light, prompting Marvel to issue a statement asking readers “to allow the story to unfold before coming to any conclusion.”

The character eventually returned to the side of the good guys but not without damage to his reputation. That is one of the themes Coates explores in the current Captain America series. “This is a game of public relations,” an ally tells him. “If that doesn’t suit you, I’ve got a better word: redemption.”

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An earlier version of this article misspelled the surname of an artist. He is John Cassaday, not Cassady.

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George Gustines is a senior editor. He began writing about the comic book industry in 2002. More about George Gene Gustines

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'Captain America: The First Avenger' Review Essay (2014) [part of 'Special Feature: The Marvel Cinematic Universe' - pp.17-24]

2014, Scope: An Online Journal of Film Studies

(pp. 17-24) Although paving the continuity road towards 'The Avengers', 'Captain America: The First Avenger' is as interesting for the ways in which it differs from the previous four Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) films as for its similarities and connections with them. Fittingly, at the heart of the film is the notion of mould-breaking, as the emergence of Captain America (Chris Evans) simultaneously heralds a new beginning for U.S. efforts in the Second World War, and the disappearance of a promised future army of Super-Soldiers with the death of scientist Abraham Erskine (Stanley Tucci) at Nazi hands. In Marvel comics, the status of Cap as a one-off is regularly foregrounded in the dynamic of his relations with other heroes; respecting this singularity, Cap's origin as an instrument to fight a specific war is developed by director and screenwriters in a way that accounts for the existential loneliness, as well as the matchless virtues of heart and courage, of the character.

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Captain America and the Struggle of the Superhero: Critical Essays Paperback – Illustrated, March 14, 2009

Purchase options and add-ons.

For more than 60 years, Captain America was one of Marvel Comics' flagship characters, representing truth, strength, liberty, and justice. The assassination of his alter ego, Steve Rogers, rocked the comic world, leaving numerous questions about his life and death.

This book discusses topics including the representation of Nazi Germany in Captain America Comics from the 1940s to the 1960s; the creation of Captain America in light of the Jewish American experience; the relationship between Captain America and UK Marvel's Captain Britain; the groundbreaking partnership between Captain America and African American superhero the Falcon; and the attempts made to kill the character before his "real" death.

• Print length 243 pages
• Language English
• Publisher McFarland & Company
• Publication date March 14, 2009
• Reading age 18 years and up
• Dimensions 7 x 0.49 x 10 inches
• ISBN-10 0786437030
• ISBN-13 978-0786437030
• See all details

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From the inside flap, from the back cover, about the author, product details.

• Publisher ‏ : ‎ McFarland & Company; Illustrated edition (March 14, 2009)
• Language ‏ : ‎ English
• Paperback ‏ : ‎ 243 pages
• ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0786437030
• ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0786437030
• Reading age ‏ : ‎ 18 years and up
• Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.05 pounds
• Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 7 x 0.49 x 10 inches
• #526 in Comic & Graphic Novel Literary Criticism
• #625 in Comics & Graphic Novel History & Prices
• #7,897 in Essays (Books)

About the authors

Nicholas a. yanes.

Nicholas Yanes, Ph.D. writes academic and professional research that analyzes the business of entertainment industries as well as how they impact culture and politics. His dissertation analyzes the corporate evolution of EC Comics & MAD Magazine In addition to editing and contributing to a variety of books, he has also written for CNBCPrime, MGM’s Stargate Command platform, ScifiPulse, Sequart, Casual Games Association’s (now GameDaily Connect) Casual Connect and GameSauce, the Corum Group, and several other publications. He consults for companies and NGOs about entertainment business development.

Robert G. Weiner

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Superhero Essay: Captain America

By: Tasha   •  Essay  •  656 Words  •  December 12, 2009  •  2,304 Views

Essay title: Superhero Essay: Captain America

Superhero essay: Captain America

As a child he stood out from the rest, something was different about him and no one could figure it out. Who knew that Steve Rogers would one day be saving the world from the evil Nazi's and the Axis powers. Steve Rogers was born during the Great Depression into a poor family and was always seen as being very week (Wikipedia). Tragically he loses both of his parents very young, his father when he is just a child, and his mother when he is in his teens. He decides to study fine arts in school and focusing on illustrations. After Rogers sees the terrible crimes Hitler has committed in Europe, he tries to enlist in the army but is rejected and not allowed to join due to his frail appearance (Marvel). At this point in Steve Roger's life story, an army officer offers him a chance to be a test subject in Operation: Rebirth. Operation: Rebirth was a top-secret government project that was trying to create s super-soldier formula.

After weeks of testing and what not, Rogers emerges with the perfect human body. He is given a uniform with the colors red, white and blue to symbolize the American flag. Rogers is also given a shield and the name Captain America. His mission is to target the Red Skull, which is the Nazi's and Axis power's in Europe and to protect his country (Marvel). The Red Skull, is the Captain America's only enemy from World War II. James "Bucky" Barnes soon becomes his sidekick and they head off to go and protect the world from all the evil people. He serves as a symbol of freedom and American pride during this hard time. After the war is over, Captain America falls into the Artic Ocean and is temporarily frozen there, until decades later he is saved by the new crime fighting group called the Avengers (Wikipedia). He becomes a very important crime fighter in this group, and saves the world yet again from many bad things. Eventually Captain America sees what the war between him and other superheroes is doing to the American people and surrenders in his secret identity, showing the American people his true self that he is just like them. While at the federal court house in New York City, Captain America gets shot in the shoulder by a sniper

• MLA 7  
• CHICAGO  

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United States

• Tyler Adams ( 45' )
• Giovanni Reyna ( 63' )

USMNT beats Mexico in Nations League with Adams, Reyna goals

Gregg berhalter discusses 'easy' decision to start tyler adams.

USMNT coach Gregg Berhalter talks about Tyler Adams' impact after the squad's victory over Mexico in the Nations League championship.

The United States  men's national soccer team continued its dominance of the Concacaf Nations League -- and its regional rivals Mexico -- with a 2-0 win and a third title in a row in the competition at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas, on Sunday night.

Tyler Adams scored a first-half thunderbolt, and Giovanni Reyna added a second goal after the break with a difficult volley to give the U.S. the win with a famous " dos a cero " scoreline and a measure of redemption after an uninspired win over Jamaica in the semifinals of the Nations League on Thursday.

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"I'm not scoring goals like that all the time, but I'm happy I can hit one like that today," said Adams, who was substitute at halftime as a precautionary measure.

Adams, who has just returned from injury to play with his club team Bournemouth , added: "I always get up for big games."

The result sees Gregg Berhalter's team retain its Nations League crown, having won the first two editions of the competition, in 2021 and 2023, and stretch its unbeaten run against Mexico to a record seven games.

Adams, making his first start for the U.S. in 475 days, turned the game on its head at the end of the first half, unleashing a stunning strike from distance to beat Guillermo Ochoa and give the Americans a narrow lead at half-time.

"People have a lot of question marks about this, about that," Adams said. "But to see what we do week in, week out when we have the opportunity to work together, we continue to grow."

With Mexico fighting to get back in the game, Reyna pounced on a poor clearance in the penalty area and snapped off a volley that flew past Ochoa at his near post to double the U.S. lead.

Referee Drew Fischer halted the game shortly before full time then again in added time in line with Step 2 of Concacaf's anti-discrimination protocol after an anti-gay chant was heard from the crowd repeatedly when U.S. goalkeeper Matt Turner took his goal kicks.

Last year's Nations League semifinal between the U.S. and Mexico in Las Vegas was ended about four minutes early because of chants from Mexican fans, who for years have directed a slur at opposing teams' goalkeepers.

Troubled by a right hamstring injury that twice required surgery, Adams had not played for the U.S. since the 2022 World Cup before entering in the 63rd minute on Thursday then leaving in the 100th minute because of a minutes restriction.

He was limited to a single 21-minute club appearance between March 11, 2023, and this March 13, when he returned from the injury with a 20-minute stretch for Bournemouth against Luton Town in England's Premier League.

Adams' joined Josh Wolff as the only Americans in the past 40 years to score their first two goals against El Tri;  Adams also scored in a friendly against Mexico in September 2018.

Still on a minutes limit, Adams was replaced by Johnny Cardoso at the start of Sunday's second half.

"Typical Tyler, we get into an argument in the locker room and he wants to play more. Guys are asking why can't he play more?" Berhalter said. "As much as I wanted him in the game, because I did, it's a safety thing. We want to make sure that he gets back in a healthy way because he has a lot more games to play."

Berhalter had agreed to the minutes limit with Bournemouth. Adams said he probably will be limited to 60 minutes this weekend when he returns to play with his club.

"Coming out at halftime was obviously disappointing, especially after scoring a goal and helping the team," Adams said. "So, yeah, I understand we have to be smart for the long-term plan."

Reyna, limited to one league start this season for Borussia Dortmund and Nottingham Forest , scored his eighth international goal. Christian Pulisic 's cross was blocked by defender Johan Vásquez . The ball deflected off American forward Haji Wright back to Vásquez, who headed a clearance attempt. Reyna let the ball bounce and beat Ochoa to the near post from 16 yards.

"It's good for momentum," Reyna said. "We've been together with our core group for a while now and I think we know what it takes to win big games and tournaments and hopefully we can carry that in Copa America and have a great run there."

Fischer initially awarded a penalty kick for a challenge by Antonee Robinson on Santiago Giménez shortly after the Reyna goal. But following a video review by Nicaragua's Tatiana Guzmán, the head referee called off the foul and gave the forward a yellow card for simulation.

Berhalter made five changes from Thursday's starting lineup in the 3-1 extra-time win against Jamaica, adding right back Sergiño Dest , central defender Tim Ream , midfielders Adams and Reyna, and forward Wright. They replaced Joe Scally , Miles Robinson , Yunus Musah , Malik Tillman and Folarin Balogun .

Mexico coach Jaime Lozano inserted right back Jorge Sánchez and forward Hirving Lozano for Julián Araujo and Julián Quiñones .

Both the United States and Mexico will now begin gearing up for this summer's Copa America, which will be played in the U.S. from June 20 to July 14. Beyond that, they'll be looking ahead to the 2026 World Cup, co-hosted by the U.S., Mexico and Canada.

"Before we know it, 2026 is going to be here," Berhalter said.

Jamaica beat Panama 1-0 in the third-place game on Dexter Lembikisa 's 41st-minute goal.

Information from The Associated Press was used in this story.

Game Information

• Drew Fischer

Concacaf Nations League News

What are the expectations for the usmnt at the copa america, laurens: adams & reyna stepped up for usmnt in nations league final, usmnt's concacaf dominance over mexico eases pressure ahead of copa.

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