Bob's Your Uncle!

Best part about it is that I only paid $15 for it!

Luke,

Having read on a bit, I see that you made a great purchase at a bargain price! With the Sentinels featured in the up-coming film, it's sure to see a bump in value and demand, but more importantly, it's a neat book to own!

Ryan,

Sorry for the delay in responding, but I was having issues with the heat--no fun today, that's for sure!

To your question, when he was created by Joe Simon & Jack Kirby on the eve of World War II, Captain America was a soldier, but also the living symbol of American patriotism and resolution in the face of the coming adversity. During the war, this was manifested through a take-charge attitude and a determination that no enemy of America could be allowed to win. It was rather straight-forward, but perfect for that time in history. With the Axis defeated and his mission accomplished, Captain America foundered, as fighting the usual assortment of bank robbers and criminal madmen was not befitting his greater purpose, and he survived barely four post-war years before cancellation. There was a brief attempt to bring him back in 1953*, but this brief re-incarnation as a "Commie Basher"  fighting the "Red" Skull didn't last long, although it did provide the spark for perhaps the greatest Captain America story arc ever, "The Cap of the Fifties" by Steve Englehart & Sal Buscema!

When Stan Lee & Jack Kirby resurrected Captain America in 1964's Avengers #4, their dramatic thrust for the character was that he was a "man out of time", left with the values of a different era, and forced to come to grips with a world much changed from when he last saw it. As Cap's adventures continued through one of the most internally-turbulent times in America's history, Stan and his next partner Gene Colan would make some subtle adjustments to this basic template; Cap's simpler, old-time values were still there, but their purpose would be to provide him a base from which to fight for a just and ideal America for all, whether making statements about racial inequality (in this period he would begin his long, landmark partnership with The Falcon), social injustices, campus unrest, or the war in Vietnam. Over the next quarter-century, the idea of Captain America as the "heroes' hero" would emerge from this well-spring, and whether the creator was Mark Gruenwald, Roger Stern & John Byrne, or Mark Waid & Ron Garney, Cap was the moral center of the Marvel Universe, the unassailable avatar for all that was right, but who always had a sense of a greater good.

Never was this better illustrated than during the run of the aforementiond messers Englehart & Buscema, when after many months battling the terrorist Secret Empire, he discovers that their leader is actually the President of the United States! After a shocking conclusion to that issue (#175 in 1974), Cap is so disillusioned with the leadership of our nation that he relinquishes his identity as Captain America and becomes instead Nomad, the "man without a country".

This spirit is what to me should always inform the character of the Star-Spangled Avenger! No longer simply a soldier fighting for a flag, but a noble warrior battling for the very soul of humanity, serving as a reminder to all of everything that was great--and can be again, an icon that everyone, in every nation, could look to for inspiration, as no comics character was more heroic than Captain America.

If there is one flaw in Ed Brubaker's fine run, it is that the "pure" soldier has taken precedence, and that aspect pervades nearly every portrayal of the character that we see today, with one notable exception: Chris Evans' filmic Cap. I still get chills when in "The Avengers", he confronts Loki for the first time and states "You know, the last time I was in Germany and saw a man standing above everybody else, we ended up disagreeing." Somewhere, Jack Kirby is smiling at that!


*(Young Men's #24, which also feaured the return of the Human Torch and Namor--three years before Showcase #4, the debut of the Barry Allen Flash!)

I once read a great retort to the 'stealing' Wi-Fi issue.....

"Why is it stealing when your Wi-Fi is trespassing in my apartment?"

 - Beau

Lenny,

First off, thanks for the kind words! We've tried as a group to present the entire picture when dealing with sensitive topics; we don't always succeed, but it's not from lack of thought--thanks for noticing.

As to your question, which in some ways is TWO questions, of which I'll take the second first. In terms of pure characterization, I don't believe that there is a mandate to create sexually ambiguous, androgynous, or neutered characters, but as Kelly Sue DeConnick pointed out when she was with us, a writer's goal should be to write a strong character--period! In that situation, what can sometimes happen within the mind of some readers seeing a female character acting in ways that don't fit the previous M.O. is a moment of hesitation, a bit of doubt toward the newness of the idea. This can then manifest itself as either the acceptance of a paradigm shift ("WOW! She's so cool!") or its denigration. As an interesting example of how this can turn out well, on early Sixties British television, the first version of "The Avengers" featured Patrick Macnee and Ian Hendry; during a writers' strike , Mr. Hendry left for films. He was replaced by actress Honor Blackman as anthropologist Dr. Cathy Gale, and with no new scripts available, they simply had her play his part (with some modifications, obviously!), and created what most feel was TV's first liberated woman. However, these newer characterizations can, as everything else, be handled well or clumsily, the latter being the "strong female characters" that some write as what Greg Rucka described to us as "guys with t**s".

In this era where there is progress being made, there are still going to be some bumps in the road; where some rant, I tend to be more accepting of what could be seen as pandering by others as the long-overdue attempt to bring more female, POC, or LGBT characters to comics as the necessary first step to getting to a place where their inclusion will be a matter of course, a simple reflection of the real world.

To your other point, if we're speaking of femininity being highlighted as masculinity has been in the artwork in comics, for me it's not comparable, nor preferable. The physical characteristics accentuated in the male super-hero are those that depict strength and power, while in the female character they are, in the main, those parts of her body that represent sexual desirability, and are often exaggerated to the point of becoming fetish objects, made even more lurid by the salacious "broke-back" poses that are sadly still with us twenty years out from the "Bad Girl" Nineties.

As to the characterization issue of femininity/masculinity, as super-hero comics have been the home for their entire history for what the creator of Wonder Woman, Dr. William Moulton Marston described in 1940 as "blood-curdling masculinity", the infusion of a feminine sensiblity is most welcome. Dr. Marston often pointed out that women are as powerful as men, but a woman's strength is administered with compassion; as many of our super-heroes, both male and female, have lost some of that vital quality over the years as the books have been aimed at an increasingly male-dominated readership, I can only hope that a swing of the pendulum is in order. This sea change must come if the medium hopes to grow, and that growth will come through the works of creators committed to presenting a more-balanced landscape, and from an audience willing to support this change in its first, sometimes halting steps.

That's it for now,
Bob

Lenny,

As you've heard on the podcast, I'm not at a loss for opinions on this topic!

I firmly believe that we are in a transistional period in comics history, both in terms of content and the business model, and to me they are delicately intertwined. If the publishers (the Big Two most particularly!) can fully envigorate the vast potential audience for their books by being more inclusive in its content and presentation as the indies are, the industry could be set for another boom period. There are many positive signs that they are at this threshold, but if however, the companies (and we readers!) drift backwards into the "(Fan)Boy's Club" mentality of years past, they risk a further marginalization of their core product to where it's seen as only "intellectual property" to be mined for films, instead of the vital creative force it can and should be.

In addition to my immense distaste for objectifying imagery and portayals of women in comics, this is why my passion on this topic runs so high; I'd hate to see the comics industry miss out on this golden opportunity to reach beyond their self-imposed limits and become once again a medium that everyone, regardless of gender or age, can embrace whole-heartedly.

Chris,

That is very nice of you to say, thanks!

I completely agree with you in that both publishers and readers need to broaden their horizons!

I've spoken quite a bit about my thoughts that main-line DC editorial seems to want to recreate the "Speculator Nineties" with gimmicky covers and "grim'n'gritty" story-telling, which would be fine if they showed some balance to go with it. Marvel is doing a better job being inclusive with their characters and tone, but they have issues that run more toward the business side, what with double and triple shipping, over-branding of titles as "X-" and "Avengers", and far too many "universe changing", "buy all the tie-ins" EVENTS, which can be rather daunting to new readers.