Tag: steve rogers

Both Ben Grimm and Steve Rogers grew up in the Lower East Side in the comics, but this was changed to Brooklyn for both of their movies. Is this just a funny coincidence, or is there some reason why Brooklyn is better for movies?

I think it has to do with the way that the passage of time shapes our mental maps of New York City (although the same process happens with all cities). 

Jack Kirby was born at 147 Essex Street – which is just south of Houston, and two blocks away from where the modern Tenement Museum stands – which was at the time a Jewish immigrant neighborhood, and he used his childhood experience to create a background for both Ben Grimm and Steve Rogers. (One can see this most clearly in the case of Ben Grimm and the Yancy Street Gang, where Yancy Street stands in for Delancey Street, which is about a block and a half south of Kirby’s boyhood address.)

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However, over time Kirby’s childhood neighborhood changed dramatically: from the 40s to the 60s, Jewish and Eastern European immigrants and their kids moved out and African Americans and Puerto Ricans moved in; then from the 1980s to the early 2000s, gentrification spread from the East Village down to the Lower East Side, as students, artists, and yuppies who were finding the East Village now a bit too expensive went looking for cheaper rents, and brought trendy restaurants and art galleries with them, and by the mid 2000s, development started to shift to luxury condos. The point of this is that in the minds of younger writers, the Lower East Side isn’t a working-class immigrant neighorhood, because working-class people can’t afford to live there any more.

However, Brooklyn still has something of a more working-class cachet to it, especially in the minds of the broader movie-going public, if only for the moment. And thus writers looking for a backstory for characters who are the children of

working-class

immigrants (Jewish and Irish, respectively) shift their origins from the Lower East Side to Brooklyn. 

Spoilery Thoughts on Secret Empire #2

That’s it? (warning mild spoiler, see here for more extensive spoiler) That’s the big reveal that we all had to be patient and wait for over a year for? You have got to be kidding me. EVERYONE GUESSED THAT ALMOST FROM DAY ONE. 

Hell, I came up with a better version than what you went with. 

But if Marvel’s going to do RedCap/Blue Cap, EvilCap/Good Cap, I demand that they also plagiarize all of the other goofy Superman event ideas: in other words, I want 90s-Teen Cap, CyborgCap, and Laser-Sunglasses Cap.

Actually, I mostly want 90s-Teen Cap, because that would be AMAZING. 

Is That You, Nick Spencer?

There’s no time machine involved dumbass.

Yeah, the term comes from the supervillain group called the Secret Empire, you stupid idiot.

The one problem with your scenario is the fact that that Kobik changed history and Steve was with HYDRA since he was a child. You also seem unaware that in the comics, Bucky only met Steve when Steve was already Cap, he never met pre serum Steve.

Wow, someone really didn’t like my idea for how to redeem Steve Rogers. If this was twitter, I’d be absolutely sure this was Nick Spencer, but I’ll have to remain in a state of wonder, you incredibly polite anon.

  1. I know there’s no time machine involved in the Red Skull’s plot. But there’s plenty of time machines in the Marvel Universe that could be used to bring back the real Steve Rogers – I just used Beast’s because of the link to All-New X-Men, and because the FF are busy rebuilding the multiverse.  
  2. I’ve written about the Secret Empire, I know who they are. But if you  don’t understand who Jack Kirby was referring to when he created an evil organization of people who all wear hoods and robes and want to overthrow the U.S government, and why Englehart making Richard Nixon their leader was a big deal, you need to do some reading up on the Klan. 
  3. Leaving aside the way that Nick Spencer has played fast-and-loose with whether it’s history or his memories that have been changed, so what? Cap’s still been pretending not to be a Nazi, so that’s the Cap Bucky knows and loves. Or hell, it can be a Bucky from an alternate universe – this is comics, there’s always a way to write around. 

What do you think it will take to repair Steve Roger’s character from the blemish of being a nazi? From what I can tell, Marvel thinks that because its Kobik’s and Red Skull’s fault, it doesn’t permanently affect Steve Roger’s image and realCap’s integrity will automatically be restored when hydraCap is gone.

I had a thought about this, because I think Marvel is wrong about that. You can’t spend two years with HydraCap being the status quo without that having a substantial effect on the character (my problem with that started with Issue #1 where HydraCap murders a superhero – if that doesn’t have consequences, your writing is bad, because murder should have consequences).

So I had an idea about how to end “Secret Empire” (which, btw, that title is beyond annoying given the way that Nick Spencer has been trying to have it both ways re: HYDRA as a Nazi organization. Hey Nick, we know where that term comes from!):

My idea is that one of Steve’s friends – Sam Wilson, Bucky, etc. – is really devastated about the way that the revelation of Steve being a HYDRA agent has destroyed his reputation and the public’s faith in what he represented, and they decide to go to the X-Mansion and talk to Beast about using his time machine…Thus, when the big showdown between HydraCap and the good guys happens, at some dramatic moment, HydraCap throws his shield at a hero…and thus guy catches it:

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That’s right, it’s 1940 Steve Rogers – drawn like Chris Evans pre-serum, given the mindset of who Steve Rogers would have been – and he proceeds to beat the living hell out of HydraCap, because that’s how Steve Rogers deals with fascists.

And then the new status quo is young Steve Rogers being a hero without the serum (at least to start with), and I dunno, hanging out with the Time-Displaced Young X-Men over in X-Men Blue. 

Would Steve Rogers ever have been a fan of Father Coughlin?

I don’t know if he would have been a fan, per se. But as an Irish Catholic with leftish political leanings, he certainly would have been familiar with the Little Flower’s radio broadcasts. 

But I think Rogers would have turned against Coughlin pretty early on – Coughlin started attacking FDR’s New Deal in 1934, by 1936 Coughlin’s anti-communism led him to support Franco in Spain, and between ‘36-38, Coughlin went all-in on his anti-semitic Protocols of the Elders of Zion/Jewish Bankers are Bolsheviks theory. 

Given Rogers’ strong anti-fascist tendencies, I think he would have broken with Coughlin in ‘36 if not before. 

Okay, they’re lying right? When they say that Nazi Steve Rogers isn’t mind-controlled or a clone or whatever. Because if that’s actually Steve acting on his free will it’s a hundred times worse than One More Day. Who thought this up?

“Not a clone, not an imposter, not mind control, not someone else” does not include “no time travel shenanigans involving a cosmic cube/Kang/Doom’s time machine/Mephisto’s powers”, so I’m willing to bet that the same bright ideas that brought us “One More Day” are responsible for this new twist. Oh well, in a few months this will be re-retconned anyway.

Look, there are a couple of possibilities here:

  1. Nick Spencer is lying because the company line is following some JJ Abrams-style mystery box plan to gin up controversy and thus sales. This isn’t a good way to treat your customers. You get more money in the short run, but you’ll also lose some fans in the short run, and you run the risk of damaging a very valuable brand. 
  2. It’s time travel or cosmic cube or whatever. As I said, that’s still bad writing. It’s not the kind of twist that adds rather than detracts from the character, it doesn’t suit the character, and it’s going to lead to clumsier writing to fix it. 

Whichever one is the case, this run is going to be remembered as “the one where Cap’s a Nazi,” and that’s terrible. 

I’ve really enjoyed your analysis of the Marvel universe. You’ve forced ne to reconsider my opinion of Captain America, who I previously had little interest in. Could you recommend any particular storylines revolving around him? Thank you! (Fingers crossed that you’ll do something with Spider-Man someday!)

I could definitely recommend some particular storylines! 

The Sleeper Awakens (Tales of Suspense #72-74, Cap #101, #148) – Captain America fights a bunch of the Red Skull’s giant Kirby robots. They are awesome Kirby robots. 

The Cosmic Cube (Cap #115-119) – the Red Skull gains the powers of God, Cap fights him and wins, thanks to Cap’s determination and the power of love.

MODOK! (Tales of Suspense #94, Cap #119, 124, 132, 133) – Kirby’s giant Olmec baby head assassin is hilarious and surprisingly socially conscious, if still evil. 

Cap vs. Nixon (Cap #166-176) – Captain America is targeted by the Committee to Re-Elect the President, foils the Secret Empire’s attempt to overthrow the U.S government, unmasks Nixon as the head of the Secret Empire, Nixon commits suicide rather than be arrested. Cap resigns and goes in search of America.

Madbomb! (Cap #193-200) – Captain America and the Falcon team up to save America from a bomb that will turn all of America into mad rioters, a conspiracy to restore monarchy to America, an underground murderball league, Captain America travels through time, and Arnim Zola tries to transplant Hitler’s brain into Captain America. One of the best Kirby runs ever, therefore one of the best comics runs ever. 

What exactly was wrong with Steve Rogers that prevented him joining the army?

In the comics, Steve Rogers’ 4F condition was described in vague terms as “frailty,” and his visual depictions usually suggested mal-nourishment, which isn’t surprising given the poverty of his early life. 

The MCU expanded upon this, showing us his medical intake report:

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It’s a pretty comprehensive list – asthma (which cannot make the scarlet and rheumatic fevers or the sinusitis or chronic colds any easier to bear), a whole cluster of heart problems which were probably due to rheumatic fever having caused rheumatic heart disease, a generally poor immune system, and a family history of tuberculosis. 

And a lot of these conditions – especially asthma, heart disease, scarlet fever, rheumatic fever – are illnesses associated with poverty.