Most of the “darker and edgier side” of Captain America has to do with his sometimes use in criticizing the US. Cap looses faith in the US government and cuts ties due to corruption, unjust wars, Richard Nixon, the US not living up to its ideals. Shield engages in action counter to American ideals so Cap goes rogue. Etc.That makes even less sense. Why would a spy take a public ideological stand against against the government or organization he’s been sent to infiltrate? A spy would exploit the hell out of that shit to further his mission, at the very least it makes zero sense for him to cut himself off from the very information and circumstance he needs access to. Why take a stand on beliefs he doesn’t legitimately hold, especially if it also makes the sleeper agent thing less practical? Its not as if this is a story where Cap becomes a spy. They’re saying he’s always been one. It doesn’t wash or follow from anything in the character’s history. And not even from story lines that just finished up or what’s going on in the movies.
I believe the line to smack Rob Liefeld starts around the corner.
It would have been more believable to have Cap & the Winter Soldier come out as lovers. Things were different back in the 1940"s; they couldn’t divulge that their bromance was a romance.
Some of his art is horrid (see above), but by all accounts, he’s the nicest guy in comics and no one who’s met him would wish him any harm.
It may be long, but no one actually smacks him once they get to the head of the line.
Some of his art? The man who can’t draw feet and just traces over action figures?
The man who when leaving DC a few years ago decided to slam everyone around him and never take any responsibility for his own actions?
Are we talking about the same guy?
Or your target demographic could maybe not freak out over the twist at the end of the first issue of the first arc and see where the story is going to go. I highly doubt “Capt is a Nazi!” is going to last more than six issues.
This is something that is gonna have a profound effect on the Marvel universe. I’ve seen a lot of people say things like, “Oh, it’ll be wrapped up in the arc,” or “Give it six months.” And I can tell you, that’s not the case. This has real lasting repercussions that are gonna be with us for a while.
- [Nick Spencer] (‘Captain America’ Writer Nick Spencer: Why I Turned Steve Rogers into a Supervillain)
Guess I should have read more closely!
Marvel said the same thing three years ago when they killed Peter Parker and replaced him with Doctor Octopus - this is how it is now, Pete’s dead and not coming back, get used to it, etc… In less than a year and a half Octopus was gone and Spidey had his body back.
It’s unpossible for Cap to have been a secret Nazi since forever. He raised Thor’s hammer - which only the worthy can do.
“Steve Rogers has held Thor’s hammer more than once, the first time he wasn’t even Captain America. During a period in which Cap was disillusioned with the American government and was just calling himself “The Captain,” he fought with the Avengers against Seth, the Egyptian god of death. Thor was down for the count, so Cap picked up Mjolnir and persevered. More recently, Cap took up the hammer to inspire heroes and civilians alike during the Fear Itself conflict.”
You know what they say:
Only three characters in comics are guaranteed to stay dead:
- Ben Parker
- [Bucky Barnes] (http://marvel.wikia.com/wiki/James_Buchanan_Barnes_(Earth-616)#As_the_Winter_Soldier), and
- [Jason Todd] (http://dc.wikia.com/wiki/Jason_Todd_(New_Earth)#Return_from_the_Grave_and_the_Lost_Days)
It’s how it was in the 90s when Spidey retired to let his clone be Spider-Man, and when Doctor Strange lost the mantle of Sorcerer Supreme, and when Cap was stripped of his uniform and became Nomad.
You know, I didn’t expect to come here an list a tone of examples from the 90s, but they certainly came to mind quickly. More quickly than the God-awful reboots following the Onslaught “saga” (at least that gave us the Thunderbolts). Or the the horridly ham-fisted One More Day/Brand New Day arc. Or when they “revealed” half the Marvel Universe was skrulls all along.
Sadly, I have fewer fresh examples. Comic fandom has no patience for old blood. Everything I read as a kid probably “never actually happened that way” anyway.
I have to wonder if this isn’t what it means to read comics now: stock character, refresh, take failed refresh back to stock, reboot, take failed reboot back to stock, refresh… All the big name characters seem to be in a perpetual hell, and the only place you get interesting stories not based on retcons is in the fringe titles.
When I think back to the sort of books I enjoyed consistently – Thunderbolts, X-Force/X-Statics, Exiles, Guardians of the Galaxy – there was a definite pattern: teams second- and third-rate characters who had a past, but not comprehensive enough to need a lot of re-tweaking, all actually participating in off-beat adventures. Sort of the like the Avengers stopped doing ages ago.
Or we could all get ponies? /s
If story arc mgmt. doesn’t know enough about their audience to be able to predict a tantrum like reaction to this - one has to wonder why this arc was approved and/or if mgmt. knows both the property and audience as well as they pretend to.
Maybe they wanted to solicit this exact reaction and then act surprised when they get it so that we’re talking about it when normally we wouldn’t be?
Some of the worst gimmicks that I ever tried to ride out took years. In a monthly, you basically get three-to-five complete story arcs a year. How long was Cap “dead” a few years back?
Isn’t it typical that the plot line where Steve is a nazi comes before the one where he’s gay?
I dunno. I’d count “showing an alternate universe where the character didn’t die” as distinct from “bringing the character back to life,” unless the character somehow makes it into the main comic universe. Otherwise, every time they showed the origin story again, it would count as the character not “staying dead.”
Use the [spoiler][/spoiler] tags.
(And no I don’t know, I’m waaaaaay behind! 
)
And the one that follows is that he’s murdered.
So, I’m Hydra, and I have a super-secret double agent in place and the best way to use him is to ensure that he destroys all our plans for seventy five years so we can play the super, duper long con? Because Steve Rogers flat out wrecked a lot of Hydra for a very long time.
“I tell you what, Captain America, you overthrow our plan that has us running an entire country and nearly taking over the world and then we’ll RIF and then come up with some other great plan that you’ll then thwart and, well, we’ll keep coming up with plans that you thwart. This is a lot less complex than just making a Manchurian candidate and making them president.”
