Arc of Triumph...? Captain America 1-14 -- the Winter Soldier

Doug: Welcome back to one of the things we do best around here -- talking about comics! As you may recall, back around the second week of January we got into a little discussion of "The Winter Soldier" arc that ran in Captain America (2005) 1-9 and 11-14. I received Captain America, volume 1: Winter Soldier Ultimate Collection and loved it. I literally read the entire 13 issue arc in one evening. And right after I finished, I emailed Karen. Here is the conversation that took place over the next several days -- which is also a look inside the editorial room:

Doug: Have you read the Winter Soldier trade (Cap 1-9 and 11-14)?

Karen: Pretty sure I have those Cap comics. Do you have some sort of idea you are cooking, Mr. Wadley?

Doug: No, not really. I got the deluxe tpb for Christmas, and sat down and read all 13 issues in one sitting last night. I was prepared to sulk about it, as you know my feelings about meaningful deaths in comics. But wow...

Ed Brubaker deserves every accolade that's come his way. Cap was a bit too much like Batman to suit me, but they rationalized it by saying this was right after Disassembled. Bendis makes me mad, too.

I thought the book was better than the movie, as they say.

Karen: I'm glad that you were able to enjoy it. It's so rare with new books. I had the same feeling as you. I wanted to be upset -don't bring back Bucky! -but it was handled so well. It's been years since I read it but overall I recall feeling it was one of the best Cap storylines.

I honestly think that "Captain America: The Winter Soldier" may be the best made Marvel film - the story holds together better than "The Avengers" to me, although Avengers might be more sheer fun or wow factor.

I was contemplating going to the comic shop to try some new comics but I just know I will be disappointed. I read that Black Bolt and Medusa have a son now...there are so many things I am curious about but every time I pick up a new book, I am put off by the art and the characters behave such that I can't recognize them. Oh well, as they say, we'll always have Paris!

Doug: I thought Steve Epting's pencils were outstanding, and I liked the guy who did the WWII flashbacks even better. It's too bad that the modern coloring made it all so dark. I do miss the brightness of our four-color wonders. I even liked the Jack Monroe fill-in penciled by Jean Paul Leon, and I had not cared for some of his work back in the day. But I am with you -- I have virtually no interest in today's fare. But I do think I'll pick up the next volume in this Brubaker series. Not sure I'll get the third, which was "Civil War"...

I agree that the Winter Soldier movie was well done, and for the Marvel movie converts it was great. For long-timers like us, Brubaker's story had a much better reveal that softened the impact for us older fans. His rationale for the events that led up to Bucky's reappearance were really good and in the comic book world "made sense". 

Karen: I think the biggest problem for the Cap films is that the sense of loss for Cap regarding Bucky was not as deeply felt as it was in the comics. I mean, as readers we'd seen Cap suffer for DECADES over Bucky's death. It was considered to be the death that could not be erased. It certainly informed Cap's character so much in the early years of his Silver Age revival. He was a walking ball of guilt. No matter how talented the writer, director, or actor, you can't take all of those years of stories and character development and roll them up into the tail end of one film and then the bulk of another. I also think that some of the impact of Bucky's death is dulled by the fact that he was a full-grown man, not a kid, in the films. As an adult, he is thoroughly responsible for his actions. In the comics, although Bucky is far more capable than any kid we might know, he IS still a kid, and it makes Cap's culpability in his death more tangible, and his guilt all the more real. In the films they had to switch the focus more to the characters' friendship and it was still very moving but not nearly as powerful as the sort of surrogate father or big brother role that Cap was to Bucky in the comics.

I am wary of them bringing the "Civil War" stuff into the films. Can we let the heroes be friends and not have to have them fight each other? Let them be morally ambiguous in the comics.

Doug: What did you think of Brubaker having Cap tell Sharon that Bucky took care of a lot of the dirty work, i.e. murders, sabotage with collateral damage, etc.? I mean, it would be naive to assume that sort of thing didn't happen -- shoot, how many pilots lost their lives to the Torches and Namor? But to come right out and say it sort of took me aback. Talk about stuck in the Bronze Age. But then, earlier today I was reading the Steranko issues and Bucky is running around with a machine gun. Those issues were printed in 1968, so Stan was apparently comfortable with at least the implication that Bucky was kicking some serious tail.

I also found it interesting that they specifically tagged Bucky's age at 16 when he and Steve Rogers first met. Then Cap remarked that Bucky was almost 21 when he died. At least in my imagination, I'd have but the parameters closer to 12-16. It certainly made more sense to age him up a bit.

What did you think of, if you recall, the notion that Cap's only been thawed out for a decade? Meaning, in the 21st century??

Karen: I re-read the whole thing. Man, that is good stuff. You're right, it's a much harder Cap than we've seen before, but they do indicate that Cap's been through some things -like Hawkeye's death -that have really shaken him up, so I can accept that. The art is exceptional, although I don't really like the way his scale mail is drawn -it looks too thick. I enjoyed the flashbacks to WWII. I also liked Brubaker having Cap praise the French resistance -I recall back then (2005) a lot of folks were critical of the French, calling them cowards (Mark Millar over in Ultimates had his Cap say "this A on my head doesn't stand for France") so it was refreshing to see a more mature response. And it fit with Cap's experience too.

Regarding Bucky "doing the dirty work" -at the time it struck me as odd that they would have a youngster do those sort of things -actually, it still does. If they wanted to say that Bucky was armed like any other soldier because he didn't have the benefit of the Super-Soldier Serum, that would have made more sense to me.

I am sure they upped Bucky's age to make readers more comfortable with the idea that he was going around offing folks. It's perhaps a bit more palatable when he's 16-21 than say 13-18. But in my head, when I was reading the Invaders, I always saw him as a kid about 14 years old. Really, if you put him at 16, well, he's not that far away from enlistment age. Heck, my friend's father lied and enlisted in the Korean War when he was 17.

I think Marvel has decided that all of their 'modern' history (since the FF) is condensed into a 10-12 year period, which of course moves along as time passes. So at some point, Cap will have been thawed out 100 years after his war ended! My husband and I were talking about this the other night (we do have such wonderful conversations), that when Marvel first brought Cap back, the War had only been over for less than 20 years. Roll that around in your mind! Really, that's not too bad of a gap to have to overcome. If you'd been frozen in 1995 and woke up now, sure, it would be traumatic at first, and there's the whole issue of loved ones aging, but as far as the differences in society and technology, and adapting to it, not too  tough. But if it was 70 years, well, that's really a leap. I think anyone trying to  recover from that would be pretty psychologically hamstrung. Marvel can disregard Mr. Fantastic's and the Thing's WWII records, they can change Iron Man's origin so he is injured in Afghanistan instead of Vietnam, but taking Cap out of World War II seems impossible (and a bad idea). So I think they are stuck with it.

Do you like Cap with more of an espionage angle than a super-heroic one? 

Doug: That scene in the Ultimates stands out -- you're right. The French were taking a beating in the post-9/11 world.

I think I like Cap in both the superhero and super-spy realms. It makes sense that he'd be a super-spy, as after all he was created as the ultimate government agent.

As I said earlier, I really enjoyed Brubaker's portrayal of Cap, even if his personality did stray a bit toward Milleresque Batman.

I also thought they did an excellent job with the Falcon, really showing the respect and friendship that existed between Sam Wilson and Steve Rogers. And I had to check my Marvel chronology when Iron Man was so chummy with Cap. Wow -- would that unravel quickly. Tony Stark was actually a very accommodating individual in this story.

Brubaker and Epting crafted such a page-turner, that I've ordered the next two "ultimate collections" in the line -- these trades are nice, as they reprint material from smaller, previously issued books. I think in Red Menace and The Death of Captain America, trades #s 3-8 are collected!

Doug: A couple more thoughts:

I have been reading more in that Marvel Pocket Book that I recently purchased. It reprints Cap #s 111-119 (it does not reprint the first Steranko issue, curiously) and contains the stories when Rick Jones was trying hard to be Bucky. It's pretty painful, both in the way Rick goes about it and in the way Cap trains him and then acts/reacts toward him. I have to think that Stan intended for that to be an experiment only. Now, whether or not the Falcon was on the radar months ahead of time I cannot say; it would also seem that the Rick Jones/Captain Marvel relationship was percolating behind the scenes. But the Bucky revival seemed destined to fail.

But it's interesting to read those stories right after having read The Winter Soldier. Not only is there a ton of interplay between Cap and SHIELD (and notably with Agent 13), but AIM is in there, too. So the whole espionage angle is on full display. And of course the Red Skull is there with the Cosmic Cube. So just by coincidence, I'm reading what turns out to be similar material, but written 45 years apart!