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!
Doug: Now that the dust has settled from the release of Captain America: Civil War, the next conversation that - to be honest, probably happened immediately - is "Where does this film lay in your ranking of MCU films?" I know that I've mulled it over with my sons, and you've probably had the conversation, too.
