Looks like I picked the wrong week to change my tagline.
Other Media 2: It's Astounishing!
Discussion of comics, graphic novels, and more. Except for capes. No capes!
Please use spoiler font for new releases until after the weekend following release.
That's insane. That noise you hear is Kirby spinning like a jet turbine in his grave.
Talk about pissing on a character.
Talk about pissing on a character.
Seriously. I'm totally boggled that Marvel thought this would be a GOOD idea. "Hey, the movie with this character in the title did really well -- let's make him a FUCKING NAZI!"
Yeah, let's take the character created by Jack Kirby and Joe Simon, who, in his first issue was depicted PUNCHING HITLER, a year before the Nazis declared war on us, let's make him a LITERAL NAZI.
Not to mention that he appears to be terrible at being undercover: the reveal comes after he throws Jack Flag out of a plane because...of reasons? Because he couldn't think of a good cover story for...whatever HYDRA BUSINESS he was actually doing? HOW DID HE MANAGE FOR 75 YEARS AND JUST CAN'T DEAL WITH JACK FLAG IN A PLANE.
Not only is it a terrible betrayal of one of the most-consistently decent human beings in comic books, but the timing feels especially bad as we fathom the possibility of a Trump presidency. A time like this is when we especially need a character like Steve Rogers setting an example for what this country should be.
Well, if he starts punching Trump, I'm not going to complain.
Sadly he's more-likely to high-five Trump with this development.
What kind of storyline can they do with Hydra Cap? He fights the Avengers at every turn? Everyone who's ever admired him gets sneered at? Aside from being offensive, it's short-sighted.
A friend of mine read the comic in question and said the basic concept boils down to Hydra wasn't always evil and got "corrupted" in WWII. Steve is trying to reform it from within.
Fine. A silly idea but not completely without merit. However, the instant Steve kills a good guy to protect his secret, the whole idea becomes rubbish. As my friend points out, one of Steve Rogers' core concepts is he will always do the right thing even when it's incredibly difficult. And they've thrown that away.
ETA: He also says the writing and art is otherwise very well done, it's just unfortunately shackled to a terrible premise.