Mike Gold: The Wrong Captain America
Yesterday, I awoke to the news that the should-be city of Brooklyn was honoring the 75th anniversary of Captain America with a 13-foot tall bronze statue, to be planted in Prospect Park next month after visiting the San Diego Comic Con. “Pretty cool,” I said to our cats, who I believe responded with “Yeah? Does he have a pro pass?”
Then I saw the sketch. In case you haven’t seen it, look to the left.
That is not Captain America. That’s the guy who starred in the past several movie adaptations. That one hasn’t been around for 75 years, but he has been around for over five billion dollars.
I really hate it when the media adaptations are conflated with the “real” thing. The biggest event in the history of comic books should have been the marriage of Lois Lane and Superman. Instead, it was just another episode of Lois and Clark – an afterthought that was unceremoniously (comparatively speaking) ported over to the comic book. Getting rid of that fiasco actually justified one of DC’s many, many reboots.
Not all stories work out, no matter what the medium. Movies and teevee adaptations are made for their times. This is understandable when a $200 million budget is on the line. I don’t get angry when they “get it wrong” as long as the end result is an entertaining experience. That’s why it’s called an adaptation. But I do get concerned when the adaptation becomes canonical.
There’s a reason why Captain America has lasted 75 years (admittedly, with a couple years off during the 1950s and 1960s). There’s a reason why Superman and Batman have lasted almost 80 years each. Quite frankly, there’s a reason why the reboots of Doctor Who and James Bond worked so well: both were extremely faithful to the source material. Neither character became somebody or something else. Their re-creators understood what made those characters work.
That’s why I feel it was a mistake for Marvel Comics to replace the Lee and Kirby version of Nick Fury with the Samuel L. Jackson version in their mainstream comics universe. I’m certainly a very strong advocate for diversity in comics. That’s why I asked Joe Corallo to do a weekly column here at ComicMix covering that very issue. But SHIELD is an organization that employs about a zillion people and presumably is a diverse place; coming up with another Nick Fury to track the movies wasn’t necessary.
Statues are likely to last a long while. There’s still a statue of Andy Gump in downtown Lake Geneva Wisconsin – in fact, when some drunken idiot smashed it to pieces in 1967, it was replaced with another. Andy starred in a popular newspaper comic strip called (of course) The Gumps. It ended in 1959 and today very few people know of either the strip or the character. But that statue lives on. It is nice to think it inspires some to Google the name and learn a thing or two about comics history.
Captain America? The movies will be with us in one form or another pretty much forever. The comic book? Sad to say, that’s somewhat less likely – but, clearly, over the course of time more people will know Cap from those movies than from the comics.
I sure hope they get to meet the real guy.
“I”m just a kid from Brooklyn” is a line from the first movie. If not for the movie, there wouldn’t a statue in Brooklyn or anywhere.
With exceptions concerning Bucky, the movies have been pretty faithful to the comic. Sometimes more faithful than whatever the current iteration is. In fact, when I read your headline, I thought you would be writing about Nick Spencer’s current version.
I’ve been reading comics since I was about 10 years old and started because of the George Reeves TV show. That show did not adhere slavishly to the comics of the time but that’s what got me started, so adaptions can be a good thing.
As I pointed out above, George. I don’t mind movies making changes as long as they’re not egregious; as I said, it’s called an “adaptation.” And I agree that without the movies there would be no statue – although I don’t believe there was a big budget wide release Gumps movie then Andy’s statue went up in Lake Geneva. There’s also a Popeye statue in Chester Illinois, but the Sailor of Spinach has had a fairly continuous presence in the mass media from the days of Betty Boop. And there’s a statue of Superman in Metropolis Illinois. All three of these statues resemble the character in their comics form, allowing for adaptation to three dimensions. The forthcoming Captain America statue follows the movies and not the Simon and Kirby creation as they envisioned it and as has been deployed in comics for at least 70 of his 75 years… and is still used in flashback. And will probably return someday, unless Marvel changes its habits.
My problem with the statue is, I don’t believe the movie version of the costume will last more than a couple films. Once Marvel Studios changes it (or somehow loses the rights to the series), will the statue be updated? No, I agree with esteemed Mr. Gold that the iconic version should be immortalized, as it will be the version the public will always recognize over the ages, no matter what redesigns are regularly made.
I’m still upset that DCE produced a slew of variant covers celebrating 75 years of the Flash, and not one of those covers featured Jay Garrick!
True. Sadly, true.
I’m with you on this one, George!!!!!! And Mike, dearly beloved friend and editor, I think you’re wrong on this one.
By the way, I think it’s SUPER-COOL!!!!!!
In a related story, I’m very pissed of and upset, as I heard on NPR this morning that Marvel is introducing a new IRON MAN….a girl.
Hey, I get it. Diversity and all that, and hearts in the right places.
But IRON MAN is TONY STARK.
Mostly. Not always. And I believe Iron Man is about to be Doctor Doom.
We will note that Supergirl is not Clark Kent. Spider-Girl has been a few people, but not Peter Parker. Batgirl is not Bruce Wayne. Batwoman is not Bruce Wayne. The several thousand Green Lanterns are not Hal Jordan, and Hal Jordan is not Alan Scott.
So, tell me. Do you really think Captain America has been in Hydra all this time?
While Mike make a very good point that Batgirl, Supergirl, Spider-Girl and other versions of popular characters did not replace their original counterparts. But I believe those versions were created for crass commercial and economic reasons and so, understandable. A black female teenage Iron Man sounds like an obvious attempt to be diverse for diversity’s sake and in my opinion also crass. Will black female teenagers start reading comics because of this character? Doubtful. Who will read it? Maybe some people who are already reading comics, but certainly not all of them. It is social engineering and while that in not necessarily a bad thing, I think it is a futile thing because it is not organic.
Again, I’m with you, George!
I appreciate your point, George. Howsoever, comic books are a commercial medium. Or at least, they’re supposed to be: the folks at Harvey or Charlton or ACG might feel differently. Everything is done for crass commercial and economic reasons… or by mistake. We are fortunate to have the latter.
I certainly agree that such a move is unlikely to bring in a significant onslaught of new readers – recent history backs that up. But rest assured: Tony Stark is Iron Man, Steve Rogers is not an agent of Hydra, Aunt May will never truly die (comic book deaths are fleeting matters), and Superman really is a nice guy.
Batman, not so much.