I got interested in comics pretty late… I didn’t really start reading any of them until I was around 22. It was neat actually reading the stories of all these superheroes that I’d always known about. But one “hero” whose popularity I never understood was Captain America. Why? Well my good friend MediaMelt put it better than I could:
The character has always been a political rah-rah rallying point. His popularity hinges on who the U.S. happens to have a problem with at the time, be it the Germans and Japanese in the 40’s, Koreans, Vietnamese, or modern day terrorists. He’s a propaganda spouting sock puppet. Always has been – always will be.
Well said, and I totally agree. Captain America is a LAME character. And yet, in the playground that is Comic Book movies, a Captain America movie is in the planning stages. The big cheese at Marvel Studios, Avi Arad had this to say about the upcoming project:
“What makes Captain America such a compelling character is that it allows you to judge history so you see where he came from and you see what he stood for. One of the things our movie is going to deal with is what happened in 60 years,” says Arad. “Which world was better? Sixty years ago or now? Within, obviously, a kick-ass plot and all the stuff that you’ve come to expect from a superhero movie.”
That does sound interesting… but not interesting enough to get me even the slightest bit interested in the dumbest superhero around.
People who hate Cap hate the U.S. gov also and they should go start thier own country somewhere. Of course when they get the first bomb or natural disaster they will come crying to the U.S….More than half my wages aren’t taxed. I am free to start a biz. Free to join any religion and do what ever I want. Can other countries say that. Anti Amercian AMERICAN’s is the new black (or is that gay cowboys?)
Cap has been around and published longer than this blog or anything this blogs creator will ever do. People who will hate the Cap movie….non-whites, gays, and foreigners. Is that a reason to not make it…NO. Cause there are far more groups of people who hate Gay Cowboy movies. Despite what Hollywood tells you.
Maybe Captain America should fight our own government. I don’t mean the Bush admin, but a government that has become too big and oppressive sometime in the future. He would be fighting on the side of the people though not the government; thats what I think some people don’t get, American values are not represented by the government they are by the Constitution.
You could make it futuristic where the government has become a tyranny, where they have an army of robots, theres no freedom,….. and Captain America has to come back and lead a second Revolution and re-establish the Constituion and Bill of Rights. I dunno, thats probably crazy. I just get tired of fighting Nazis all the time. What would we do without THEM, we wouldn’t have any bad guys. Although the Wolfenstein type WW2 story with the occult and monsters etc… does sound pretty cool.
People outside the US don’t about captin America? Oh well. Some movies should just be for US.
“If it wasn’t for Captain America all you europeans would be speaking German, so nuff said!!”
Yeah, a cartoon character saved over a hundred million people from Germany and Austria and Switzerland and Belgium and Liechtenstein and Luxembourg and the South Tyrol region of Italy from the horror of having to speak their native language. He did such a good job, in fact, that the UK and Ireland are the only places in Europe that speak the same language as the US, and even that’s debatable at times. Who exactly was it here had no clue? I forget now.
Its obvious the stooge who writes this blog has no clue about Captain America.
A “Lame” Charactor? Any Charactor who has pass the test of time obviously has something deeper than the writer of this blog can comprehend.
Its kind of ironic a movie critic thinks he’s lame when he would probably be the best translation from comic to screen since he doesn’t have any real “Super Powers” except for his super solider serum which bascially makes him a world class athlete and fighter.
We all know Movie Critics have been blasting comic movies for not being real enough. Cap would be the most real translation to date, until they make Shang Chi, Master of Kung Fu!!!
If it wasn’t for Captain America all you europeans would be speaking German, so nuff said!!
I can understand why people outside the US would think C.A is a bit on the eccentric side, even a tad over the top. But you have to appreciate how the character came to life, the culture of comics at that time and what C.A has been used for since that day.
Durring WWII, comics were popular, but it was all characters like Superman. During this time, there was a much larger sense of patriotism in US citizens. When we went to war, men all over the contry stopped what they were doing and enlisted in the military to fight for their country. This is simply what people did.
Because of this, there were many broken families, the depression, Rosie the Riveter’s and moral throughout the US was at an all time low.
Marvel created C.A so that the American people could have a war hero icon, someone who displayed the ultimate concentration of American pride. This was not just to capitalize on the war, or to be used as propaganda, but to also lift the spirits of the people at home, worried about their loved ones and their own well being.
Now as the years went on, C.A began to take a back seat in comic culture. Why is this? Because there was no need to lift the spirits of Americans. Vietnam was not a war the people supported, so the use of C.A was limited because the masses protested so intensively.
Fast forward to 2001 and 9/11. Regardless of your country you have to admit that this incident was a major tragedy and the American people were devastated.
Marvel released a tribute displaying all of the heros helping the NYFD any NYPD at ground zero, and in the forefront was none other than C.A assisting a fire fighter with the raising of the American Flag. This marked the largest exposure to C.A in like 20 years. But it wasn’t used as a cheep promo, but as an inspirational icon.
It is for these reasons I feel Captain America is a major piece of American culture. Thus translating into a popular film -granted more for an American audience-.
Still I think the character should be appreciated.
Cap can be a rather engaging character. but he, like every hero out there, needs GOOD WRITERS… duh… right?
the clincher and sellign point for Cap is this: He’s a patriot. And embodies what is best and most idealic and Iconic about what americans see themselves as.
So imagine a movie where you see Cap struggling with that. I think it would be interresting. I mean, patriotism isnt a bad thing… and i’d pay good money to see a realistic (if they could pull off ) portrayal of cap storming beaches and raiding towns whooping some nazi ass…
…think “saving private ryan” only gay…
I agree with most of what is said here. I see no problem with Cap fighting the likes of The Red Skull in WWII. It very well could have the serial flavor of the Indiana Jones films. While I personally think the character would be better off as a TV miniseries from Hallmark – hey, they did stuff like ‘Merlin’ and ‘The Odyssey’ so don’t scoff at the thought. But since it is a movie they want to make, I say bring on WWII type action.
Yes, if Cap woke up in ‘the present’ there is the fish out of water culture shock- and in the comics, other heroes sometimes questioned his leadership in The Avengers simply because of his “values”, which are rooted in an FDR era.
Could the costume work? Well, I figure if they train a guy, give him a super soldier formula, and he’s pretty much dressed in Red, White and Blue with an A on his head, no one’s going to stop him. But what if they gave him a mission which “distracts” the Axis power from the ‘real’ attack? Only to find out the decoy mission holds more of a threat because he faces off with Red Skull?
Lots of potential storywise.
And again, put it in a serial type fashion with a suspension of disbelief, give some decent Tiger Tank action, The Red Skull, and we are good to go.
What?
Hell yeah, I’d rather see Iron Man first! But that’s beside the point…
Captain America really hasn’t been much of a propaganda figure since World War II. Even in the sixties, the interesting thing was the way Stan Lee took a forties character and turned him into an angsty sixties Marvel character by killing his sidekick and taking away nearly twenty years of his life by freezing him in an ice floe.
Over the years, he’s had his ups and downs, usually depending on who’s writing him. At his best, though, he’s the ultimate soldier/special agent/superhero, so they could easily make a great movie about him.
As for appeal beyond the US — maybe not so much, but the effects budget for this film wouldn’t have to be nearly as high as something like Superman or Fantastic Four, so that might offset any financial losses.
Even if you don’t like Cap, and I myself wasn’t fond of him, check out the current series. It really turned my opinion of him around.
I’m not a cap-fan, never has been, and I’m one of those europeans who gets annoyed when there’s too much flag-waving going around… and I still think you’re being unfair to the character. I’m sure those problems have existed from time to time, but at the same time there has been great storylines where he, for example, has gone against the goverment, because of his beliefs. He can be a complex and very intresting character, when written right.
That doesn’t, of course, mean that the movie is going to get him right. I’m not that optimistic. But still, the character, as he’s shown in the comics, is not what you make him out to be.
I think the character is fairly cool.It’s the man out of time angle that sells him to me.Everyone he knew and sacrificed his life for is now dead or pretty close.Back in his day America was seen as freeing the world from opression…nowadays…well…you get my drift.
Read ‘The Ultimates’ Volume 1 and then tell me this character can’t be cool.Mind you even saying that the current ‘Winter Soldier’ arc in his solo title is also good.
Granted, Captain America was used as a propaganda piece in the past, but so were Superman, Batman and Bugs Bunny. That doesn’t exactly rule out an interesting adaption. Just compare the campy 60’s Batman with last year’s “Batman Begins”.
In recent comics (Marvel’s Ultimates series), the Cap has a quite interesting back story, being frozen for the past 60 years. How would a patriotic soldier from WW2 react to todays world without having decades to get adapted? Quite a culture shock…
And he’s been a quite interesting image of the “true patriot”, carrying a shield, not a gun or anything similarly offensive. IMHO _way_ more interesting than Superman, king of blandness…
i know what i hate most about the USA is men on steroids in spandex body suits.
….
oh wait, that is what i hate most about my dad.
Although i don’t know much about Captain America, i do see massive potential in a film if they just took the right angle, but they won’t.
The perfect movie adaptation in my eyes would be a WW2 setting with Captain American fighting the Nazi’s. This would rule. A mix of the supernatural and historic war events. There’s way too many Third Reich Occult opportunities there. Totally a Indiana Jones meets The Phantom meets Hellboy sort of thing. I would be pretty excited about that. Alas, it will be slick, modernized, and DARK!!! Always with the DARKNESS!!
I agree. No one outside of the USA is going to be interested in seeing this. He represents the things we dislike most about the USA.