Wizard asks creators to play Fallen Son, as they reflect on Captain America. Most surprising is the love for Steve Englehart’s run, although Bendis has it exactly right:
I was particularly a fan of the later Kirby Captain America in the ’70s because I liked the angry Cap. I like the “Harlem is burning and Cap is running through the streets” stuff. There is when Cap was defined not just as a symbol of liberty, but as the spirit of America. I thought it was the best interpretation of the character, because whatever the country is feeling, Steve Rogers ends up representing that feeling. Not just patriotism, but if the country is angry, he gets angry. If the country is sad, he’s sad. He becomes the embodiment of that emotion and acts. That really is something so much more than just a symbol or party politics. He doesn’t represent a flag, but a collective emotion… There was a “Bicentennial Battles” special that Kirby did that was the freakiest, trippy thing I’d ever read. It was crazy. I enjoyed that a lot. I also liked it a lot when he gave it up and became Nomad. That was the most shocking thing he could do. When Cap says “eff you,” it’s pretty shocking.
Man, I love the 1970s Kirby Cap, especially because no-one is capable of saying anything that doesn’t end in an exclamation point. “HOW ARE YOU, CAP?” “I’M FINE! DIDN’T SLEEP TOO WELL LAST NIGHT BUT WHAT CAN YOU DO! KINDA HUNGRY!”
March 28th, 2007 at 1:22 pm
“Not just patriotism, but if the country is angry, he gets angry. If the country is sad, he’s sad.”
So…what does it say when Steve’s dead?
March 28th, 2007 at 1:48 pm
I was thinking I had just finished collecting the Englehart run and was looking forward to reading it, and then realized that I had finished getting it last May at Motor City Con. I need to move those up on the reading priority list. I loved Steve’s Avengers run, and all the footnotes that referred over to his Cap run is what got me to start collecting his Cap.
30 years later and those little footnotes are still generating sales.
March 28th, 2007 at 2:53 pm
Why the surprise over the love for Englehart’s run? It’s one of the few times the character has actually worked in his own title.
March 28th, 2007 at 3:16 pm
I spent a long time amassing the Kirby run and now seem to be collecting the Englehart run, almost by osmosis via quarter bins. They are so different in tone and ideals, and yet both work because Cap as symbol and as person is so all-encompassing a representation of America. Englehart’s is the America of Nixon and cynicism and distrust, and Kirby’s is the America of “sure we have problems but they are OUR problems, and we’ll fix them” – I think the two actually compliment each other very nicely. But I love Kirby the best, as in all things.
March 28th, 2007 at 4:11 pm
I remember when Kirby took over Cap and I hated it. After reading almost 50 issues of Sal Buscema and Steve Englehart stories that I really liked, out of left-field here comes Kirby with his goofy stuff and horrid art just before it by … Robbins? It was such a drastic change that I dropped it after two issues and it took several years to finally take a shot at Cap again. Kirby might have had a good run but the drop off in style came across as a slap of my 10 year-old face.
Englehart and Buscema’s run on the book are my absolute favorite run on the book and the 154-156 (?) with the 50′s Cap against the real one are in my mind the best the title has ever been. Lot’s to like and Englehart seems to have been the Bendis of his day what with him writing Avengers too.
Good stuff, he even brought the X-men back out of the dark ages then. Good stuff!
March 28th, 2007 at 4:17 pm
“So…what does it say when Steve’s dead?”
That the president should be dragged out of the white house kicking and screaming.
March 28th, 2007 at 4:18 pm
As a kid, around 1980 or 1981, I bought most of the Kirby run from a mail-order service and totally hated it. I hadn’t had much exposure to Kirby prior to that, but it definitely put me off ever buying Kirby again. However, lately I’ve been coming around and recently read the Demon run and the first Kamandi Archive and loved the energy in the stories. Looking forward to the New Gods Omnibus and Kamandi Archive 2.
And, I’ll probably reread the Kirby run when I finish the Englehart run, just to see if it was as bad as I remembered it.
March 28th, 2007 at 7:43 pm
Man, i can’t stand the older stuff with the exclamation point at the end of each sentence. It made it unreadable to me. Then again, I’m one of those rare comic readers that barely cares about the art. I could barely name three artists from comics today, but can give you most of the writers. Probably has to do with the fact that I was an English major wanting to get a doctorate and then fell into comics. It took me a long time to just see it as literature.
March 29th, 2007 at 12:04 am
What does Cap do if the country’s mood is completely polarized, as it is now? Does he just sit around the house, unable to make up his mind?
Y’know, if he weren’t dead.