Then why would you assume his head’s up his ass? Medved is usually pretty accurate with his facts in his reviews of movies and presents a fairly consistant outlook on which to judge the opinion part of his reviews. Yeah, he’s right of center, but I don’t see anything jingoistic in his review.
Anyway, I’m going to answer this question by focusing on the comics in question in hopes that that’ll be it. I’m sick to death of politics taking over every f*cking thread on the SDMB and I really don’t want this thread to morph yet another “the war sux/no it doesn’t” thread. It’s one of the very few threads on the SDMB I’m actually enjoying any more and it’s one of the few reasons I’m sticking around. (Thanks guys! 
)
I think Medved’s overstating it but is generally correct. The Dresden issues of Cap were pretty obnoxious and WAY out of character for Cap. They were “hurl the book across the room” level bad. The current writer is using Captain America as a mouthpiece for his anti-war opinions. Which would be fine to a point, but Medved is correct: there’s no one offering the opposing view. It’s as dully-two dimensional as the Neal Adams/Denny O’Neill Green Lantern/Green Arrow relevance issues where junior-highschool level liberal slogans were the basis of the book. And everyone agreed with them. The essense of a story is conflict. Green Arrow was a loud-mouthed, obnoxious liberal. Great! Fine! Put him with strong willed, stubbornly hard-headed conservative Green Lantern and you have the potential for a rousing good story as their beliefs and methods clash. Unfortunately, O’Neill couldn’t concieve that anyone could have a different opinion than his own and wrote Hal as a weak-willed semi-moron who burst into tears whenever a liberal said anything*. This equals boring stories. The same thing to a lesser degree is happening in Cap.
The writer of Cap is also boring me. A lot. NOTHING’s happening (th’ art is extremely pretty though.) I think it would have been far more effective, if he wanted to portray those attitudes (which represent a large enough group that they SHOULD be dealt with in the comic if they MUST go in the “relevancy” direction…which I wish they wouldn’t.) would be for Cap to team up with a new character who can represent the anti-war side and force them to work together: again, conflict is good. Moping around about how America sux is out of character for Cap. In any case, I’d much rather see Cap deal with Modok, or the Red Skull or AIM or The Seventh (and final) Sleeper, or etc… than to wander around the countryside talking non-stop.
And while I think THE TRUTH is a stupid book (with very good art), I disagree with Medved on why it’s stupid. It’s not that I don’t think things like the Tuskegee experiments have no place in comic books which can certainly deal with mature content or that it deals with the fact that America did some vile, evil things, it’s that it’s a bad concept that doesn’t fit Marvel’s continuity (at ALL) and it’s horribly written. I mean really, REALLY badly written. Y’remember the charactures of Japanese people in Golden Age comics? With fangs and squinty eyes and claws and such? They were written with more depth than the bad-guys in this book.
Plus, the premise is just stoopid. The cartoon-racists who are behind the program would NEVER, NEVER risk giving super-powers to a black person. I mean, c’mon. It would be like a Ku Klux Klansman giving fully automatic weapons to the black people that they intend to terrorize.
So overall, yeah. I think Medved’s about right. Cap doesn’t work well as a vehicle for a particular writer’s grievances or when he tries to be “relevant”. “Relevant” books suck in general, but because of the nature of Captain America, they’re particularly bad.
And, on preview, what Dr Fidelius said. The first time was when Cap became Nomad to protest Nixon. Not one of Steve Englehart’s shining moments. The second time was during the big Kirby original art flap when there was a fear that Kirby might sue and take all his characters away. That’s why so many Marvel books of the period got the main character out of the costume, so that there would be a backup. If Cap got yanked, there was always “The Captain”. If Tony Stark got pulled, there was Rhodey. Spider-man’s costume was designed by Kirby, hence the black outfit. Etc.
Fenris
*“Tell me, Mr. Lantrin, I hear you work for the blue folks, and you saved the orange folks from the red folks. Can you tell me what you done for the black folks?”
Wrong answer: < bursts into tears > “No…< sob > I can’t!”
Whereupon he and Green Arrow hug and share an herbal tea. (not really, but…)
Right answer: "Me? I saved the world about a half-dozen times in the last week old man. Stopped Los Angeles from falling into the ocean. Stopped the sun from exploding AND from being stolen. Stopped the Queen Bee from making everyone on Earth, (even “the black folks”) into drones for her honey mines. The fact that you’re still alive and able to gripe is testament to all I’ve done. Now let’s talk about you. What the hell have you done for yourself except whine about how I haven’t done enough for you? Maybe if you’d get off your ass and stop snivelling about how everyone owes you, you woudn’t be in this situation. And by the way, if you try to burn down this building again, you’ll be in jail before you can say “honkey”
Whereupon Green Arrow’s head should explode from hearing someone who dares to espouse any dissenting opinion and Poof! We’ve got Conflict! Tension! Drama!
