Okay, as I recall, in broad strokes, the backstory for Captain America is that he was frozen in the arctic towards the end of WWII, after blowing up some kind of Nazi rocket, only to be discovered thawed out in the present day.
Of course, comics being what they are, there are not only multiple retcons, re-imaginings, and writers’ mistakes that muddy the exact details, as well as multiple lines of continuity from different comics, TV shows, and movies.
So, in current mainstream (or “Earth-616”) comics canon, when exactly did Cap end up getting frozen, and what was he doing, and with who, when he was frozen?
I’m pretty sure Captain America’s backstory has remained constant. Not only does the cryostasis provide an easy bypass for the usual worries of a time-locked origin story getting too far away from the present, there’s also the issue that moving him to, say, the Vietnam War just doesn’t work, simply because a patriotic supersoldier stomping Nazis is far less controversial than the same patriotic supersoldier stomping Viet Cong.
No, you’re wrong. I havent bought a comic book in a decade, but I still keep remotely in touch.
First, there’s been many opportunities for Cap or the Avengers to go back in time and witness the jumping on a Nazi booby trapped plane (wtf did you jump on it, dummy). And there were always some (at least) minor corrections to the freezing episode (same thing for Namor supposedly happening upon Cap’s body in the Pole and because he cant stand Eskimos, throws it in water -dont ask me. Moreover, why the hell did Cap end up in the Pole when the plane explosed nearby England. Even more, supposedly, after being thrown in the water, his ice sarcophagus starts to melt , cause, you know Arctic waters tend to do that. Even more so, an Avengers quinjet happens to be nearby. Et voila. Yeah, some people get paid to write such things. In a perfect universe they would be paid not to).
Anyway, there were Cap stories published in the fifties, and they were in total contradiction with the Sub Zero Sleeping Beauty plot. So they had to be retconned (and my, didnt that start a retcon avalanche).
Since Bucky is back among the living, they also had to retcon the fact Bucky was on the same plane and killed.
All in all, there’s no blatant retelling of Cap story (except in the “Captain America: Ice” comic book, but the continuity status of that one is floating) but, over the years, a lot of minor details altered (and since the original story was already full of plotholes, that just adds to it).
I love Cap, but, man his original backstory has such a brilliant concept yet so marred by so much mud in its cogs.
… Zombie, what? Are you… missing part of your brains?
He’s not wrong. Captain America’s backstory has remained relatively unchanged since the 60s.
There have been refinements to it, but the essential core has remained unchanged.
A: There is now a proto-Cap, the Super-Soldier Serum tested on a crew of black men.
B: Bucky survived, mostly. See: Winter Soldier.
C: Yes, the 1950s Cap stories were retconned into being someone else. That was done pretty much as soon as someone remembered they existed.
But yes, it’s still: Bucky and Cap lunge to stop an experimental bomb-plane. Boom. Cap falls into ocean. Freezes. Worshipped by eskimos. Subby chucks him in. Rescued by Avengers.
Thank you, and I know this is going to be pedantic*, but…what about the details of Cap’s freezing origin? Is there a specific date (like July 15, 1945) for when it happened? What did the aircraft he was trying to disarm look like? Was the warhead a nuke?
*In a thread about comic book canon? Unimaginable!
All I can add is that the first time-travel trip Cap took to witness his accident occurred in “the Avengers” (volume 1) #56. In that issue at least, it was loosely stated that Cap went into suspended animation in the ‘closing days of the war in Europe.’ So, sometime in the Spring of '45.
As for the ridiculous coincidences surrounding Cap’s “thawing”, Captaine Zombie, there was a bit more too it than that. See, in “the Avengers” #3, the Earth’s Mightiest Heroes were slugging it out with Namor the Sub-Mariner (who was still more of a villain than hero in those days.) That issue ended with Namor defeated and fleeing from his enemies. “Avengers” #4 opened with the team in ‘hot’ (pardon the pun) pursuit of Namor through the Arctic regions. Namor realized that no matter how fast he could swim, he couldn’t outpace the Avengers’ sub. So, he leaped out of the waters and happened upon the Inuit tribesmen worshipping their strange totem. Not realizing what the totem really was, he tossed it into the water at the Avengers’ sub, in an effort to slow them down while he made his escape via flying through the air. The object began to melt when it fell into the jetstream of the Avengers’ nuclear powered sub.
Still a big stretch of plausibility, but not quite entirely as random as you suggested.
Also, some retconning is inherently implied in Cap’s series. In many of his 1960s adventures, he was depicted wrestling with his consciousness over then-current social conditions. He was the living symbol of the American Way, but couldn’t help but be moved by the plight of racial discrimination and the controversy surrounding the war in Vietnam. Both movements were specifically mentioned in Cap’s book at the time and that would place Cap’s “de-frosting” took place at least 45 years ago - twice as long as he was frozen!
The plane looked like an experimental drone WWII fighter plane. It’s been reinterpreted, but it doesn’t change much over the years. It’s nigh the end of the western theater, the Human Torch hasn’t killed Hitler yet. (Yes, the Human Torch burned Hitler to death in the Marvel Universe.)
It was an Allied plane that Baron Zemo was stealing, if memory serves me right, and it wound up being a booby trap.
No, not a nuke. Conventional explosives. Sometimes they are tied to the plane by Zemo, if the story is being told in long form. Condensed form, they just jump after it and boom.
Just want to say that I didnt think it was insulting. More, “WTF was that rant”? Considering I wrote that piece completely drunk (and I’m quite amazed that it still somehow manages to retain some sense after sobering up), I can understand.
Even I got the zombie reference, twickster. Whoever reported this jumped the gun and is so tone deaf to the written word that they should stick to sites with sound.
