… apparently used to be a Republican politician. Just came across this today, and it appears to be well-loaded with citations.
Sort of sheds new light on things, if accurate!
That was an enlightening blog and after I finished it all I could think was “wow” and make this face: :eek:
The sad thing is…he’s really a pretty good writer.
But his approach to Cap has been something only a swaggering white dude who doesn’t quite “get it” could write.
Huh. I’ve had quite a different reaction to the story. I’ve enjoyed it so much, I was legit surprised to find out that it was a white guy who wrote it.
Yeah, likewise. Amazing story, and hugely on point for today’s political clime.
As for the hatchet piece in the OP, eh. I wouldn’t have voted for him if I’d lived in Cincinnati twelve years ago, but none of his positions are particularly extreme, particularly by the standards of today’s Republican party. It’s also worth noting that he ran as a member of the Charter Party, a local third party that touts a pretty strong progressive platform, so I question whether, “get tough on crime” was his only position, or if he had other policies that the article doesn’t mention.
Anyway, my takeaway is that the writer is a fanboy who’s all butthurt because someone else is playing with his favorite toy the wrong way, and is desperate to cast the guy as a moral degenerate to justify getting personally angry over stuff that happened in a comic book.
I still continue to be amazed at all the controversy over this storyline. Why is this any different from any other “hero gets mind-controlled/possessed/corrupted” storyline? Are people really going to be surprised when he gets reverted back to normal good guy Cap at the end of the storyline?
It’s not even the first time Cap has been brain washed into working for Hydra!
Give it five years, and the same fans complaining about how this disrespects the character will be praising it as a highlight if the character’s history.
The main controversy seems to come from Jewish readers feeling insulted that a character written by Jewish creators specifically to fight Nazis (and a Holocaust survivor and a Roma character) were turned into Nazis at all. They believe it reflects certain beliefs on the part of the writer, especially in these times, thus the article.
Because it’s the major plotline of the book for over a year, and it puts a character who is the Big Good and paragon of virtue in the Marvel Universe in the position of killing his friends. Old school Cap would have snapped out of it before killing Jack Flag and trying to kill the Ultimates; and he would have gone onto another story already.
This is very nearly “Emerald Twilight” level character destruction. And to a character who’s not a second-stringer like Hal Jordan, but to a character who was a symbol of the best in America. Or it would be, if there weren’t still the Chris Evans movies. Marvel is playing with radioactive material here.
That seems… really stupid. HYDRA is still obviously the bad guys in the story, and Cap having his history rewritten into being a HYDRA agent is a bad thing. If these readers are thinking that some anti-semitic or white-power writer has taken over and is trying to write to support his agenda, that doesn’t quite make much sense.
Eh, that’s just how comics are these days - longer-lasting plot arcs instead of the “episode of the week” type plot that gets wrapped up in 20 pages.
But wasn’t the problem with “Emerald Twilight” that it was just Hal Jordan acting normally? Hence why they felt the need to later retcon it and say he was under Parallax’s influence. It’s been made pretty clear here that Cap’s entire history has been magically altered (so it’s not “his” fault, from the get-go).
EDIT: A Bleeding Cool response to the OP’s article.
WHOA WHOA WHOA…Traditionally (and by that i mean say 1970-1995) Cap has been a mediocrely drawn, boringly written mag with poor sales.
So he was about as second string as GL. True (i don’t think) he wasn’t cancelled like GL was at one time, but GL held as much significance in the JLA as Cap did back to the Avengers back in the day.
Before TPTB shoehorned in the troika of WW, Supes and Bats…it was Superman, Flash and GL who were the JLA’s heavy hitters
I have a related question about the original Civil War…what was the point of the series?
That America has gone batshit insane and embraced fascist policy? Given that the POV characters Urich and the other woman APPLAUDED Iron Man and the “Common man” tackled Captain America to stop him?
Thanks for the link, good additional data there.
Let me speak about my views on Nick Spencer and his tenure on Cap. I read two issues. I concluded that it was one of two things :
1.) Crypto-fascist Nazi apologia.
2.) Juvenile ‘it’s kewl when heroes fall to evil’ hackery.
So, basically, after the initial reveal of Cap as Hydra, Spencer and Marvel’s PR department went into overdrive, assuring us that this story counts, this is not a clone, not mind control, etc. etc. They desperately wanted us to believe that Captain America had really, really been Hydra all along.
And the story develops and we see that’s sort of true, from a certain tortured point of view - Spencer built this tenuous ‘imported from a previous version of reality’ idea so Cap could be evil without technically using one of the default ‘evil hero’ tropes.
The problem is that Hydra has its origins tied to the Nazis. It’s a fascist organization descended from Nazi Germany. Captain America was invented by a couple of Jewish writers to punch Hitler in the face. So this seemed pretty insensitive to a lot of folks. So there have been complaints.
And Spencer has been a total fucking asshole about those complaints, trolling people who are genuinely offended by this on twitter, saying that people who don’t like the stories are babies who just want pablum escapist fantasy, et cetera.
So then, as I alluded above, Marvel and Spencer reveal that not only is this an alternate version of Cap, that Hydra-Cap is the ORIGINAL Cap. That the Allies were losing World War 2 and used a Cosmic Cube to win instead (but left the Holocaust in history because in Nick Spencer’s world, everyone’s an asshole? Dunno.) and as a part of their change, they made Cap the good guy we have known and loved for 75 years. And then Marvel had Hydra-Cap deemed worthy by Mjolnir in the Free Comic Book Day issue. Tying into Nazi-Norse mythology, and implicitly endorsing fascism.
And the internet is excoriating them for it, so Marvel releases a PR statement, saying, in essence “Please believe us, everything will be back to normal at the end, good will win. Please trust us and buy 8 issues of a story you’ll hate because the 9th issue will have a reset button.” And Nick Spencer is out there promptly undermining the statement, saying there will be lasting consequences, no reset button, etc.
So it’s a mess. And it’s going to end one of two ways - either Cap will be ruined as a character for years, like Hal Jordan, or there will be a reset button. In either case, I’ve got no reason to buy it and Spencer’s an asshole.
Miller, with respect, ‘brainwashed’ would be a big step up from the actual details of this story. Have you been following the details?
Every issue in the run since Assault on Pleasant Hill, excepting the Free Comic Book Day issue, which I haven’t got my hands on yet.
Is that “either-or” or “both at the same time?”
This sort of cheap hucksterism is completely unprecedented in Marvel’s advertising history, which, as we all know, has long borne the hallmarks of staid understatement.
A couple of Jewish writers… who pulled the same “Captain America thinks he’s Hydra!” trick at least two or three times themselves, including (IIRC) at least once with a Cosmic Cube. Also, while Hydra’s origin has been retconned so much it’s technically a Summers brother, there’s no sense in which, “Hydra’s origins are tied to the Nazis” is a correct statement. In 1965, in their first published appearance, they were just a bunch of generic bad guys led by a corrupt business man, and were utterly crushed by Nick Fury. This was later retconned into Hydra being a Nazi remnant, then was retconned a few more times until we get to their present state in the comics, where they’re a millennia old secret society founded by lizard people from outer space.
Marvel really needs to institute some editorial control over its peoples’ Twitter feeds. Trolling your customer base is never a good business strategy, and I remember how pissed I was when Axle Alonzo was doing the same thing over straightwashing Hercules, so I really shouldn’t enjoy Spencer fucking with fans on Twitter as much as I do.
Well, no. The whole bit about the Allies losing WWII until they used a Cosmic Cube to win is part-and-parcel of the history rewrite Steve got in Pleasant Hill. It’s the explanation for why Cap didn’t reveal himself as a Hydra agent until now, despite dozens and dozens of times when he was the only thing that stopped them from conquering the world.
Like I said, I haven’t read the Free Comic Book Day issue yet, so I don’t know what’s up with him wielding Ultimate Mjolnir. Even without reading it, though, I’m confident in saying that the idea that the comic is endorsing fascism is absurd. Cap’s been unambiguously villainous since the reveal, murdering friends and plotting an alien invasion of Earth. Whatever the explanation for him lifting that hammer is, it’s absolutely not going to be, “Fascists are worthy!”
“The good guys will eventually win and Captain America will be restored to his proper self,” and “This story will have ongoing ramifications in the Marvel universe,” are in no way contradictory statements. And the fact that Marvel actually had to remind people that comic book characters always revert to their baseline, and the bad guys always lose, points out how absurd this entire “controversy” is.
I was leaning towards either-or.
Yes, I have had issues with the editors and PR department for this kind of bullshit for a while.
Damn, I just saw a screen scan from the previous Captain America series #1 issue where it was established in crystal clear dialogue that Hydra was an offshoot of the SS. I cannot turn that up at the moment, sadly - but if your quibble is ‘origins’ in my sentence, then I hope you can at least agree that Hydra has a well-documented association with the Nazis as willing partners, regardless of the state of current continuity.
Yes, they do, and no, you shouldn’t.
The excerpt I read of that part didn’t give the impression that it was a false memory, and the heroes opposing him have supposedly checked for mental interference. It’s more than a memory rewrite.
It’s not Ultimate Mjolnir - it’s She-Thor’s actual 616 Mjolnir.
I’ll be sure to let the folks of Jewish descent that are offended by this know that you find their complaints absurd. 
But you misread me there. The writer says no reset button, Marvel ('s lengthier, wordier statement) is essentially saying ‘yes, reset button.’ They seem desperate to convince us that the story won’t count.
Ultimately, it doesn’t matter which path they tread for me. They don’t want my money.
Writer of Jewish descent explains why she’s tired of folks trying to defend Nick Spencer’s story using “Well, Hydra technically aren’t Nazis…”
https://shoshanakessock.com/2016/05/29/yes-hydra-were-nazis-and-no-i-will-not-forget-it/
The Outhousers lay out the case as well :
http://www.theouthousers.com/index.php/news/138074-the-confusing-history-of-hydra-and-nazism.html
I hadn’t seen the connection before but I think you’re right-- this is Marvel’s Emerald Twilight and a lot of time in the next few years will be repairing the damage.
I think this is the best piece I’ve read about the issues involved-
Although I think their call to full stop just stop the storyline is unnecessary.
It is more than a memory rewrite - it’s a reality rewrite. Which is to say, that’s a thing that actually happened, but it’s not the “real” history - it’s part of the false history created by the Red Skull when he used a Cube to turn Captain America evil.
I’ll note that this has not been explicitly stated in the comic - we see the scene as Captain America currently remembers it. But it’s pretty obvious from the larger context of the series as a whole.
My mistake - I thought I’d read online somewhere that he got a hold on the Ultimate Mjolnir that just showed up in the 616 universe.
I’m more than happy to tell them that myself. But you’re still wrong about there being a disconnect between what Marvel is saying and what Spencer has said. I fully expect Captain America to be cured by the end of this story arc, and the proper timeline restored. That’s not the same as pressing a reset button and pretending that none of this ever happened.
And here’s a writer of Jewish descent who thinks it’s a “hell of a clever idea.”
That aside… well, I don’t want to get too deep into tearing apart such a shoddy piece of opinion journalism, but I noted that one of the articles she’s responding to is entitled, “No, Captain America is not a Nazi.” Which, in Spencer’s run, has just been confirmed unambiguously, with Evil Steve throwing the Red Skull off a cliff because he’s been polluting Hydra with his Nazi bullshit.
