# Nick Spencer, Writer of Nazi Captain America..
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nick-spencer-writer-of-nazi-captain-america/786470
**Category:** Cafe Society
**Created:** [May 12, 2017, 6:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nick-spencer-writer-of-nazi-captain-america/786470 "2017-05-12T18:55:43Z")
**Posts on this page:** 17
**Page:** 5
### Author:  [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)
#### Post date: [May 29, 2017, 12:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nick-spencer-writer-of-nazi-captain-america/786470/81 "2017-05-29T12:12:03Z")
> [@MrDibble](#):
>
> Are things different in Israel, that “Steve Rogers” struck you as a Jewish name?
No, but neither is “Jack Kirby”.
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### Author:  [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)
#### Post date: [May 29, 2017, 8:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nick-spencer-writer-of-nazi-captain-america/786470/82 "2017-05-29T20:47:01Z")
> [@Alessan](#):
>
> No, but neither is “Jack Kirby”.
So you think “Steve Rogers” wasn’t his birth name? They’ve left that little detail out of all the comics I’ve read…
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### Author:  [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)
#### Post date: [May 29, 2017, 10:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nick-spencer-writer-of-nazi-captain-america/786470/83 "2017-05-29T22:07:08Z")
> [@MrDibble](#):
>
> So you think “Steve Rogers” wasn’t his birth name? They’ve left that little detail out of all the comics I’ve read…
Maybe. Or maybe his dad had it changed back at Ellis Island. It’s been known to happen.
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### Author:  [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)
#### Post date: [May 30, 2017, 6:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nick-spencer-writer-of-nazi-captain-america/786470/84 "2017-05-30T06:56:19Z")
> [@Alessan](#):
>
> Maybe. Or maybe his dad had it changed back at Ellis Island. It’s been known to happen.
Yeah - I remember reading all about the waves of Irish Jews forced to change their names to assimilate…
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### Author:  [@Fenris](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fenris)
#### Post date: [May 30, 2017, 1:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nick-spencer-writer-of-nazi-captain-america/786470/85 "2017-05-30T13:16:12Z")
I’m fairly certain that there was a quickly forgotten storyline from, say, the mid-to-late '70s where it was heavily implied that Steve Roger’s family was Jewish or part-Jewish. Possibly a Steve Gerber story or maybe an Engelhart story from the gawdawful “Snap” Wilson period. Same story also gave Steve an older brother and a deeply unpleasant dad. It was retconned in about 12 seconds and I might be misrembering the whole thing. The story was awful and I haven’t read it since it came out.
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### Author:  [@CandidGamera](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CandidGamera)
#### Post date: [May 30, 2017, 2:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nick-spencer-writer-of-nazi-captain-america/786470/86 "2017-05-30T14:22:38Z")
Marvel, tone-deaf as usual, offers up a Memorial Day tribute with Steve Rogers featured, and gets predictable blowback :
> **[Secret Empire Plot Affects Marvel Comics' Memorial Day Tribute](https://bleedingcool.com/comics/secret-empire-plot-affects-marvel-comics-memorial-day-tribute/)**
>
> For Memorial Day, Marvel published this following tweet featuring Captain America. https://twitter.com/marvel/status/869221834696384513 Some thought that,
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### Author:  [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)
#### Post date: [May 30, 2017, 4:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nick-spencer-writer-of-nazi-captain-america/786470/87 "2017-05-30T16:08:10Z")
> [@Fenris](#):
>
> I’m fairly certain that there was a quickly forgotten storyline from, say, the mid-to-late '70s where it was heavily implied that Steve Roger’s family was Jewish or part-Jewish. Possibly a Steve Gerber story or maybe an Engelhart story from the gawdawful “Snap” Wilson period. Same story also gave Steve an older brother and a deeply unpleasant dad. It was retconned in about 12 seconds and I might be misrembering the whole thing. The story was awful and I haven’t read it since it came out.
His dad’s “currently” a violent alcoholic, as seen in the flashbacks of Steve getting recruited by Hydra. But that could be part of the Red Skull’s reality rewrite.
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### Author:  [@Fenris](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fenris)
#### Post date: [May 30, 2017, 4:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nick-spencer-writer-of-nazi-captain-america/786470/88 "2017-05-30T16:28:23Z")
> [@Miller](#):
>
> His dad’s “currently” a violent alcoholic, as seen in the flashbacks of Steve getting recruited by Hydra. But that could be part of the Red Skull’s reality rewrite.
Traditionally his dad’s been largely non-existant and his mom died when Steve was in his mid-teens (and they lived in a tennement(?) in Brooklyn or the Bronx) and there was occasionally a much younger brother who died of something.
The Gerber rewrite had him in the Maryland suburbs with the quasi-abusive dad and the bullying jock of an older brother and Steve was artsy and honestly kind of effeminate. I kind of wanted to pop him one and say “Geezus boy, Man Up already” But he went off to New York to become an artiste and hang with bohemian types in coffee houses. And then joined the war effort because his older brother was blowed up at Peal Harbor (despite Cap having been around for 2 years prior to that)
The Stern/Byrne deletion of Gerber version is that it was a fake cover identity so if he was captured by the Japanazis, he’d tell them his fake background history rather than his real history because if they knew he’d grown up in Brooklyn annd not Maryland…they would have something-somethinged. Um…because of reasons. It wasn’t a really good retcon but everyone universally hated sensitive, sissy Maryland Steve and wanted scrappy (if weak) Brooklyn Steve
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### Author:  [@CandidGamera](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CandidGamera)
#### Post date: [May 31, 2017, 1:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nick-spencer-writer-of-nazi-captain-america/786470/89 "2017-05-31T13:10:51Z")
Steve Englehart reminisces with Newsarama about his original Secret Empire Story :
[http://www.newsarama.com/34685-steve-englehart-on-the-politics-shocking-ending-legacy-of-captain-america-s-original-secret-empire.html](http://www.newsarama.com/34685-steve-englehart-on-the-politics-shocking-ending-legacy-of-captain-america-s-original-secret-empire.html)
Bleeding Cool posts a few snaps from the interiors of Secret Empire tie-ins today :
> **[How Emperical Are Your Secret Empire Comics From Marvel Today? With Doctor...](https://bleedingcool.com/comics/how-emperical-are-your-secret-empire-comics-from-marvel-today-with-doctor-strange-sam-wilson-uprising-and-deadpool/)**
>
> Secret Empire #3 is out today and crosses over and spins off into all manner of comic books published by Marvel on the same day. But how many can you live
Please note the panels from Secret Empire : Uprising #1 which depict a ‘Hydra Youth’ rally, with a literal banner reading ‘Hydra Youth’.
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### Author:  [@Chimera](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chimera)
#### Post date: [May 31, 2017, 3:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nick-spencer-writer-of-nazi-captain-america/786470/90 "2017-05-31T15:07:50Z")
So was the Marvel Comic line taken over by a bunch of Alt-Righter Writers?
Is the secretly unfrozen head of Walt Disney running the show there?
Did they honestly think this was going to end well?
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### Author:  [@foolsguinea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/foolsguinea)
#### Post date: [June 1, 2017, 5:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nick-spencer-writer-of-nazi-captain-america/786470/91 "2017-06-01T05:19:36Z")
> [@Alessan](#):
>
> Huh. I don’t know about Thor, but I always assumed Cap was Jewish.
:nods: Much like Clark Kent and Peter Parker, he can easily be read as Jewish despite writers occasionally telling us that he isn’t. It’s a function of (Jewish!) writers (from NYC!) consciously avoiding strong religious identification, so that a wide variety of readers will identify with the character. (Of all characters, _Batman_ in the last few years has had a little bit of continuity imply that he has a Jewish mother.)
I certainly hope I wasn’t using “Nordic” to imply that Captain America _doesn’t_ at least have a Jewish grandmother, but I can see how one would infer it.
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### Author:  [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)
#### Post date: [June 1, 2017, 10:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nick-spencer-writer-of-nazi-captain-america/786470/92 "2017-06-01T10:19:34Z")
I have always read him as a WASP, even though his original comics bio suggests Celtic & Catholic.
As for MCU-Cap: There’s something about this quote that doesn’t scan as Jewish at all, to me: “There’s only one God, ma’am, and I’m pretty sure he doesn’t dress like that” - just seems like something a Protestant would say.
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### Author:  [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Other_Waldo_Pepper)
#### Post date: [June 1, 2017, 11:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nick-spencer-writer-of-nazi-captain-america/786470/93 "2017-06-01T11:27:29Z")
[QUOTE=MrDibble]
I have always read him as a WASP, even though his original comics bio suggests Celtic & Catholic.
As for MCU-Cap: There’s something about this quote that doesn’t scan as Jewish at all, to me: “There’s only one God, ma’am, and I’m pretty sure he doesn’t dress like that” - just seems like something a Protestant would say.
[/quote]
Heh. I’m now picturing a devout Jew leaving the synagogue and being told by a Protestant that God had a son, who (a) is also a god, and (b) is this long-haired carpenter standing right here, clad in a robe and some sandals. And, like any good monotheist sticking up for the first commandment by dismissing an idea as mere blasphemy, he draws himself up to his full height and says…
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### Author:  [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)
#### Post date: [June 1, 2017, 12:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nick-spencer-writer-of-nazi-captain-america/786470/94 "2017-06-01T12:54:24Z")
Are you kidding? Strongly monotheistic \*and \*sarcastic - you can’t get more Jewish than that!
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### Author:  [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)
#### Post date: [June 1, 2017, 6:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nick-spencer-writer-of-nazi-captain-america/786470/95 "2017-06-01T18:37:03Z")
The Jews I know wouldn’t be insistent on the absolutism of their own God/monotheism to any non-Jews present. That’s much more of a Christian trait IME. YMMV.
> [@Alessan](#):
>
> Are you kidding? Strongly monotheistic \*and \*sarcastic - you can’t get more Jewish than that!
IME, both are also strongly Irish characteristics too.
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### Author:  [@TYphoonSignal8](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TYphoonSignal8)
#### Post date: [June 2, 2017, 6:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nick-spencer-writer-of-nazi-captain-america/786470/96 "2017-06-02T06:45:17Z")
> [@CandidGamera](#):
>
> Marvel, tone-deaf as usual, offers up a Memorial Day tribute with Steve Rogers featured, and gets predictable blowback :
>
> [Secret Empire Plot Affects Marvel Comics' Memorial Day Tribute](https://www.bleedingcool.com/2017/05/29/secret-empire-plot-affects-marvel-comics-memorial-day-tribute/)
Wow, that’s dumb. Sam Wilson would have been better, or better again, Captain Marvel.
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### Author:  [@CandidGamera](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CandidGamera)
#### Post date: [July 6, 2017, 1:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nick-spencer-writer-of-nazi-captain-america/786470/97 "2017-07-06T13:22:23Z")
The decline continues, as Secret Empire loses one of its last boosters at Bleeding Cool :
> **[How Secret Empire Doesn’t Get Mainstream Superhero Comics](https://bleedingcool.com/comics/recent-updates/secret-empire-mainstream-superhero-comics/)**
>
> Secret Empire shows a radical misunderstanding of how this all works, instead of existing in what would have probably been a pretty good graphic novel.
He makes the point that the story would be a lot better out of the mainstream continuity, and in a less serialized format, instead of being a slow-moving crawl that corrodes dozens of beloved characters over the course of the year.
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