Last week saw the close of a majority of runs that had redefined characters or elements of the Marvel Universe. It was a big week for a lot of Marvel fans, as Marvel NOW! edges ever closer and everything we knew becomes different.
So, as a tribute to some of the impressive work that helped shaped the Marvel Universe as we like it, we thought it would be appropriate to take a week and look back at some of those titles, to really try and dissect what it was that made it special. It could be any number of things, and it is obviously different per person, but what you’ll find in this article series is essentially our version of a viking funeral.
And today, we kick it all off by looking at Ed Brubaker’s colossal run on “Captain America.”
As a note before we begin, spoilers for the entire run are inevitably discussed.
When Ed Brubaker took over “Captain America,” we lived in a very uncertain time. It was 2004, and the grisly acts of 9/11 were still very fresh in many people’s minds. Of course, that act very vividly divided a country (past the initial unification immediately post-attack); it awakened a new generation of politically aware youngsters, myself included, to the dangers of things like realpolitik. We began to see examples of how people could wear a flag with little in their hearts but pure hatred or a xenophobic dogma, and suddenly the world became a much darker place overall. Suffice it to say, in 2005 myself, my friends and most of those around us who were from the same generation were not huge fans of America or what it was being represented by.
So when it came to comics, the idea of buying and reading regularly a book entitled “Captain America” didn’t seem like something appealing. A book starring the Sentinel of Liberty seemed to perpetuate the problem rather than help move beyond it, and the immediate post-9/11 world, comics reflected a very politically aware place – to the extent that the fourth volume of “Captain America” kicked off with a story of Steve dealing with the wreckage of the towers collapse and then going on a terrorist hunt throughout America It all seemed to be relatively inaccessible for someone who wasn’t looking for a book that was endlessly preachy, or that at times seemed like a recruitment tool rather than a home for great stories starring an age-old character. Mind you, Captain America’s birth was admittedly politically charged, but that was in a time where there was a Great Evil to fight or whatever; the global stage has changed rather remarkably in the fifty years since World War II.
Brubaker then had to three perilous jobs when he took the “Captain America” job after ‘Disassembled.’ First, he had to prove that our misconceptions on what Captain America currently stood for was wrong. Second, he had to prove that Captain America was more than a face under a symbol — or at the very least, that he was an icon for something better than America was at the time. Third, and perhaps the most important, was that he had to wrap it all up in a compelling story. Brubaker had been proving himself over at DC, and with Cap being his first major story at the competition it could have conceivably gone either way. In theory, anyway.
Well, thank all that is right in the world of comics that it didn’t.
I’ll be honest with you: a lot of my experiences pre-Brubaker with Captain America aren’t exactly anything to write home about. I can remember the Jeph Loeb/Rob Liefeld Captain America, the Mark Waid stories that immediately followed it and a handful of other random Captain America comics between here and then, but I can’t remember any that moved me in a positive fashion. The reason for this is because Cap was never set up as a compelling character, but rather a tool more than anything else; someone to tell others why they’re wrong and to prove that Nazi’s are still uncool. He’s the type of character who would exist largely to have a few big sprawling adventures, almost all of which (at the time, or maybe just with my bad luck) would just end with not-so-thinly veiled metaphors of why America was great. Not to harp on one sore subject, but just look at the preceding volume by John Ney Reiber. What was that if not a sarcastic lesson in subtlety on a level akin to Crash?
Continued belowWell, Brubaker chose to stray from the past ideologies immediately. And to show just how different things would be under the reign of Brubaker, he did what most would consider a major taboo: he brought back Cap’s long dead partner and staple-deceased character of not just Marvel but all of comics. In ‘Out of Time’ and ‘Winter Soldier,’ we were given two major changes to the world of “Captain America:” the Red Skull was dead, and Bucky was alive. However, it wasn’t as clean cut as this; the Red Skull doesn’t just die, nor did Bucky just come back. Instead, both actions served a very clearly defined purpose: the first was an assassination of the old way, while the second was a clear indication of the new. The death of the Red Skull (who, of course, was not “dead” dead, nor will he ever be) showed that Brubaker was planning from day one to take things in a new direction, and Bucky’s return was the epitome of that. And what followed was unbelievable.
Of course, Bucky’s return also displayed another important purpose, and that was to offer the inversion of Captain America. Cap was/is a symbol of the best of America; he is a heroic story of how one man stood up for his country and never gave up hope, transcending his own role in the history of a nation to become an ongoing symbol — both in comics and out. Bucky, on the other hand, became something entirely different. He was not the pride of our nation, but rather a gun for our Cold War adversaries. Bucky was everything that made Captain America good quite literally flipped upside down to show the dark side of the light; unfrozen from a block of ice, he was re-programmed to hate and to kill efficiently, and like Cap, his mission was ongoing into the 20th century, albeit much more pointed based on who owned him at the time. Bucky was a slave, and the most deadly one at that.
So when Brubaker brought Bucky back and turned him (temporarily — although that’s arguable) into Captain America’s worst nightmare, he drew a very clear line in the sand. Captain America was still in some ways going to be used as a tool for what he represents, but on a much larger stance. Cap had certainly changed in previous runs to match the times, having become Nomad during the Watergate scandal due to his lack of identity with the nation, but in 2005 the world was in a much more politically dubious and uncertain era. To bring back “the Red Scare” in a fashion and use it to carry Captain America ideologically through to the eventual ‘Civil War’ showed us a Captain America one wouldn’t have thought to see post-9/11 – one who believed in freedom beyond what his “boss” (the President) said he could or could not do; someone who truly withheld to American ideals, but not in the way that he became a bully or a heavy handed brute. He wasn’t just a flag, or even a flag waver at this point. This was something new for our generation — this was Captain America being faced with the ghost of his past, and having to justify it in a world we were all uncertain of.
Let’s now at least clarify one of the three things Brubaker needed to do: tell a compelling story. As I’d mentioned earlier, for a large part of my initial familiarity with the Captain, his point had been as a storytelling device (a cog in a wheel of sorts), whether in his own story or things like the Avengers. Cap was often put against people who stunt our growth as a society, and while he certainly had a few similar adversaries during Brubaker’s run (the second year saw the return of Master Man, for example), it was remarkably different. Cap wasn’t the tool through which the story was told, and the A on his forehead wasn’t a crutch, but instead Cap was immersed within a story larger than him. From at least ‘Out of Time’ and until “Reborn,” Brubaker delivered The Captain America Identity: a stunning semi-noir multi-layered thriller of deception, espionage and high-stakes heroism spread out across 50+ issues. To simply call it “compelling” would be to do it a disservice.
Continued belowSo as “Captain America” continued and we moved through things like “House of M” and the ‘Red Menace’ arcs (as they are collected), Cap was put in the thick of a sprawling mystery before being thrust into the Civil War of the Marvel Universe, which is arguably the single most compelling event (if sales are to be believed) of the past decade. “Civil War” was a game of ideologies, of which Cap bucked the assumed trend of being the Yes man of the country by going against the government and his former friends to try and protect the ideals of what the country truly stood for. Not only that, but then he died for what he believed in; Captain America, for a time, was dead – shot on the steps of his courthouse on the way to a trial for trying to be a better ideal than the one his country attempted to force him to be. Now he was truly a symbol, albeit a depressing and crushed one.
(As a side note, #25, the death issue, was the first issue of “Captain America” I decided to buy of this run, just to see what all the fuss was about — and no pun intended but I was blown away. I worked my way backwards almost immediately.)
It’s here that we truly saw a step above and beyond in the world of Cap. The element of Brubaker’s run we haven’t really extrapolated upon yet is the aspect of legacy, which is a huge ongoing aspect of the entire story. From the moment Bucky returns and up to this week’s finale of the book, Brubaker has used his time on the book to look at Captain America’s impact through time on a grander scale than had been previously explored. We begin to see stories of the men who were once Captain America or Bucky and how it effected them, with associated ramifications of the story being told today. We even saw the Other Side, with the return of Red Skull’s daughter and her eventual willingness to take on her father’s dark legacy. It became very clear as Brubaker’s story unfolded that the past was just as important the present, and perhaps on occasion even more so.
As Cap died, it was important for someone to take that mantle — the only choice being Bucky Barnes, the former Soviet assassin Winter Soldier. While for many long-term comic reading folks, this move seemed to be the obvious/only logical one to make (not so much so that it was telegraphed, but at least in that there was no other real option, no matter what “Fallen Son” said), it was a very important one thematically. Brubaker had spent the previous issues of the series showing us the Anti-Captain America, someone who went through the demented and twisted version of what Cap himself did, only to have him take the mantle and try to do justice to the man who inspired him and the ideals he held. Bucky is the utmost of legacy characters, as even death could not stop him from taking his rightful mantle (even if things reverted later). It was perhaps one of the more literal expressions of the Captain America metaphor; not just a man, but a symbol through time that could not face the same distortion that our own government can, and one that must be upheld. We need a Captain America, just as Bucky did — and as Steve was buried, Bucky took on the burden in one of the most poetic arcs “Captain America” has ever seen.
As fellow Multiversity writer Brandon Burpee notes, “Bucky was a character that immediately had an impact on myself and others. A character that most never thought should return, but he did. One that stepped behind the shield and represented the flag in Steve’s place after Civil War. Brubaker’s desire to make Bucky a top tier Marvel character was crystal clear. He brought Bucky back as more than just the kid tagging along with Steve. He instead was an integral part of the war who didn’t mind getting his hands dirty. He also was given one of the best retcon backstories to explain what he had been doing since his supposed death. A backstory that wove him into the tapestry of the Marvel universe by connecting him not only to Steve Rogers but also Black Widow.”
Continued below‘The Death of Captain America’ was great for many reasons, of course. Bucky’s ascension was a huge part of it, but this was the arc that saw the most pay-off for all the little seeds Brubaker had been planting. There are so many aspects of ‘Death’ that, when read sequentially make for quite a kick in the reading pants. Here we find out that little moments thrown off to the side were actually some of the most important, and as the Red Skull uses the vacuum to try and take over (again – surprise, surprise!), a very clear path from Point A to Point B begins to visually take hold of the reader. Brubaker is certainly known for both sprawling and tight narrative structure in the past, but “Captain America” took that even further with how well it all came together as one of the biggest names in comics was put six feet under.
And it didn’t end there! No, sir. Bucky’s story was just beginning as ‘Death’ occurred, and Steve’s story is one that perhaps can never die. Soon (perhaps inevitably, to the groans of some) reborn in “Captain America: Reborn,” the three-arc structure of Brubaker’s story came full circle. Like a phoenix, the death and rebirth of the dream that is Steve Rogers became so much more than anything that had come before it. Steve rose not just from the dead but the shackles that had held the character back from any real sense of growth in the recent past. This was a story about more than just Captain America the Symbol but Captain America the Idea, the Character, the Legend. Steve returning to life and inevitably choosing not to wield the famous shield anymore was more than anything a tribute to everything Captain America stood for: someone down on his luck given an amazing opportunity to serve more than just his country, and to be a fable of what can happen when you’re selfless, heroic and noble.
It’s with no short language that I declare whole heartedly that from “Captain America” v5 #1 to “Captain America: Who Will Wield The Shield?” is the best Captain America story ever told, let alone of the best modern runs in comic history. The way things paid off here is akin to that of something as revered as Morrison’s X-Men, where the clear shape of the image only becomes apparent by the time you’ve reached the end, and the journey is all the more rewarding because of it. Dammit, Brubaker made it downright cool to love America! Captain America, anyway.
From there, “Captain America” became a somewhat different book. The three-arc structure had ended, the finale of “Reborn” and it’s epilogue being the apex of the entire opus, so the book took a more pointed turn from there. From the controversial ‘Two Americas’ (controversial for very silly reasons, honestly) up to the recent Codename: Bravo storyline, the rest of the run was devoted purely to the legacy of Steve Rogers and the suit he wore. We saw hits from the past and present collide with the modern iteration of Steve as he eventually took the suit back, and the book itself split into two – one for the ongoing stories of Steve, and one through which we could explore the history of his legacy more. Where one grandiose epic had ended, another on a smaller scale was blooming. While there was no three arc structure to the story like there was before, Brubaker took the time to truly offer up meditation on what makes a character like this sustainable, both from the sense of ideology and to a purely meta sense in what makes a character like this compelling for 50+ years. He had told us one big story; now he was going to show why it mattered.
So “Captain America” became a somewhat politically charged book, albeit not in the traditional sense. It was more than just Cap wrapping himself in red, white and blue and proselytizing to anyone willing to pay for an issue, but the book did become intensely reflective of the world we live in and whether Cap belongs there. It was similar to the Nomad thing or what Brubaker had done on a lighter scale before, albeit now a touch more aggressively and focused. Marvel has always boasted that it’s “Your Universe,” wherein the events of our universe have an effect on the 616 just as viscerally, and this became very clear from ‘Two Americas’ onward. We saw old villains reinvented for new times, and new villains specifically to mirror the world outside the pages. The last arc of the book, co-written with Cullen Bunn, featured a not-so-subtle Glenn Beck allegory whipping up Americans into a violent frenzy against Captain America, and while the story certainly featured its fair share of comic bookery and sci-fi nonsense, the message was ultimately clear: It doesn’t really matter if America doesn’t reflect the founding father’s dreams of America anymore, but it does matter that someone is here to be a symbol to follow.
Continued belowThat, to me, is the best way to singularly describe Brubaker’s entire run on “Captain America” – from Volume 5 #1 through Volume 1 #600, from “Reborn” to “Steve Rogers: Super Soldier,” and even with “Captain America and Bucky” and “Winter Soldier.” As long as someone believes in the dream, the dream never dies.
Never the less, the grandiose scale on which Brubaker took Steve, Bucky, Red Skull and more has moved into the runs of legend. As I discussed the run with Burpee further, he added, “his run has spread across eight years and will undoubtedly shape a generation’s view of what a Captain America comics is. It was smart, topical and downright badass.” Truer words. Brubaker revolutionized and revitalized the franchise in a way that no one may ever do again. Here was a man who truly understood how to handle the awesome responsibility of a character like this, and the proof is in the pudding as they say; every Captain America story told during Brubaker’s run was nothing like the story Brubaker told. From Bendis’ Avengers stories to “Captain America And…” by Bunn (what the spin-off title became when Brubaker left the co-writer gig), to the myriad of minis that came out between then and now and beyond, there never was a story that portrayed the complexity of Steve Rogers and his never-ending mission in the same way that Brubaker did. Nobody “got” the character or his purpose in a way that Ed Brubaker did, and his absense from the book will be intensely noticeable the second Remender and Romita Jr’s #1 drops in comic shops everywhere.
Well done, Mr. Brubaker and everyone involved in the book. Mr. Remender and Mr. Romita, you have mighty big shoes to fill, and we wish you the best of luck.
To close out, one final addition from Brandon: “I love this run and will always consider it one of the best runs in comics history. I’d like to thank Brubaker for the entertainment he’s provided me and invite him to never be a stranger to the Captain America neck of the Marvel neighborhood. I’d also invite anyone reading this who hasn’t read the run, for some crazy in no way understandable reason, to run out find the run and absorb it with your eyes immediately.”
