Hi, Multiversity Comics readers! This is the start of our new recap column for “Secret Empire”, “The Man in the HYDRA Castle.” In anticipation of this week’s “Secret Empire” #1, we’ve elected to recap the gist of Nick Spencer’s HYDRA Cap from the “Avengers: Standoff!” to “Secret Empire” #0. Naturally, spoilers for everything that’s been released regarding “Secret Empire” are afoot.
If you’ve been paying attention to “Secret Empire” and the hubbub surrounding it, its reception has been… mixed. Some readers think the premise, Captain America has been an agent of HYDRA all along due to some reality-bending, has some pretty interesting directions it could go in, given the current political climate. Others are upset because, in a time of great political toil for many, Marvel’s turned their symbol of American hope into a straight up Nazi. Or HYDRA Agent. Whatever. So, if you haven’t been paying attention to comic books or your friends on twitter who do read comics for the past year or so, you might be wondering why Captain America has set out to conquer the world.
“Secret Empire”, the first issue of which drops tomorrow, follows Marvel’s recent traditions of recycling the titles of old story lines for new events. Originally, the Secret Empire was a HYDRA offshoot led by a mysterious figure known as Number One. After a fight that leads to the White House lawn, Number One unmasks himself before committing suicide. It’s later heavily implied that Number One was the actual President of the United States and that the government replaced him with a body double to avoid any fallout from the scandal. Disillusioned with what his government has done, Steve Rogers disavows his identity as Captain America, opting to become Nomad, a man without a country. His costume had a sexy deep-v cut and everything. It ruled.
Published in the aftermath of Watergate, the original Secret Empire storyline was a pretty clear reaction to the ongoing corruption in the White House that reflected a country that couldn’t believe its government would go so low as to let the President wiretap people. What a naive, naive time. With corruption in the US government running rampant, populist movements on both sides of the fence rising, and world powers firing bombs and musing over World War III, it’s an extreme time for politics; a time that could very well be reflected in the story of Steve Rogers, a man who for many is the image of America in its purest form, being reduced to everything a bigoted fascist. And while it seemed like that’s where “Secret Empire” was going, the story’s current direction is “Nazi Steve Rogers is the coolest and most competent man alive.”
After the events of “Avengers: Standoff!”, Steve Rogers was given the body of his younger self from a little girl named Kobik who was also a Cosmic Cube. I don’t know. This was after a Chinese warlord named the Iron Nail removed the Super Soldier serum from Steve’s body and turned him into an old man. I don’t know. However, Kobik was manipulated by the Red Skull so that when she gave Steve his body back, she also altered history so that he’d always been an agent of HYDRA, the evil branch of scientists who were a splinter faction of Nazis that originated in World War II. I DON’T KNOW.
Red Skull would soon discover that turning his archenemy into a fellow Nazi wasn’t a great idea because while Steve Rogers made a great superhero, he made an even better fascist. Over the course of the past year, Steve Rogers took over as the director of SHIELD, murdered the Red Skull and took his place as leader of HYDRA, and used a baby Chitauri queen to summon an army of Chitauri warships to Earth. During all of this, no one thought to question if Steve had gone full Superior Captain America, even when the Inhuman from “Civil War II” whose name I already forgot showed everyone a vision of Miles Morales clutching Steve’s dead body. Instead of asking why Miles would hurt Cap, Marvel’s heroes decided that he needed to be taken in. At least they would’ve asked Peter Parker if he had any thoughts on the matter.
Continued belowThis all led up to the events of “Secret Empire” #0 a couple weeks back, where Steve Rogers enacted his master plan. By freeing some super villains in New York, having HYDRA attack Sokovia, and luring the Chitauri to Earth with their queen, Earth had all its heroes running on all cylinders. Once the threats were all miraculously neutralized, Steve then had Doctor Faustus hypnotize all the SHIELD agents onboard the helicarriers, New York City thrown into a shadow realm its heroes couldn’t escape from, and Captain Marvel and all space-faring superheroes trapped in orbit after a shield covering the planet was activated. With HYDRA helicarriers now surrounding the White House, we’re about to see Steve’s master plan come to fruition.
So, with history and actual story events aside, that’s where we’re at for “Secret Empire.” Overall, it doesn’t sound too offensive. Tiring, but not something too crazy for comics. There does exist a problem with “Secret Empire”, especially in how Marvel’s handling it. For one, I’ve been typing Nazi in this article so many times that from a distance it just looks like a list of Mel Gibson’s contacts. However, Marvel and HYDRA-Cap writer Nick Spencer are adamant in saying that HYDRA aren’t Nazis. They evoke Nazi imagery, many of their members are literal “worked with Hitler” Nazis, and Steve’s vision for the future, per “Civil War II: The Oath” sure does involve a lot of concentration camps. And yet, Marvel’s still so hesitant to call Steve Rogers a Nazi for a bunch of reasons. One is that being a Nazi is not something a character can come back from, brainwashed or not. The other is that Marvel is looking to make a ton off HYDRA merchandise, going so far as to ask stores to wear HYDRA t-shirts for the remainder of the event. Combined with David Gabriel, Marvel’s VP of Sales saying that “people didn’t want any more diversity” and Marvel CEO Ike Perlmutter being good buddies with The Donald, and the betrayal that readers might feel from Steve’s heel turn could very well be felt at Marvel as a corporation.
And of course, corporations have never been anyone’s friends. But Marvel Comics, and specifically Captain America, have been a beacon of the American zeitgeist since he was punching Hitler in the jaw months before Pearl Harbor or when he was questioning what his country had become in the wake of Watergate. We can put Trump on a fake talk show on Comedy Central or keep making fun of how ineffective his administration has been and, from a position of privilege, that’s very easy to do. But people are still being deported. The travel ban got struck down once but that doesn’t mean it will stay down for four years. Obamacare survived one vote but it could still get repealed before 2020 or, in a more likely scenario, have the components that keep people alive gutted. It’s a scary time to be an American citizen. That doesn’t mean Marvel Comics is obligated to provide pure escapism where we can forget that we’re going to be turned into nuclear ash within two years because the Boss Baby got his hands on the nuclear codes, but we shouldn’t be surrounded by a depiction of fascism where the bad guy is the coolest, most competent man in the room. At the very least, the stand-in for Trump or whatever shitbag leader you want to substitute in here should be played MODOK. Or MOJO. Holy shit, how long until Marvel publishes a Mojo as Donald Trump comic?
So with that, we hope you’re caught up on the bare bones of “Secret Empire”, or at least why it’s upsetting a huge portion of the comics community. Expect to see a recap for the first issue later this week.
