From the opening sequence of issue 5 of “Truth: Red, White and Black,” there is a blue moonlit tint of two German soldiers. Instead of white faces and a grey or green uniforms, they are solid blue. Once again, super soldier Isaiah Bradley is depicted as a silhouetted shadow attacking two unsuspecting German shadows. This adds to the effect that the secret missions of the super soldiers are happening under the cover of night black soldier up close and personal with white Germans all blending into one blob under the cover of night. The only color is the spirting red blood spewing out of the unsuspecting German silhouette. Isaiah Bradley is donning the colors and flag of a country that considers him a second class citizen. His family presumes him to be dead and here he is behind enemy lines in an off the books operation that only someone of his particular talents is able to pull off. He never asked for these abilities, they were thrust upon him, unlike his counterpart Steve Rogers.
Cover by Kyle BakerWritten by Robert Morales
Illustrated and Colored by Kyle Baker
Lettered by JG and Comicraft’s WesIn the tradition of ORIGIN, Marvel reveals the shocking secret history of Captain America! In 1940 there was a man who had many of the same qualities as Steve Rogers – save for one, the color of his skin – and TRUTH is his story!
Bradley encounters the fruits of horrendous Nazi human experiments. He is horrified but has to remind himself of his objectives which have nothing to do with the endless grave experiments being conducted at the camp, that aren’t much different than the ones the United States government performed on him and his friends. Are we much different? Right after we eventually won the war we imported at least dozens of depraved, sadistic Nazi scientists who continued their inhumane experimentation in the MK-Ultra experiments stateside.
The cover is a dark face hidden obscured by shadow. Other than the telltale eyes ,the only features of this shadowy figure are a series of numbers covering the face. These numbers represent the Jewish victims at the hands of the Nazis. But these numbers scrawled across a black face are also a statement about how Black soldiers are seen as less than human, no different than a series of insignificant numbers. The statement is clear: the Allies in their treatment of their own minorities are not much different than the Germans they are facing, though America’s genocide is much more subtle.
In one particularly haunting panel a swirl of poison gas gathers and swells in a thick neon green with numbers swirling around as if they were floating in mid-air all alone, not tattooed on the arms of actual Jewish people. This accentuates the dehumanization of the victims. They are just swirling numbers , not people. This is the way the Nazis saw them. They weren’t brothers or daughters or uncles, just numbers to be crossed out of ledgers or blotted out with Whiteout.
The combat scenes are up close and personal, the triumph of sheer force. Bradley’s weapon of choice is his own meaty hands. Occasionally he uses his shield but for the most part he kills with his bare hands up close. The more familiar super soldier Steve Rogers, the subject of the comics Bradley reads back at camp, is living in an entirely different America than Bradley. And yet, they are both fight the same enemy and share an origin story and wardrobe. But Steve Rogers could never even imagine a world where the very country he fights for considers him subhuman and unworthy of basic civil rights. This is the world Isaiah Bradley has known all too well at home, and it is no different abroad. Rogers can vote, can attend the best schools, doesn’t have to face segregation back home. He will always be seen as a hero in a way Isaiah Bradley will never know.
This issue is mostly action. Bradley engages in brutal hand-to-hand combat behind enemy lines, and also gets an up close and personal look at the Nazi death machine. The Jewish victims of Nazi human experimentation remind him of the immoral scientists who made him into what has become. If the experiment wasn’t successful he likely would have suffered the same fate: an expendable piece of scientific experimentation no different than a culture of cells in a petri dish, to be discarded as less than human. And the government sees him as nothing more than a tool, a forgotten tool, to be disposed off and not celebrated like his white counterpart who is idolized by boys everywhere. Bradley is invisible to all, even his own community. Even his own family thinks he’s dead, while Steve Rogers remains immortalized.
Robert Morales and Kyle Baker use shadow and silhouette to create a visual love letter to the many unsung heroes who fought for a country that didn’t even see their humanity. Bradley represents the countless heroes who didn’t have super strength and who didn’t get a cool patriotic costume. Bradley will never have a comic about his exploits, he will never have his own merchandise. Even in the fictional worlds of the Marvel Universe and the Marvel Cinematic Universe have very little to say about even the fictional Bradley. Hopefully with the rising popularity of The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, Bradley will finally get the attention he deserves. In more ways than just visually this is a world of shadows, of silhouettes and it it is ultimately about the people who have been banished to the shadows, to the world of black and white.
It is also in this world of shadows that both Allies and Axis powers choose to operate. Once the light is shown, immorality and dubious motives of both sides will be brought to light. Once it is light, there is no longer darkness to conceal evil. It is no accident that the fight scenes are of silhouetted or shadowy figures. That much of the fight is under the cover of night. If the light exposes the evil fascist Nazi scourge it will also expose our own injustices. Light is funny that way. It brings everything out into the open even things fully intended to stay hidden.
