Captain America Would Want Us To Keep Fighting The Bullies
Never surrender.
Captain America: Brave New World opens on February 14. While it’s probably not the ideal date movie, Presidents Day is the following Monday, and Cap faces off against a rogue chief executive who occasionally turns into a giant monster. Unfortunately, our current president is a full-time monster.
This is the first Captain America film featuring Sam Wilson (Anthony Mackie) as the titular hero. Wilson is Black, so certain people have predictably dismissed him as a “DEI Captain America gimmick.” Many others have scoffed at the apparent implausibility of Sam Wilson’s Cap surviving a fight with President Thaddeus Ross’s Red Hulk (Harrison Ford). Bearing in mind that Hulks of any color aren’t real, I don’t recall similar criticisms about Batman v. Superman. Granted, Captain America can’t beat Hulk with a rock. You’ll just make him angry.
These supposed fans argue that Sam Wilson can’t possibly function as Captain America because he isn’t juiced up on the super soldier serum, like his predecessor Steve Rogers (Chris Evans). “A regular human in no way could handle the shield,” a Trump supporter declared on social media. He’s clearly confused — first because he apparently enjoys fictional superheroes while voting for real-life supervillains, but also because the Steve Rogers in the comics is in fact a “regular human,” just at peak physical condition, which is arguably superhuman in itself.
In fact, the Brave New World poster that depicts Sam’s Cap stopping a punch from Red Hulk with his shield is a homage to a Bob Layton Captain America cover from 1979 where Cap stopped a punch from the non-octogenerian Hulk with his shield.
True, the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s Steve Rogers has superhuman strength and abilities, which I actually prefer because it’s more straightforward and it was neat when Cap stopped a helicopter with his bare hands. But that was just spectacle. Cap’s true super power is his moral clarity and heroism. Steve didn’t need the serum for that, and neither does Sam.
'America … stands.’
People looking for any reason to complain about Captain America: Brave New World quickly seized on comments Anthony Mackie made in Rome while promoting the film.
“Captain America represents a lot of different things, and I don’t think the term ‘America’ should be one of those representations,” he said. “It’s about a man who keeps his word, who has honor, dignity, and integrity.”
Mackie later clarified his position in an Instagram stories message: “Let me be clear about this, I’m a proud American and taking on the shield of a hero like CAP is the honor of a lifetime. I have the utmost respect for those who serve and have served our country. CAP has universal characteristics that people all over the world can relate to.”
Obviously, Mackie had attempted to sell Cap’s universal appeal to a non-American audience, which accounts for a significant portion of Marvel’s box office. (Roughly two-thirds of Captain America: Civil War’s total gross came from overseas.)
However, in a 2011 interview, Chris Evans also avoided labeling Cap as a distinctly “American” hero.
“I’m not trying to get too lost in the American side of it,” he said. “This isn’t a flag-waving movie. It is red, white and blue, but it just so happens that the character was created in America during war time, when there was a common enemy … I’ve said before in interviews, it feels more like he should just be called Captain Good. You know, he was created at a time when there was this undeniable evil and this guy was kind of created to fight that evil.”
“I think that everyone could agree that Nazis were bad and he, Cap, just so happens to wear the red, white and blue,” Evans added.
Ironically, the first Captain America movie avoided making Nazis the primary villains. Cap’s arch-enemy, the Red Skull, was now a Hydra agent rather than an overt white supremacist. I also don’t think the villains during World War II were any more an “undeniable evil” at the time than MAGA is now. Morality is often clearer with hindsight.
Captain America isn’t Superman, though. He should represent the best of America. I admit I don’t always share Cap’s idealism about this country. It’s easy to get dispirited when a near majority of Americans openly support an adjudicated rapist and convicted felon, but Cap himself famously lost faith in America in the classic Captain America No. 175 when he discovered that the sitting president is secretly the leader of a fascist organization that seeks to rule the U.S. from the shadows. Crazy, huh?
After a final showdown, Cap chases the hooded villain into the Oval Office, where he subdues and unmasks him.
“But … you … you’re … ” he exclaims in horror.
“Exactly! But high office didn’t satisfy me,” the unseen president admits. “My power was too constrained by legalities. I gambled on a coup to gain me the power I craved, and it appears that my gamble has finally failed.” He pulls out a gun and points it at his head. “I’ll cash my chips then.”
A devastated Cap leaves the White House, and the somber captions read, “This man trusted the country of his birth. He saw its flaws, but trusted in its basic framework … its stated goals … its long-term virtue. This man is now crushed inside. Like millions of Americans, each in his own way, he has seen his trust mocked. And this man is Captain America!”
In the next issue, Steve Rogers would abandon the identity of Cap and become “Nomad,” a man without a country. Captain America No. 175 came out in April 1974, at the height of the Watergate scandal, but months before Richard Nixon finally resigned. Of course, Watergate is downright inspirational compared to the current MAGA reign of terror. The guardrails at least held or as Cap would later say after an especially close victory against a terrorist threat: “America … stands.” We can’t say this now.
'There has to be somebody who'll fight for the dream, against any foe … ‘
Now that Donald Trump is back in the White House, the usual suspects will likely denounce Captain America: Brave New World for impugning the presidency and injecting “woke” politics into what they believe should’ve been a banally patriotic story. Captain America No. 175 was similarly criticized. One angry letter to the editor read, “Cap’s superhero role has been perverted into a political role where Cap is merely the mouthpiece for a writer’s political views.”
However, writer Steve Englehart and editor Roy Thomas held firm in their response:
We may be crazy, but we don’t think Cap’s changed his basic standards at all. Rather, it’s America which has changed around him. That may land him in the anti-establishment camp, but only because the establishment has gone astray for a while—and we don’t think Cap cares what camp people put him in so long as he stays true to the precepts of freedom and justice he’s always sworn allegiance to. ’Nuff said?
Steve Rogers didn’t remain Nomad for long. Like so many of us today, he couldn’t understand why Americans would ever “put their faith in a man so bad,” but he realizes that his mistake was believing America was more innocent in some imagined past. He should’ve “paid more attention to the way American reality differed from the American dream.” If he had, he believes he might’ve uncovered the former president’s corruption “and stopped him before it was too late.”
In Daredevil: Born Again, Cap corrects a general who presumes his allegiance is to the current government: “I’m loyal to nothing except the dream.” When Steve Rogers was a frail, sickly kid, he volunteered to fight a growing evil because he believed in that dream. He doesn’t want to kill anyone or prove his superiority. He just doesn’t like bullies, no matter where they’re from, and he spends his life standing up to bullies everywhere, from common street thugs to god-like aliens.
Yes, Rogers is white, but that’s not why he’s Captain America. He is someone who uses his power wisely because he knows what it’s like to be powerless. That’s something any Black person could appreciate.
The MCU’s Sam Wilson is also a soldier, someone who chose to serve and protect the nation. Arguably, he was wearing the red, white, and blue even when he was clad in combat fatigues.
In the Marvel series, The Falcon and the Winter Solder, Sam meets Isaiah Bradley (Carl Lumbly), a Black super soldier who bullies exploited on behalf of the U.S. government. In exchange for his service, Isaiah was imprisoned for decades and experimented on against his will. The scars are still visible on Isaiah’s chest when he dares Sam to “pledge allegiance to that, my brother.”
Sam tells his sister, Sarah (Adepero Oduye), “Isaiah has been to hell and back — if I was in his shoes, I’d probably feel the exact same way. But what would be the point of all the pain and sacrifice, if I wasn’t willing to stand up and keep fighting?”
“America is always right” is naively jingoistic but “America is always wrong” isn’t any more complex. Cap doesn’t wear the star and stripes because he believes America is perfect. He serves an example that we must all work to perfect America. It is right and our duty. Captain America’s uniform isn’t a hollow boast but a solemn promise.
There’s a powerful moment in Captain America: The First Avenger, when Dr. Abraham Erksine (Stanley Tucci), inventor of the super soldier serum, tells Steve, “So many people forget that the first country the Nazis invaded was their own.” That’s a lesson Captain America carries with him. He knows that America will always have its share of bullies, and sometimes, they’ll overpower us, but they can only win when we refuse to fight.
Captain America will never surrender his country to the bullies, and neither should we.
Well I had zero idea that I needed an essay about Captain America this morning but I sure did. Thank you Mr Robinson as always.
I've never been a comic book reader, but so many of my friends who are respect Cap for the same reasons so he's become one of my favorites. Just in terms of symbolism I think it's so important that he carries a shield. He's America the defender. That's the story I grew up with and it's the one I will fight for every day of my life, even if it's in a much more humble way than punching Nazis.