World Captain America/Uncle Sam

[Abishai100]

I own an edition of collected Captain America black-and-white comics, which I personalize by coloring the stills with crayons, water-paints, and colored-pencils.

Captain America (Marvel Comics) is a peoples' hero and represents a general social fascination with democracy and therefore has been used to 'trumpet' pro-capitalism rhetoric.

While it's not surprising that we don't hear things like "Osama bin Laden is a big fan of Captain America," we should talk about how comics can speak to modern socio-cultural perspectives.

Batman (DC Comics) tackles criminal insanity; Spider-Man (Marvel Comics) tackles evil mutants; but Captain America defends democracy and is the new Uncle Sam (from a pedestrian viewpoint of course).

So this thread is meant to ask the question, "Is Captain America offensive?"

 

[pr0xyt0xin]

Hm... I'll take a crack at this.

Captain America may have originally been intended to bolster patriotism during the 1940s, but since, the character and what it stands for has become something else entirely. The general populace, however, I will agree knew nothing of this until his most recent cinematic appearances. And as such, would have seen him as a nationalist, and even an imperialist under a certain light.

But things have changed.

Captain America in the 1940s was about taking a stance along your brothers in arms to defend your nation against evil despite overwhelming odds.

Captain America today is about taking a stance for what you believe and fighting evil and corruption despite your nation NOT agreeing with you.

So I mean, Captain America is a misnomer. And the thing is, he himself hasn't changed, the world has changed. And that might be the #1 thing that makes him so interesting.