I got interested in comics pretty late… I didn’t really start reading any of them until I was around 22. It was neat actually reading the stories of all these superheroes that I’d always known about. But one “hero” whose popularity I never understood was Captain America. Why? Well my good friend MediaMelt put it better than I could:
The character has always been a political rah-rah rallying point. His popularity hinges on who the U.S. happens to have a problem with at the time, be it the Germans and Japanese in the 40’s, Koreans, Vietnamese, or modern day terrorists. He’s a propaganda spouting sock puppet. Always has been – always will be.
Well said, and I totally agree. Captain America is a LAME character. And yet, in the playground that is Comic Book movies, a Captain America movie is in the planning stages. The big cheese at Marvel Studios, Avi Arad had this to say about the upcoming project:
“What makes Captain America such a compelling character is that it allows you to judge history so you see where he came from and you see what he stood for. One of the things our movie is going to deal with is what happened in 60 years,” says Arad. “Which world was better? Sixty years ago or now? Within, obviously, a kick-ass plot and all the stuff that you’ve come to expect from a superhero movie.”
That does sound interesting… but not interesting enough to get me even the slightest bit interested in the dumbest superhero around.
