Let's Rap About Cap, pt. 8: Stern and Byrne

ROGER STERN and JOHN BYRNE

CAPTAIN AMERICA 247 - 255

"Roger and I had a whole heap of fun doing Captain America. Perhaps that's what people found in those pages." - John Byrne

Roger Stern's and John Byrne's short stint on Cap is fondly remembered by fans and pros alike. When asked why, Byrne (in Back Issue 41) said he's given up trying to figure out why anyone likes or doesn't like anything but offered the quote above. 

He might be onto something. Nothing earth-shattering happens here - if I had to liken it to a previous entry, it'd be the second Kirby run, minus the unfortunately wonky art from the King - but there is a sense of the book's creative team having a good time just making comics the way comics used to be made. (Elvis voice) Just TCOB, a-huh-a-hey-a. 

Not that it's fluff, just that there's no ax to grind, no big message to hammer home, just Cap fighting Dragon Man and Nazi robots and Baltroc the Leaper ("Sacre bleu, mon capitan!") and Mister Hyde and what not.

As well as homages to Trek and 60s Marvel.

I am going to steal your girlfriend, Wood-ee!

Hyde finally gets to crush some Cap-shield when Stern writes The Avengers a few years later.

Byrne (and to a lesser extent Stern as well) developed a reputation as a "Mr. Fix It" for aspects of Marvel continuity by other writers he didn't approve of. Here, he and Stern only refit one aspect of the character, though it's an important one: Cap's origin.

During Steve Gerber's brief tenure on Cap, he offered up a new origin for Steve Rogers that (as summarized in the Stern/Byrne piece in that Back Issue mentioned above) "despite its various merits, (felt) more resonant with the zeitgeist of the Vietnam era than that of World War II America and violated existing continuity in several respects (...) Stern reconciled all of the earlier inconsistencies by explaining that Rogers underwent an experimental procedure during the war in which he was implanted with various false memories as a defense mechanism against interrogation should be captured by the enemy."

Kinda makes sense in a place like the Marvel Universe.

Otherwise their version of Cap's origin is pretty much what audiences saw in The First Avenger.

Although FDR gives him his shield, not Howard Stark.

They also fleshed out those aspects of Steve's personal life established by Roger McKenzie on the title - namely, Cap's freelance illustration career (something inoffensive enough but really, all of Cap's civilian jobs feel unnecessary) and his friends and neighbors at his apartment complex.

One in particular:

Bernie Rosenthal, Steve's soon-to-be main squeeze.

More from Mark DiFruscio's article in BI 41: "Although Bernie and Steve were about the same 'age' physiologically, culturally they had a May-December romance."

"Throughout these interludes, Stern and Byrne invest Steve Rogers with an array of humanizing details, allowing him to demonstrate moments of shyness, charm, and self-deprecating humor. Rogers reveals himself to be a man who comes home to an empty kitchen, pulls all-nighters to meet a deadline, and doesn't even know the name of his local congressman."

In Cap 250 Cap is approached to run as an independent candidate in the 1980 election. That would have neatly solved the "how do we make Cap's civilian job exciting?" dilemma. He declines, of course; what's better? Vigilante symbol of all that is free and good, moving freely and autonomously amidst these amber waves of grain while dropping in to flirt with the Wasp over at the Mansion, or sitting on your duff in the Oval Office, writing executive officers and working on your jokes for the next Press Correspondents Dinner?

Not even a contest.

The story yielded a What If story down the line that's kind of fun. In this one Cap says what the hell, runs for President, and wins. 

This leads to the Red Skull (in disguise) doing the same in South America, and he lures President America to his doom.

 

There's an awful lot of win on the Marie Severin-illustrated cover, though:

Let's start with the faces in the crowd. I won't try to identify all the real-world people, but you can see Smilin' Stan (I think) to the above-right of Cap's head. And Marie made Kirby Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. Which, I mean, if I were President, I'd nominate him, if only to have a seriously awesome set of illustrated dissents for the Library of Congress.

I like how Reed and Sue and the Thing are present but no Johnny Storm. Makes sense - he'd be a security risk. All the FF would be, probably. The Secret Service would have a hell of a time keeping up with the dangers of a super-powered Presidency. But it also got me thinking of who would Cap put together for his cabinet? Is the Thing there to indicate a cabinet position? Secretary of Clobberin' Time?  

When this scene plays out inside the issue itself, the FF (and Kirby) are not present.

Finally, there's a nice nod to Invaders-era Cap in issue 253 and 254, when Cap is called overseas to the Farnsworth estate. Cap knew both elder (Union Jack) and daughter (Spitfire) during the war, as well as whom the elder suspects has returned: Baron Blood, that dastardly vampire with the National Socialist leanings.

I keep meaning to reread Invaders one of these days. I really loved that series when I discovered it (ten years after its cancellation) in high school.

Again, Cap's man-out-of-time-ness rears its head.

"Are you accusin' me of bein' a bleedin' Nazi vampire?!"
Well, sure, you put it like that...

Cap takes out the Baron in decisive fashion:

From the moment we see frail Lord Farnsworth in his wheelchair, two things are all but inevitable: he will don the Union Jack colors again, and he will die of a heart attack for the effort. Sure enough, so it goes. The end page is a nice splash and has this nice dedication, which I'm happy to end on since it goes some small way to all my snarky comments on Frank Robbins' art ("Roscoe!!") last time. The artist deserves all possible accolades, and this is a nice two-parter in his memory.

~

NEXT:  Deathlok the Demolisher! See you then.

Wolverine by Archie Goodwin and John Byrne

 

WOLVERINE

by ARCHIE GOODWIN, JOHN BYRNE 

and KLAUS JANSEN

Currently, I have thirteen posts in draft mode: three King's Highway posts, three From Novel to Film posts, a TV Tomb of Mystery post, plus some other odds and ends. I also need to get the next Fantastic Four in the 1960s post together. Sheesh.

It'll happen, don't get me wrong. Just not today. Let's have a look instead at the seven issues of Wolverine that comics legends Archie Goodwin and John Byrne (as inked by fellow comics legend Klaus Jansen for five of those seven) put out twenty-seven years ago.

I remember enjoying this at the time but outside of a brief glance when I did my other Wolverine post, I haven't looked at it since. Not the best thing any of the talent involved ever did, but it's a fun little story with lots of payoff and a pretty good example of how comics were being made in 1989.

The action movie trailer for it that I'd like to see would go something like:

WOLVERINE!

  

The world thinks the X-Men are dead* but Logan lives a happy life as "Patch" on the island of Madripoor, also known as Gomorrah on the Pacific Rim.

* This story takes places after Fall of the Mutants.

But his routine is shattered when he gets mixed up in international intrigue that will take him across the globe to Tierra Verde, to face down a dictator with a plan worthy of a Bond villain, bring a Nazi War Criminal advisor who wears an exoskeleton to justice, and to destroy the world's only supply of Insanity Cocaine that turns men into super-powered monsters. 

(montage with drums)

POLITICAL COMMENTARY!

 

THRILLING UNDERWATER INTRIGUE!

THRILLING UNDERWEAR INTRIGUE!

NAZI WITH A SHAVING FETISH 

MEETS MARVEL'S HAIRIEST HERO!

ALL THIS AND MORE!

(fast-cuts)

 

 

WOLVERINE...

...IN THEATERS SOON...

Something like that. Logan's not Marvel's hairiest hero - he's not even the hairiest X-man (or X-woman) - but okay, ad hyperbole. 

Let's break it down some.

Archie Goodwin was one of the industry's most-respected writers and editors. And for good reason. His stories were always a memorable mix of plot, characters, and dialogue. Here is no exception. Consider the main villain, Geist, the Nazi war criminal with an exoskeleton and shaving fetish.

Most folks would be happy enough with a Nazi War Criminal. The exoskeleton's a bonus, but this is a Marvel superhero comic so not really a remarkable innovation. Neither is giving the main baddie an odd fetish, for that matter, but it allows a writer of Archie Goodwin's experience some fun room to maneuver.

I've made that same point - as have many people, I'm sure - on Nazis and Hollywood.

Back to the shaving.

 

The secondary villain is equally above-and-beyond. President Caridad is the democratically-elected / CIA-supported leader of Tierra Verde. Much of his power comes from the trafficking of cocaine that turns the user into a disposable container of rage and invulnerability. This was the 80s, albeit the very end of them, and cocaine-and-banana-republics were very much en vogue in comics and elsewhere. So it'd have been enough to have this angle, but Archie Goodwin adds three things.

1) The Insanity Coke is actually a sentient being with ties back to the uber-races of Marvel's then-continuity. The short version is "Failed genetic experiment from Earth's past sleeps in Earth until coca cultivation awakens them." 

Here's the longer version for interested parties.

2) President Caridad is a client of the U.S., who provide him with one of Uncle Sam's special operatives, Nuke, to help silence his domestic enemies.

See Daredevil: Born Again for more. (And the Iran-Contra hearings.)

He is greatly impressed by Nuke and becomes obsessed with the idea of engineering Tierra Verde's very own super-soldier. Providence has provided the means to do so with the Psycho Cocaine, so abundant (and exclusive) to Tierra Verdean soil. Only problem: it burns the user out fatally after a short period of time.

If the cops don't get them first.

So, he has Geist kidnap Roughouse - one of Wolverine's mildly-super-tough sparring partners on Madripoor - or, rather, purchase him from Prince Baran. (Madripoor's a rough place.) Wolverine follows along and discovers that while Roughouse has survived longer than most, the Insanity Coke is still killing him. So:

3) The President turns to his estranged wife, Sister Salvation, a mutant with healing powers, to counteract the effects. To secure her cooperation, he lets her see their son, who has thrown in his lot with the regime. 

The young woman in the foreground of the above-left is La Bandera, a revolutionary whose mutant power is "to inspire." Archie Goodwin was way ahead of his time. She was apparently later killed, but that shouldn't stop anyone from making her the most popular heroine in grade number two in 2016.

Anyway, both the President and Spore agree Wolverine is a far more suitable subject for the Super Coke / Super Soldier hybrid and hi-jinks, as they often do, ensue. 

Tiger Shark makes an Acts-of-Vengeance-related appearance.

The art's pretty cool. I've read some criticism of the Jansen-inked issues about how Jansen's inks overpower Byrne's layouts. Any and all criticism of Klaus Jansen in whatever form it takes is silly, of course, but this is especially silly. Of course it looks more like Jansen than Byrne - he's finishing Byrne's layouts, not inking his pencils. 

Jansen above, Byrne-inking-from-his-own-layouts below.

It's certainly a fun little series, and all of the above things that Goodwin adds to things certainly demonstrate a tried-and-true (and solid) approach to storytelling. Everyone is clearly motivated and individuated through dialogue. Plenty of plot twists and drama. And the ending is great:

1) Tierra Verde is still too important to Uncle Sam to let Wolverine just topple the government and take out Geist, whom they've been protecting and using to spy on Caridad's regime. 

but

2) Uncle Sam is capable of a little bait-and-switch of its own, as Geist discovers once spirited to his new home in America.

Byrne's second period at Marvel (I always think of his post-90s work for the company as his third period, though technically I guess it's just an extension of his second. But bear with me) is pretty strong: She-Hulk, Namor, Avengers West Coast, that terrific "Armor Wars 2" storyline with JRJR for Iron Man, and other little surprises, like this. I think I still prefer his first period (the classic X-Mens, FF, etc.) more than any, but if you're ever looking for some solid Copper Age fun back when Marvel still had its active mk-1 continuity and you see Byrne (or Goodwin for that matter) in the credits, don't hesitate. 

~