Let's Rap About Cap, pt. 4: My First Captain America Stories

MY FIRST CAPs

I can trace my ongoing love of Captain America to four things. First:

I remember my older brother walking through the front door of our house on Thurber Street in Pawtucket, RI and laying this and an issue of Ghost Rider on the coffee table. Given the cover date (August 1981), this must have been late spring/ early summer of that year. (The Ghost Rider was this one, and looking at the Water Wizard on that cover pulls me back across time and space just as much as the Cap's-behind-bars image above does.) 

"Whoah!" said 6-year-old-Bryan. "Cap's in jail? But he's the hero - they can do that?" This was my first interaction with this trope of adventure-fiction-storytelling. Each time I've seen it since (right up to the first preview I saw for the show Prison Break some 20-odd years later) this cover flashes across my mind.

Reading Cap 260 again in 2016 I have to say, it's okay, but not something I'd point to as prototypical of the character. (It's more or less just an homage/ side-swipe of Brubaker, which had come out not too long before it.) That cover, though! Perfect. My brother bought the series for awhile after that, so once I got into Cap properly three years later, I was able to piggyback off his collecting the title (as I often did) to get to know the character better. But more on that when we get to the fourth of my I-Grok-Cap moments.

The second of these occurred in the summer of 1984. At this time, Cap wasn't a series I collected, but my Marvel fandom had progressed to exploring as many other roads of the Marvel Universe as my meager resources allowed. One of those roads was the original Secret Wars by Jim Shooter, Mike Zeck and Bob Layton. 

"Marvel's writers were very possessive of the characters in their care. In Shooter's own assessment, 'allowing any one of the writers to handle pretty much everyone else's characters in Secret Wars would have led to bloodshed.' To avoid this, Shooter had to select a writer who (1) was experienced at writing stories with a large cast of characters, (2) was up to date on the goings-on of all Marvel titles, and (3) could withstand being hated by the rest of Marvel's writers. Given that criteria, Shooter felt only one person was qualified to write it: Jim Shooter."

I didn't know any of that (as excerpted from The American Comic Book Chronicles: The 1980s) at the time, of course. I was home from Germany on a three week summer vacation and was gorging on comic books, multiplex movies, and Wheel of Fortune. For what it's worth, though, I believe Shooter's take on every character that appears in Secret Wars at that point in the company's history is the correct one. (Even though Thor says "through the gates of Hades" and not "over the Gjallarbrú."

Cap comes off particularly well. I won't get into everything that happens in Secret Wars - opinions are divided on it, I guess, but I'll always love it - but during one of the big battles, Cap's shield, for the first time in Marvel-mk-1 continuity, is shattered. Unprecedented. After the heroes win the battle, the Beyonder grants them the original prize (i.e. "anything you desire") via a sympathetic-magic-alien-gadget-of-some-kind. 

These panels really affected me back then. And continue to affect me - this idea of Cap, the hard tasks all accomplished, everyone's safety seen to and the last man to cash in his prize for winning the war, sifting every last shard of his shattered shield from the dust and debris and reverently placing it upon the altar of this alien world, and then willing it back into existence - it's all very poetic. And a case where old-school captions are utilized perfectly. These days you'd probably just see the panels, and that's cool and all, but it wouldn't have hit me the same way when I was ten.

On to Cap Moment Number Three: Captain America #242 by Steven Grant, Don Perlin and Joe Sinnott. 

I've elsewhere described the one comics-trade I made in the fourth grade that tripled my comics collection. ("The Louisiana Purchase of my young life.") Within that trade were a bunch of Captain America issues. What got me to start buying the series on a monthly basis were the ones written by J.M. DeMatteis (I think I got Cap 275 -288 in that swap, but the first "new" issue I was able to get at the Rhein Main AFB PX was 294), but there were also a handful of older issues, such as this one, which came out a year-and-a-half before the first Cap I ever saw, the aforementioned #260. The cover appealed to me (still does) so I read that one first.

Cap receives a cryptic phone call from an old friend (Peggy Carter) asking him to come to an unknown location where he's immediately bewitched by illusions and attacked by robots who resemble his loved ones and colleagues.     

Cap figures out it's some kind of trap and fights his way to the mastermind: The Manipulator.

The Manipulator has been hired by a petty thug, Muldoon, who wants him to kill Cap for revenge for sending him up the river. The twist is that the Manipulator has no intention of killing Cap; he's only interested in manipulating (supervillain chuckle) Muldoon for his own scientific gratification. Then, double-twist:

Repeat exposure to Star Trek (particularly "What Are Little Girls Made Of?") basically made it impossible for ten year old Bryan to resist this. This was deep, man. And while the story maybe isn't as impactful to me at forty-two as it was to me then, it's still fun, and it opened me up to the character as a delivery mechanism for all of these Trek-ian (and beyond) themes. 

Especially when I got to Cap 264, the fourth of my four Come-to-Cap moments:

You know that scene in High Fidelity where John Cusack's character tells the Moby-looking dude he's reorganized his record collection "autobiographically" vs. chronologically? ("If I want to find the song "Landslide" by Fleetwood Mac I have to remember that I bought it for someone in the fall of 1983 pile, but didn't give it to them for personal reasons.") That's always how I feel when getting these comics posts together. Were I to arrange my Caps that way, they'd shake out how I've listed them here, bouncing back and forth between creative times and out of chronology.  

It's funny - well, to me anyway: I read Cap 260, then sort of skimmed my brother's copies of the next few issues and stopped before I got to 264, which I went back and read only after reading 275-288 in the aforementioned Great Comics Acquisition of 1984, which I might not even have gotten to had I not read 242 first and it piquing my interest. Adding to the zigzag - I quit reading the book for a little while when we got back to the States in '86 because my local drugstore never got it consistently (as a result, I had no idea what happened with the Scourge of the Underworld for years) and only picked it up again once the Commission storyline started up and I had reliable transportation to the comics shop.

Anyway! Cap 264, written by J.M. DeMatteis and illustrated by Mike Zeck, "The American Dreamers" opens with the panels above: four individuals hooked up to some kind of device in seclusion. From there it goes to Cap, "America's most celebrated diplomat," returning from a trip to Latin America to discuss the planned merger of North and South America. Wait, what? Is this some kind of alternate reality?

Looks that way.

Bucky, alive? I like how this isn't pointed out explicitly, but it's alluded to by this moment with the Vision. (Who was created - at least once upon a time - from the android Jim Hammond (aka Cap and Bucky's former colleague)'s body. 

As Cap tries to shake off this feeling of something being off, he begins receiving strange and impossible messages.

Is he losing his mind?

As he tries to focus, he begins to flip through several different realities: 

In one, he is a child and he and Sam (Wilson) and other friends ride an endless carousel.

In another, America has reverted to its apartheid past.

And in another, an apartheid future-present where the Nazis won the war, albeit with a Marvel Universe twist.

As the realities merge, Cap begins to trust the intermittent voice beckoning him to the Walheim Hotel.

What's going on here is that a man named Morgan MacNeil Hardy is trying to recreate the unsullied America of his imagination. He'd previously used Turner D. Century (last seen in these pages in my post on Spidey '83) for this purpose, (Spider-Woman 33) but was thwarted. He's tried again by recruiting four low-level telepaths and using them to restructure reality. 

The only problem is, they're influencing things with their own biases and karma.

Cap decides to end the experiment, but not before reality comes perilously close to blinking out.

All that's left is for Cap to give the captain of the Enterprise speech.

This was the type of horror-sci-fi-adventure-Relevance mash-up my young self craved. (As was, I discovered when checking the credits, one of the author's previous stories, the Defenders Go to Hell storyline; I added the DeMatteis name to my authors-to-watch pile. (Still there in 2016). If Cap 242 showed me Captain America was a venue for Trekian themes, this one showed me just hard-hitting the character's adventures could get. And should get - Cap is in a unique spot, conceptually, for his adventures to comment both obliquely and explicitly on so many aspects of Americana.

This issue was not only very frightening and surreal for me as a boy, but (as I mentioned about What If... #44) it also gave me a clear and dramatic idea of what an American is, what he or she stands for, and what he or she stands against. I consider myself very fortunate - as both an American and as a Cap fan - for this. (I mean, Rambo could have been my template. And it probably was. I'm a Moon in Pisces; we swim round and round up there in the brains.) "American dreamers," indeed. We are the dreamers dreaming this world, my friends, as the author of this tale often says.

Speaking of the author, I reached out to J.M. DeMatteis on his blog a few years back to tell him how much this story's meant to me over the years and to ask him a few little things about it. He replied "(That one) was heavily influenced by Philip K. Dick... with a little Ursula LeGuin thrown in for good measure. (I think, in those days, I wore my influences a little too obviously.) Maybe I'll pull it off the shelf and reread it."

I'll take a closer look at the DeMatteis era of Cap in a future post, but given the long shadow this issue casts over my Cap fandom, I wanted to isolate it and give it its due as the biggest of the Four faces on my own personal Mt. Capmore. (Mt. Rushcap? You get me.)

~

NEXT:

THE RETURN OF CAPTAIN AMERICA, COMMIE SMASHER!

Spider-Man: 1984 (After Secret Wars)

SPIDER-MAN in the 1980s,
pt. 6 of 12.

As we mentioned last time, Marvel's big '84 event was Secret Wars, which came out in January and ran for twelve issues. But the first issue came out with a May cover date, so today we'll be looking at all Spider-titles with May-to-December cover dates. All of these issues took place after the still-yet-to-be-published conclusion of Secret Wars, which for us just means:

1. NEW COSTUME

Spidey's old costume was irreparably damaged while Battleworlding, so he used what he thought was an alien fabric-mending machine at the heroes' home base. What happened instead was the machine spit out a ball of sentient alien symbiote, which grafted on to Peter as its host. 

Overriding a strong reaction from his spider-sense, he grows to love his new costume, particularly its ability to transform into theater-ready street clothes.

Also: no more carrying his camera and wallet around like some peasant - the costume stores these in non-dimensional-space, like a Bag of Holding.

The new costume has an aphrodisiac-effect on the Black Cat. Which makes sense since she only likes Spidey when he's in costume. I have several questions of shall-we-say an Alan Moore-ian nature about this aspect of their relationship, but they freaked me out when I started writing them. The water is deep - I think something big is swimming around down there. You go first, I'll keep watch.

Looks like they beat New 52 Batman and Catwoman to shameless rooftop bangin' by a good 27 years.

When it starts to violate him in his sleep, Peter takes it to Reed Richards to examine.
Whereupon it is discovered:

This is hardly the end of the alien costume saga. People liked the visual, for one, so Spidey sews himself up a non-alien version that he sometimes wears in the next few years, for no other reason than hey fuck you it's comics! And I'm cool with that. And of course, the alien itself finds a new host in Eddie Brock in 1988. 

All in due time.

2. SPECTACULAR SPIDER-MAN 90 - 97

Written by Al Milgrom (90 - 97). Penciled by Al Milgrom and Jim Mooney (90 - 96), and Herb Trimpe (97). Annual #4 written by Bill Mantlo and Bob Denatale. Penciled by Sal Buscema, Kerry Gammill, and Ron Randall.

A lot happens in these issues. There's a new villain (The Answer), a Cloak and Dagger multi-parter, Silvermane coming back from the dead, and the Blob shutting down traffic and blubbering in the streets on New York. (Who's going to move him? Fade to black. I didn't screencap it, I'm afraid.) But mainly this stretch of issues belongs to Spidey and the Black Cat.

Another date night where I have a lot of questions. 

Spider-Man can't get over the fact that she got her powers from the Kingpin, and the Black Cat can't believe her boyfriend has to put up with JJJ's bullshit and, like, work and stuff. Classic love conundrum. They make a go of it for awhile, but ultimately it's not in the cards for Peter and Felicia.

 

The annual is worth a mention. A former boyfriend of Aunt May's is released from prison and begins contacting her. 

To quote our friends at supermegamonkey "After indulging in some nostalgia for awhile, she gently sends him packing. Simple enough, and not so bad, but still unnecessary.
Besides, the only thing we need to know about Aunt May that happened before Amazing Fantasy #15 is that she used to selfishly keep a mermaid prisoner."

Spidey reflects on his year.

 

3. MARVEL TEAM-UP 141 - 148

Written by Tom DeFalco and Jim Owsley (141), Cary Burkett (144, 146 - 148), David Michelinie (142 - 143), Tony Isabella (145). Penciled by Greg LaRocque (141 - 148), with Mike Esposito (142 - 143). Annual #7 written by Louise Simonson and Bob DeNatale; penciled by Paul Neary and David Mazzuchelli.

I hadn't thought about these issues since they originally came out. They're not bad. I wouldn't recommend you drop everything and go and read them, but they're fun. J.M. DeMatteis' presence is missed. David Michelinie makes an ominous appearance in the credits. More from him later in the series.

There are some highlights, though. I admire Burkett's attempt to create some plot throughlines - the multi-issue intrigue with the Black Abbott, for example, later murdered by Scourge and even later brought back to life. Comics. - while keeping the constant guest-star gimmick.

I love the flashback to Ditko-style memories with the Torch.

That "constant guest-star" gimmick made MTU occasionally feel like The Love Boat or Love, American Style, only for costumed super-types. But as with World's Finest or Brave and the Bold, it also allowed for some off-the-radar offbeat stuff.

4.  AMAZING SPIDER-MAN 252 - 259

Written by Tom DeFalco (252 - 259) with Roger Stern (252). Penciled by Ron Frenz (252, 255-259) with Brett Breeding (252), and Rick Leonardi (253 - 254).

The best stuff is as always showcased in ASM. I'm going to skip over a lot of what I loved at the time like the Red Ghost and his Super-Apes - who can resist Super-Apes? Not this guy, (i.e. me), nor the Puma neither, so long as Ron Frenz was drawing him.

But after this brief interlude from the annual -

Notable for being scripted by Smilin' Stan Lee.

let's just get back to:

As mentioned last time, Roger Stern didn't have the best working relationship with Danny Fingeroth, so he handed the title over to Tom DeFalco. DeFalco (who had been Roger's Spider-editor before) knew Stern wanted Roderick Kingsley to be the Hobgoblin. But he didn't like this. Neither do I. (Actually, Stern planned to have him be Roderick's evil twin brother - which I like even less - but it didn't quite turn out that way. At least at first. As always, I am ignoring everything that happened after 1990 in Marvel continuity, including Stern's later work with Spider-Man: Hobgoblin Lives, where he got his original wish.) DeFalco wanted him to be the Kingpin's son, Richard Fisk, aka The Rose.

The purple-masked chap on the left. How does he keep his glasses on?

Had DeFalco gotten his way, the panel above would have later been revealed as a misdirection. Or something. As we'll see down the road - it's all explored in Back Issue 35 if you want the full story now - DeFalco's career ended up taking a much different path. All that happened in '84 was that the Hobgoblin returned and partnered up with the Rose.

Ron Frenz was for the longest time my favorite Spider-Man artist. Even though I was regularly seeing Steve Ditko's work in Marvel Tales, I didn't quite grok at the time that Frenz was doing as much of a Ditko homage as he was. It still looks great, but I see it with different eyes in 2015. 

And for the record, the best Spider-artist is Jazzy John Romita, Sr. Not that you need me to tell you. Who else could it be? I can see Ditko getting the Neil Armstrong vote, but JRSR developed Ditko's work into the definitive version. Plenty of great artists have come down the Spidey pike, of course, not the least of which is Jazzy John's son, JR the junior, who re-defined Spidey's look for a new era starting in the mid-90s. But above them all and you can print this on currency is John Romita, Sr. 

5. PETER PARKER SOAP OPERA

Flash Thompson is a little like the Steve Sanders of the Spideyverse. The rest of the cast come and go, but Flash never leaves. Lots of Flash drama in this stretch of stories. His marriage to Sha-Shan (above) is troubled by a so-far-unrevealed dark secret. He tries to confide in Peter, but the sudden appearance of the Black Cat in Peter's bathroom forces Peter to shove Flash out the door. This rubs Flash the wrong way, and when he later sees Peter meeting with Sha Shan (ironically to discuss what might be wrong with Flash and how to help) he becomes convinced they're making a fool of him.

Enter - a meet-cute of sorts, although it's more a meet-again-while-fleeing-danger - Betty Leeds.

who just so happens to be alienated from her husband. AND she's "Puny Parker's" girlfriend from high school - a plan begins to formulate in Flash's mind...

Meanwhile, Peter's still on the outs with Aunt May over dropping out of college. And Nathan's attempt to patch things up is ruined when Spider-Man is late meeting them for lunch on account of fighting Jack O'Lantern.

And, of course, alien costume or not, Spider-Man still has to wash it.

and he still can't catch a break on the food in his fridge.

Peter barely has time to process breaking up with the Black Cat before Mary Jane drops a few bombshells on him: 

the biggest of which is she knows he is Spider-Man.

This slow burn of reintroducing Mary Jane has a big pay-off in the years to come.

Lastly, this cracked me up:

Peter is seen hammering boards over the window and wall the Puma demolished. But every issue establishes his busy-body landlady who's always pestering him:

Are we to believe Mrs. Muggins - who is depicted as something of a lush - is so besotted she's failed to notice this? If so, Peter's complaints about her are really overstated; the occasional harassment for house guests and late rent is a small price to play for an oblivious landlady. Especially when you're exiting and entering your apartment via bathroom skylight to lead your double life as a crimefighter. 

6. "NO PLACE TO RUN"

I wanted to end things by showcasing this offbeat little back-up from Marvel Team-Up Annual 7. Arthur Berman and his wife have moved to the burbs from Manhattan to get away from the super-powered shenanigans that made their lives a never-ending cauldron of life-threatening anxiety. But (Rod Serling voice) they are about to discover  there's 

In the years to come, this sort of "What life must really feel like if all of these stories were actually happening" tale would be told many times, from light-hearted takes on it such as Dwayne McDuffie's Damage Control to more substantial explorations like Alan Moore's and Dave Gibbons' Watchmen. This is just a little one-off at the end of a MTU annual, seemingly forgotten, hardly in the same league as Watchmen, of course. And yet it so simply and clearly reflects both Cold War anxiety (with Crimson Dynamo being one of the few overt Soviet threats in the Marvel Universe) and the widening self-consciousness that comics underwent in the 80s.

Mazzucchelli hit paydirt with his later collaborations with Frank Miller. Bob DeNatale ended up leaving comics by the end of the 80s and branching into butoh dance, music, and film. 

~

NEXT: The Year Doctor Emmett Brown Broke the Time Barrier!