Captain America is WHAT?!?

[phil]

^^^quoted for truth--- and I'll add to the: "...people who admit to have not read/bought a modern comic is 30 years..." part, THIS: "...most people everywhere (i.e. the bulk of the mainstream movie-going people who have made the MCU successful for, like, a decade)..."

That's a fair a comment. It's storylines like this that made me give up current comic books and keeps me from returning to them.

[WannabeMego]

I hope no one takes offense to this, but I am amused at people who admit to have not read/bought a modern comic is 30 years, are outraged at this.

You have no idea what Cap or anyone is doing on a monthly basis, so had this not been a news "story", you wouldn't have known.

Actually, I disagree...

I may be the exception, but, I'm always 'monitoring' the story arcs of my favorite characters/writers/artists to see if there is a reason for me to jump back in...and I have from time to time, but rare these days.

I may not be the best to put this into words, but, MY feeling is that the writing and tone of most modern commercial books are more 'Op-Ed News' then structured 'Classics' or 'Shakespeare'.

Whenever I try to sneak-a-peek at my LCS to read a modern book, it just feels like I'm reading excerpts from My News Feed...again, just my opinion.

[phil]

If this story line is a success I wonder what other changes could be in store for well established characters. I thought some possibilities like,

Infant Kal-El is responsible for the destruction of Krypton.

Bruce Wayne killed his parents as part of a secret plot so he could become Batman.

Peter Parker murdered Uncle Ben because he hated him.

Reed Richards was fully aware of what cosmic rays would do to him, Ben, Sue and Johnny.Reed also sabotaged Victor Von Doom's experiment because he was jealous.

Captain America deliberately let Bucky die during that final mission in World War Two so he would get turned into the Winter Soldier.

Yes, I am having fun but if any of these are used for real I won't be surprised.

[YoungOnce]

While I don't care much for them turning Cap's mythology on its head, I can easily see why it has happened. Gee whiz... We were all reading these same characters in comic books back in the 60's, 70's and 80's. These characters were going on 20,30 and 40 years old then!

I'd hate to be the writer of a popular character these days that's steeped in going on 75 years for some of these characters, and the editor says "bring me something new". That would be pretty daunting. The good old days were good because of many factors, but one factor has to be that there wasn't as much story that preceded your fave comics. Some of these heroes should have died from old age by now, but the IP is too valuable.

[hedrap]

I read an interesting article where the author went on Twitter and asked different people who were hashtagging hard for a change to Cap, about their familiarity with the character and comics in general. It turned out very few had ever read comics at any point in their life, didn't know the basics of Cap like his alter ego, and were only MCU familiar.

Oddly, it makes sense Marvel would do this out of hopes to court that crowd. They can't get the MCU audience to carry over to the books, so why not grease the squeaky wheel and see if it pays off? I wouldn't do it, but I can see how Marvel sells themselves on all the absurd unjustifiable changes.

[hedrap]

I'd hate to be the writer of a popular character these days that's steeped in going on 75 years for some of these characters, and the editor says "bring me something new". That would be pretty daunting. The good old days were good because of many factors, but one factor has to be that there wasn't as much story that preceded your fave comics. Some of these heroes should have died from old age by now, but the IP is too valuable.

That's true, but the core problem is Marvel and DC have always been afraid to define what exactly is the IP value, so they become risk adverse and make the the goal to keep the same character's story going in perpetuity. If the Big Two set boundaries for specific characters - activity duration, lifespan, mortal/immortal, etc...a lot of the story arcs write themselves.

But because the characters are all trapped in a chronological loop, they never really change. So the devised changes are just that; devices represented as character change. When in truth, they're serial twists to keep the same character chugging along to no real destination.

Hydra Cap is soap opera lazy in its blatancy. It's an attempt to reboot the character while changing nothing about him at the same time. You get all the comfort of Steve Rogers except everything you've read and was written for 75 years is now subject to interpretation or can be ignored. For example, Hydra Cap makes the entire 80's US Agent/Black Suit Cap/Flag Smasher story and ideas worthless because it wouldn't occur if Cap was Hydra. So Marvel can either keep coming up with devices to explain every contradiction and illogic, or they can just ignore it all while denying this was just a shock reboot.

[YoungOnce]

Well, it's just an impossible story task. A tv show is doing great if it lasts 8 or 9 seasons. But that's plenty of time to have a story arc that evolves and resolves. A superhero that chugs along for seven decades with no end in sight is a hamster on a wheel. I guess it's the genre too. A horror comic like Walking Dead has raised stakes because they have established that characters will die (and for good). Who ever really ever worries that a superheroe is in any real danger?

A good example of it working is The Watchmen. Imagine if the heroes in that book were actually heroes we already knew and that when they died, they were actually dead. But... You don't see any of the Watchmen selling toys like the staple IPs or inspiring attractions at amusement parks.

[phil]

Has this stupid idea been resolved yet?