Monday, January 02, 2006

What If? Starring Captain America

As a Captain America fan, I was pretty disappointed with the recent Marvel What If? Starring Captain America.

I'll write later in a more thoughtful post about the importance and touchiness of Captain America as a literary icon, but it's enough to say this alternate Captain America story (putting Steve Rogers in the Civil War era), misses the mark of both the character, and the What If? premise.

What If? is supposed to be about alternate tellings of marvel tales, in a way that matters when things are changed up, or changes history by putting characters in disjoint time periods.

This story does none of that. It arbitrarily changes the role of Bucky, it changes the Red Skull to the White Skull (for white supremacists), and creates a legacy of Captain America's, where the current-day (great-great-grandson) is "General America" (ostensibly because progeny is supposed to supersede the accomplishments of ancestry). Overall, not really important stuff.

Anyway, not great overall, not even on the art front. I'd recommend a pass.

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