All the Best Responses to the Captain America Was Always Evil Reveal

Many of us found Marvel executive David Gabriel’s comments about diverse characters being the cause of falling sales particularly infuriating and dumbfounding, because readers are tired of expensive and disappointing events—and oh yeah CAPTAIN AMERICA BEING A GODDAMNED NAZI.

With the latest Secret Empire supposition that our beloved fighter against fascism Steve Rogers has always been a villain, the Internet wasn’t about to sit down and take that one quietly.

The creators of the new Cap comics—particularly writer Nick Spencer, who saw the widespread reaction to his Hydra Cap issues and decided to double down—can’t dodge this one. Captain America, created by Jews in a time before the US had joined World War II (but lots of European Jews were already suffering), punched Hitler smack in the face in his iconic first cover. Cap has history that matters.

A superhero that has stood for seventy years as a bulwark against fascism and as an adherent of truth and justice (even siding against America when it has messed up) is imbued with more symbolic power than the Secret Empire creatives want to acknowledge.

This reader speaks for us all and perfectly summarizes my emotions where Steve Rogers is concerned:

Too true. Too true.

YUP.

And over on Facebook, some Marvel writers were already generating their own creative solutions to the problem. I approved. Make love, not fascism, amiright?

Nick Spencer, stop, pls.

Reporters who cover this stuff for a living are as pissed off as fans are. Because 9 times out of 10 we are such massive fangirls and fanboys and fanpeople that we somehow managed to turn it into a career.

EVERYTHING IS TERRIBLE IN COMICS AND EVERYTHING HURTS.

Get your shit together, Marvel. This is why readers are ignoring you.

Meanwhile, actual genuine Captain America Chris Evans is embodying the spirit of his character far better than Marvel Comics.

Captain America, Hellboy, and Hercules Mulligan team-up to go after Nazis? There’s a comic I would read, like, yesterday. And for a brief moment of time while I considered this, everything was beautiful and there was no pain.

(featured image: Marvel Comics)

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Kaila Hale-Stern

Kaila Hale-Stern (she/her) is a content director, editor, and writer who has been working in digital media for more than fifteen years. She started at TMS in 2016. She loves to write about TV—especially science fiction, fantasy, and mystery shows—and movies, with an emphasis on Marvel. Talk to her about fandom, queer representation, and Captain Kirk. Kaila has written for io9, Gizmodo, New York Magazine, The Awl, Wired, Cosmopolitan, and once published a Harlequin novel you'll never find.

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