Today, we look at how the recent debut issue of the United States of Captain America deconstructs an iconic moment from the classic Daredevil storyline, "Born Again," where Captain America made a memorable guest appearance investigating the government after learning of the existence of a new brand of Super-Soldier.
In Meta-Messages, I explore the context behind (using reader danjack's term) "meta-messages." A meta-message is where a comic book creator comments on/references the work of another comic book/comic book creator (or sometimes even themselves) in their comic. Each time around, I'll give you the context behind one such "meta-message."
So first, let's set the scene, from Daredevil #233 (the conclusion of "Born Again" by Frank Miller and David Mazzucchelli).
As you likely know already, "Born Again" is about Wilson Fisk discovering that Matt Murdock is Daredevil. Fisk then systematically destroys Matt's life and has him seemingly killed (in a way in which he will be believed to have been a killer himself before he died, as one last tarnish on Matt's legacy), but Matt survives. This drives Fisk nuts as he can't help but freak out about Matt being out there, likely seeking revenge. Matt, meanwhile, has found Karen Page, the woman who exposed his secret identity to feed her drug addiction and has decided to help her break her habit (redeeming her, in turn, gives him something to bring himself out of his own spiral).
Fisk turns to a corrupt general to gain access to a government "super soldier" named Nuke. Fisk has Nuke attack Matt's home in Hell's Kitchen, intending to draw Matt out and kill him. Matt, who had not been Daredevil in some time, finally suits up to take Nuke down, in one of the best pages in superhero comic book history...
After a terrible fire fight, Daredevil defeats Nuke, but just in time for the Avengers to show up and take Nuke into custody (this appeared to be a riff on the time that the Justice League of America guest-starred in an early issue of Alan Moore, Stephen Bissette and John Totleben's Saga of the Swamp Thing run. The whole "gods among men" sort of approach)...
Cap, though, is disturbed by seeing Nuke in action and so he offers himself up to investigate what Nuke's deal is. Cap goes to see the general and when the general makes a comment about how Cap's loyalties belong to the government, Cap corrects him and explains that he is only loyal to the American Dream...
Sick burn, Cap!
Cap discovers that Nuke is part of a Super Soldier program meant to replicate Captain America and it all disgusts Cap...
Cap and Daredevil then have to protect Nuke, as the corrupt members of the government try to kill Nuke while he is in custody. Captain America holds off the military while Daredevil gets a wounded Nuke to the Daily Bugle, where Ben Urich (who had his own heroic arc in this stoyline, as the Kingpin tried to silence him earlier from writing about Fisk) exposes the whole story. The breaking of the story causes a dramatically lose of reputation to Fisk in his Kingpin of New York role as Matt and Karen somehow get a happy ending out of this whole mess. And Cap, well, he got to expose this disgusting use of government resources and add in that sick burn to the general.
Okay, fast forward a few decades to the United States of Captain America #1 (in the lead story by Christopher Cantwell, Dale Eaglesham and Matt Milla) and Cantwell opens the story by having Cap specifically question his past comment, as he now wonders what exactly it means to be loyal to a dream.
This is a very clever deconstruction of the original story, as the moment in "Born Again" is brilliant, make no doubt about it, but at the same time, it really is sort of an almost....I don't want to say meaningless, because that's way too harsh, but I guess the best description would be that it is perhaps a slightly too vague gesture. That is what Cantwell examines here. Cap reflects on the fact that he is loyal to the dream but the more that he thinks about it, he realizes that doesn't say ENOUGH, because the "American Dream" is not adequately defined. That then leads into Cap thinking to himself about the dangers of just playing to "the American Dream," as it slides too easily into nationalism...
This is a good sequence by Cantwell, but it continues to amaze me at how anyone could try to spin Cap's statements here as being anti-American. I know people like to make bad faith arguments all the time, especially when you need to fill cable television hours, but it is plainly obvious here that Cap is merely redefining the terms of what it means to be loyal to the "American Dream."
He explain that the only time it is worthwhile to be loyal to the "American Dream" is if the dream is one that could be shared by every American, whether they be poor, an immigrant or any other type of "other" out there. If the dream can only apply to certain people, then Cap points out that it is really the American Lie.
That's extremely NON-controversial, really. It is pretty much just common sense. However, it is still a powerful sequence by Cantwell, Eaglesham and Milla were they take an iconic Captain America moment and break it down a bit to explore exactly what it means. You rarely see comics try to take apart classic moments like this, so it is fascinating to see it happen here. It is still very respectful of the original moment, but it gives it more time to think about it. It's quite good writing.
If anyone else has a suggestion for a future Meta-Messages, drop me a line at brianc@cbr.com
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