Shards of Delirium

Ultimate Captain America

Written by

Chris

in

It’s funny[1] that I was just talking about the clever storyline from the Marvel universe where they explained how Captain America could have been both frozen in the Arctic Ocean after World War II and also fighting Communists in the 1950s. Because Ultimate Captain America tells an analogous story, albeit without the need to justify the continuity issue the original guys had. Only, you know, quite a bit darker, as Ultimate Cap has always been. I shan’t say any more, because there isn’t a whole lot of story in there. But I definitely liked what there was well enough, and I’m still definitely in the mood for short-form fiction right at the moment.

[1] Although not that surprising, since it was during my review of the character’s recent movie.

Comments

4 responses to “Ultimate Captain America”

  1. Mike Kozlowski Avatar
    Mike Kozlowski

    I never really cared for Captain America as Boy Scout, so you’d think I would be up for Captain America as jingoist asshole. The problem is, I can’t tell if the writers are writing him as a dickish antihero on purpose, or if they think he’s just a rough-and-ready but basically good guy.

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  2. Chris Avatar
    Chris

    It has struck me odd when you’ve called out Nick Fury’s jingoism, and possibly it is because when I have a memory of them all together, Cap’s sticks out so much more visibly that it’s easy to forget whatever Nick was up to.

    I don’t dislike Boy Scout Captain America, although sometimes he bores me and sometimes Jack Kirby needs to have never written a script ever. But Ultimate Cap? I’ve really come to loathe him, and if he doesn’t learn some kind of “be a better person” lesson, I’m going to start resenting him as well.

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  3. Mike Kozlowski Avatar
    Mike Kozlowski

    Because I mean, the idea of writing Captain America, the embodiment of American exceptionalism — he literally wraps himself in the flag! — as a preening, arrogant douche? It’s sort of brilliantly subversive. If they’re trying to be subversive. Which I increasingly think they are not.

    For Fury, it’s not so much jingoism as… ruthlessness. Yes, regular Fury is not a nice guy, but he’s more in that James Bond mode. Ultimate Fury is more the Operative from Serenity.

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  4. Chris Avatar
    Chris

    Cap-as-not-subversive: You may be right, but I find him so thoroughly distasteful at this point (particularly when compared to Spider-Man, which comparison has been on my mind heavily this past year) that I am forced by my brain to believe it is on purpose, as anything else is way too dissonant. That said, Cap-as-subversive doesn’t make me like him any better, but it earns the writers a lot of renewed goodwill at least.

    Fury: See, that honestly doesn’t bother me. I think the difference is that where the Operative was working towards someone else’s dream, Fury at least has his own ends. Well, that’s one difference, and the other is that I do not mind the ruthless anti-hero type as long as he’s not also a giant asshole, which Fury is not. Sometimes he’s wrong and he’s always way too sure for the batting average history has given him, but at the root of things I think he is a genuine good guy. Whereas Captain america is more of a “Real American”, and it’s a coin-flip per person whether those are good guys or not.

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