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description= Reading Mark Gruenwald s Captain America;
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captain, america, 1985, been, torn, apart, 310, october, 309, september, 308, august, 307, july, all, rise, please, american, history, gru, articles, of, capfederation, latest, amendments,
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better or for worse when i sit down to read the man s work i stay seated and my fingers reach for the keyboard rather than the mic so here we are again just in time to run parallel with a captain america film that won t have any of the thoughtful qualities that gruenwald s iteration of the character displayed in such abundance all the more reason to take a closer look at it wouldn t you say well i hope you agree cause here comes see how do you discuss that title in a podcast writer mark gruenwald pencils paul neary inks dennis janke colors ken feduniewicz letters diana albers editor mike carlin let s pick up where we left off before the beyonder bumbled into the storyline by company decree gruenwald always the most architectural of comics constructionists had us all primed for a three way standoff between the conveniently named figures featured in this issue s title and now that we no longer have that idiotic crossover to bear he delivers an extraordinary ego triptych which effortlessly sets the stage for an entirely new and yet to me anyway almost inevitable take on the legendary star spangled avenger this issue further develops the portrait of mid reaganian america begun in 307 as i noted in that long ago entry trickle down economics isn t exactly showering jack monroe or bernie rosenthal with financial opportunities the best job he can find is a bag boy position at a grocery store and her glass blowing shop is going out of business thanks to ruthless rent hikes steve rogers on the other hand possesses exactly the kinds of skills that will get you places in late industrial capitalist society he s a commercial artist and a good one unfortunately for cap he s got way too much on his plate and his mind to take advantage of this one of the most significant moves that gruenwald made early on is to re extract his protagonist from the social matrix that stern byrne and dematteis had embedded him in i e the relationship with bernie rosenthal making him a young urban professional i liked those stories and in general i prefer a superhero character who is torn between his commitments to pure morality and intersubjective experience however captain america is the most important exception to this personal rule why because as i ve mentioned in a variety of places cap isn t a person he s the living symbol of an idea and not the chauvinistic idea of a political state either he is the embodiment of what ralph waldo emerson would call the infinitude of the private man what does that mean well if i could put it simpler terms you know i would as it is i ll need about 150 blog posts to get the idea across but one thing s for sure cap shouldn t work that s the biggest problem with emerson s vision of the ideal citizen he and emerson is as weak on gender as you d expect a 19th century sage to be despite his friendship with the extraordinary margaret fuller author of woman in the nineteenth century which everyone should read i m just sayin must be independently wealthy so that s something to keep in mind as we go along here there s a financial reason that steve rogers can engage in his half of this american dream conversation things are in the saddle and ride mankind gruenwald even lays some humour on us in the following panel where steve s advertizing exec interlocutor exclaims rogers we re talking about toothpaste here the whole scene is ludicrous and it s not written in a way that s going to appeal to the alan moore frank miler comics are for grownups crowd or even the i love you and i you comics are for emo misfits claremont crowd but it cuts directly to the core of the character s psyche in the tried and true expository cadences of bronze age superhero drama so gruenwald surgically removes the peter parker elements that his predecessors had grafted onto the character which doesn t mean that cap is that rarest of things the marvel character without problems no cap s destiny is to agonize over the greatest problem of all the place of the well intentioned citizen in establishing maintaining and defending against the inevitable excesses of the political structures which give meaning and purpose to liberal democratic existence it s the same problem that gruenwald would soon treat in squadron supreme and the one two punch of that maxi series and the 100 plus issue run on captain america to say nothing of his foucauldian contributions to the new universe in dp 7 the pitt the draft and the war make him the most interesting political philosopher in superhero writer s clothing of the 1980s but let s get back to the other eponymous characters who help to triangulate gruenwald s cap in issue 309 nomad is jack monroe a bizarre by product of marvel s retroactive attempt to make sense of the captain america character s publication history steve englehart brought him into the mix as bucky consort to the aberrant commie smashing cap that rampaged through a few timely titles during the mid 1950s while the true silver age iteration of the character was on ice after suffering through more than his share of troubles during the 1970s comics including retroactively going insane thanks to improper super soldier treatments watching his old partner take on the identity of the kkk ish grand director and then being shot by the same deranged individual monroe takes advantage of cap s lingering weakness for wayward brown haired youths discussed at length by jon m wilson and michael kaiser in their early mighty shield podcasts and latches on as the true cap s partner in 307 gruenwald suggests that this isn t necessarily the healthiest thing in the world for jack who begins seeing waking nightmare half cap reflections of himself in store windows and isn t doing so well on the identity formation front in 309 we see cap dealing with his side of this problematic codependency as steve himself will later sum up the entire story drives toward our protagonist s decision to stand by and do nothing for a change total eclipse of the cap the ever perceptive bernie rosenthal who will also soon be slipping out of cap s life had previously paved the way for this scene by remarking upon steve s distressing need to control situations and his colleagues this is the flip side of cap s vaunted natural leadership qualities which seem unambiguously good in the avengers at least since cap and hawkeye buried the hatchet after the initial turbulence of the cap s kooky quartet days here again the thematic imperative is to separate cap from everything that distracts him from the central problematic of his living symbol existence no sidekicks no girlfriend which is sad cause i like bernie but she brings far too much balance into cap s life gruenwald s version of the character will lone wolf it until he hooks up with diamondback a former criminal fellow adventurer who confronts cap with more political existential questions rather than distracting him from them no middle class job also and this is really important no government work as nick fury spells out in this ominous panel which looks ahead to the usa troubles that will bedevil steve from issue 332 onward as the ultimate blasted freelancer gruenwald s cap is clearly on a collision course with reaganite patriotism he just doesn t know it yet cap and nomad are on parallel reasoning paths throughout this issue jack monroe stakes his entire future as an independent crimefighter on the quest to subdue madcap he succeeds by acting against all of the instincts which served him so badly in issue 307 instead of charging fist first into confrontation he elects to wheedle his way into madcap s confidence if that s the right word to use in reference to a person who has no confidence in anything in a wonderfully strategic move jack takes advantage of the fact that even a prophet of absurdity can easily be won over by the pretense of conversion the words you re right are the most powerful tools in a canny fighter s arsenal and what about the object of this quest we first meet madcap this issue cavorting blithely through a pretty clear gay bashing scenario gruenwald s horror of american redneckery is a constant but it s especially prominent here and in the sequences of squadron supreme which focus on the need to reclaim america from red statism by superheroic force if necessary but madcap is just as much a product of the american heartland as pro lifery tea baggism and apple pie he was raised as an evangelical christian but i ll let him explain it he s a pretty sophisticated philosopher a gruenwald trait for a guy who traipses around in yellow toting a fun gun but then again this is the kind of incident that ll make just about anyone into the messenger of meaninglessness and madcap plunges into that new role with all of the fervour that he had once channeled into his faith in christ again and i pointed this out in the entry on 307 nomad offers no counterargument to madcap s claims re the absurdity of the universe what possible response could there be cosmic meaninglessness is a given in a gruenwald book but then again so is existentialist commitment that s what everyone prior to gruenwald had gotten so wrong about cap he s not a blind optimist not a patriot not in favour of life liberty and the american way what he is is a person who believes more fervently than anyone else in the individual s duty to in charles dickens immortal phrasing from a christmas carol interfere for good in human matters before he or she loses the power forever he s the ultimate new dealer minus the cynical political calculation of rooseveltian democrats gruenwald s epic tenure on the book will derive all of its extraordinary dynamism from the confrontation between this unique iteration of cap and 1980s america a most uncongenial place for a new dealer to deal with and as the concluding panels of 309 which remove nomad and madcap make clear he ll have to do it on his own as he always should have been more soon thanks for reading dave 4 comments filed under uncategorized tagged as absurdity bernie rosenthal captain america charles dickens existentialism infinitude jack monroe john byrne liberal democracy madcap margaret fuller mark gruenwald meaninglessness nick fury nomad paul neary ralph waldo emerson reagan america roger stern shield steve englehart march 13 2010 2 18 am captain america 308 august 1985 title the body in question script mark gruenwald pencils paul neary inks dennis janke colors ken feduniewicz letters diana albers editor mike carlin the analysis continues unfortunately there s not a whole lot to analyze this time around the reason my personal motto has always been make love not secret wars and that goes at least double for secret wars ii like all of these disastrously annoying company wide crossovers they were a huge part of the reason i quit buying superheroes in 1991 well crossovers and my growing vhs tape obsession secret wars ii disrupted every title in the marvel line for no defensible reason at least crisis on infinite earths had a high narratological concept going for it this one manifestly did not this one had god in a leisure suit sometimes looking like david hasselhoff which is not to say that nothing of interest occurs in captain america 308 for one thing we do get our first real introduction to gruenwald s take on cap you ll recall that he was pretty much absent from 307 back in new york nomad madcap and bernie rosenthal are patiently awaiting the return of the prodigal protagonist but the sw2 throws everyone a curve by forcing steve rogers to heed the call of the crossover to los angeles california after a conclave with prof x which takes place in the main series cap makes a beeline for west coast avengers hq hoping to score himself a quinjet ride home he makes his drowsy way through the compound s defense system surrounded by a miasma of thought balloons wherein it is revealed that our harried hero has no idea what day it is and frankly how could he then we get some nice interaction with those charming newlyweds hawkeye mockingbird gruenwald does a good job with this stuff and telegraphs his intention of keeping cap s old antagonist from the cap s kooky quartet days of avengers circa 1965 around as an occasional guest star gruenwald had of course written and drawn a hawkeye mini series in 1983 along the way they work in a little plug for the upcoming west coast avengers series which i love by the way i consider it among steve englehart s greatest achievements next cap gets sidetracked again this time by a gruenwald orginal i love a good ellipsis exclamation point combo this orange lummox wants in to avengers hq in the worst way but he fails miserably in the attempt characteristically gruenwald s cap fights only to force his opponent to the discussion table notice that cap is being stalked by some kind of mystery outline and talk the armadillo does this is the kind of earnest dialog that gruenwald does best it s simplistic no question about that i wouldn t want to write this kind of stuff but perhaps what is more important is that i probably couldn t write it i m a pretty jaded fellow and i was annoyed by the armadillo on sight but those two quick panels somehow made me sympathetic to his plight and it s not the paul neary artwork that s affecting me the sympathy is well earned this is a man who agreed to become a mad scientist s guinea pig and now errand boy which is what puts him on a collision course with cap on the off chance that said doctor malus by name might be able to bring his wife out of a coma armadillo is an awfully lovable sap and just the first in a long line of victims at the hands of gruenwald s despicably mercenary 80s style doc frankenstein eventually we get a three way confrontation between cap armadillo and malus that ends in a calculatedly anti climactic stalemate the upshot is that cap leaves for new york with one new friend and one new enemy the malus plot would feed into the larger power broker storyline that would dominate so much of this series during the next few years and just before he makes his way back to the storyline that interests me most we get this wacky stuff followed by this even crazier splash this perfect specimen crap necessitated by the imperatives of an inane x over event will eventually pay off big time in captain america 350 for now though it s just stupid the next issue however will be awesome bonne nuit dave 7 comments filed under uncategorized tagged as armadillo beyonder captan america dr malus hawkeye mockingbird power broker secret wars ii west coast avengers february 27 2010 5 16 pm captain america 307 july 1985 title stop making sense script mark gruenwald pencils paul neary inks dennis janke colors ken feduniewicz letters diana albers the gruenwald era begins strangely remember me that s the inside cover of this utterly commonplace looking issue no baxter paper no mando paper no extra pages no no ads no prestige here in fact there s almost no captain america he boards a plane bound for ne...
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