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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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ke mere filler but gruenwald is in no hurry to rush his storylines which from here on out will almost always spill over from issue to issue and the friendly skirmish does create an opportunity for this rather startling exchange so starfox aka eros uses his pleasure power on cap and it just gets him more in the mood for good natured brawling this little moment epitomizes gruenwald s uniquely janus faced contribution to the superhero landscape of the mid 1980s on the surface cap s meaning when he says that he doesn t fight out of rage or hatred is crystal clear and throughout the soon to emerge dark age of wolverine punisher lobo etc gruenwald along with other favourites of mine like grant morrison without question the finest non drawing creator in comics and roger stern will do his best to present a triumphantly humane alternative to the best selling badassery that dominated the late 1980s and early 1990s not only in cap but also in quasar and dp7 but it doesn t end there the whole thesis of this blog is that there s always something slightly subversive about gruenwald s classicism this is most evident in things like squadron supreme and the johnny walker storyline still a couple of years away at this point but it was present in the inaugural nomad madcap cap issues which allow it to be blithely understood that there is no logical counterargument against nihilism and it s here too in a very playful way to wit isn t gruenwald basically saying that cap gets off on fighting of course he is it s all right there in eros remark that fighting isn t his favourite form of exercise there doesn t have to be anything nasty about this i think of gru cap s sexuality as kind of on a par with moore gibbons dan and laurie celebrating their bodies victory over that tenement fire in watchmen 7 which is another reason why incidentally bernie rosenthal much as i like her just isn t going to fit into the writer s long term plans at least not as a love interest but enough about love interests he said slyly let s get on with issue 310 s main plot development writer mark gruenwald pencils paul neary inks dennis janke colors ken feduniewicz letters diana albers editor mike carlin yes for most of the next hundred issues or so the eponymously uniting reptiles are basically going to share this book with its title character some of them more than others of course and they ll have even more company within a couple of years you might argue especially if you re jason powell that this isn t so very different from some of the stuff that chris claremont did with the hellfire club in x men but i d have to disagree yes both the serpent society and the hellfire club will play important ongoing supporting roles in their respective titles but the hc are never seriously presented as audience surrogates for the reader whereas i think it s pretty clear right off the bat that the serpents are more to be empathized with than despised despite their oft impressive power sets and lack of respect for the law these aren t arch villains or classic superhero antagonists these are just scared put upon regular folks banding together to stave off economic oblivion and other associated hazards of their profession in reagan america gruenwald makes it 100 explicit you might call it a stretch but to me by placing this kind of rhetoric in the fanged mouth of a supervillain gruenwald is offering a biting critique of the quasi criminalization of unionization that began with reagan s crackdown upon the air traffic controllers and has been proceeding apace in both the u s and canada ever since the point is driven home by bringing a dissenting voice into the inaugural meeting of the new organization constrictor s constrictor in this story is almost a textbook popular front class traitor he has no use for class solidarity he s always gotten by fine and he s not about to let himself be dragged down by a bunch of losers and never weres nevertheless after he leaves the meeting in a huff he quickly realizes that this new guild might be capable of wresting valuable contracts away from him so he decides to go informer and devotes himself for the remainder of the issue to the singularly distasteful project of having the avengers clean up his problem for him by this device gruenwald predisposes us to see events through the eyes of anaconda cobra and the rattler despite the fact that they are about to run headlong into the book s resident superhero tipped off by constrictor s anonymous phone call to avengers hq throughout its years as part of gruenwald s captain america mix the serpent society especially a certain purple haired member will become the book s secret reservoir of humanity and a good thing too given that as mentioned in earlier entries gruenwald s steve rogers cannot for structural symbolic reasons have much of a personality of his own after that we get the expected fight between cap and anaconda while her comrades make good their escape with a valuable scientific item from the vaults of the brand corporation marvel s ubiquitous biotech bete noire of 1980s her inevitable defeat although it s touch and go for a while there and her even more expected because it s in the serpent society s workers rights charter off panel rescue by ace teleporter and local shop steward sidewinder then she caps off the issue by dispensing this rousing bit of intra serpent criminal class justice serpent solidarity ah but before i go all kinds of other stuff happened in this 22 page story for one thing steve you ll recall he quit his last job as part of a principled stance against rampant american consumerism decides on a whim that he d like to apply his artistic talents to the creation of superhero comics i think the above panel speaks volumes about our hero the proliferating thought bubbles organized entirely around matters of pure principle threaten to completely obscure bernie rosenthal s poignant going out of business crisis as a romantic partner in a modern relationship cap has some serious drawbacks as this blog progresses i ll be trying to build a case for gruenwald s cap and even more for gruenwald s captain america the narrative i mean as an extremely canny political thinker and not merely the naive optimist that many people from across the political spectrum but generally from the right would like the character to be however on the personal side of the equation steve is as hopeless a fount of mind over matter platitudes as you re ever likely to find anyway it turns out that marvel actually is interested in taking a look at steve s sketches a fact that promises to add a little basic metatextual spice to future issues but i don t think it s gonna do much for steve and bernie s relationship do you thanks for reading folks dave 2 comments filed under uncategorized tagged as anaconda bernie rosenthal black knight chris claremont class justice comic books diamondback erotic violence grant morrison grim and gritty superheroes hellfire club love interests metatextuality mind over matter popular front roger stern serpent society starfox thought bubbles union politics watchmen may 28 2011 3 13 pm captain america 309 september 1985 and we re back all defrosted and ready to forge on as if there wasn t an icy chunk of months missing from that archive menu all i can say is that as always life intervened but these comics are just as important to me as ever and after considering a plan to keep on capping in podcast form i ve decided that only print can do justice to these babies there s something about mark gruenwald s writing that brings out the literary theorist in me which isn t necessarily a good thing of course but for 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 iss...
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