1. "Democracy Is Worth Dying For, Because It's The Most Deeply Honourable Form Of Government Ever Devised .. "
I. This is the story, for what little it's worth, of how wrong I was about Ed Brubaker and Bryan Hitch's "Captain America: Reborn". It's the tale of how "Captain America: Reborn" offers deliberate (*1) and intelligent solutions to structural problems which have dogged "Captain America" as a character since his rebirth into the Marvel Universe of 1964, and it's about how what seemed at first to my rather dense mind to be a collection of anachronistic indulgences, knee-jerk comic-book peccadilloes, and flat-out inappropriate and lazy story-telling choices revealed itself to be something far far smarter and far more useful than that.
I was wrong. I was really wrong. What can I say? Mae Culpa. "Captain America: Reborn" is so much more than a grim little digression of Captain America's most significant punch-ups warmed over and dished out with pages and pages of cleverly-integrated artistic homages to the great Steve Rogers artists of the past 70 years.
In truth, as of course I've got no doubt everybody but me has long since noticed, it's a smartly-constructed fairy story which manages to both identify why the modern-age Captain America has never quite managed to be the marquee character he's always threatened to be, and also offers a clear escape route away from those problems into a far less compromised and far more promising future.
I'm pleased I read it. I'm really pleased I read it.
II. And, yes, I did call "Captain America: Reborn" a "fairy story", and I'll be coming back to that intended-as-a-compliment phrase in the second part of this look at Mr Brubaker and Mr Hitch's work, which I intend to post here in just a few day's time. But because there's so much to discuss before we even arrive at the front cover of "Reborn", this "Some Thoughts ... " is going to be the first two-part entry on TooBusyThinkingAboutMyComics. I hadn't intended that, and in truth I tried to avoid it, but there's something very strange and I believe exceptionally informative about what's happened to the character of "Captain America" since Stan Lee and Jack Kirby introduced him into the Marvel Universe in "The Mighty Avengers" # 4, some 46 years ago.
Or, to put it another way, if Mr Brubaker is offering a solution to some fundamental problems with the character of "Captain America", then what are these problems, and how did they come to be?
And how does a "fairy story" seem to solve them?
And why would I feel compelled to start answering these questions by heading back to "Civil War", and the Captain America that ended his rebellion against the civil authority of Marvel-America there as something of a slain superhero saint in a box?
2. "America Will Never Be Destroyed From The Outside. If We Falter And Lose Our Freedoms, It Will Because We Destroyed Ourselves."
In Jeph Loeb and John Cassaday's "Fallen Son: Acceptance", the reader is shown the bleak and martial grandeur of Captain America's state funeral. We're told that Steve Roger's body has been placed in a " .. casket drawn by a single white horse, riderless, a ceremony up until now held only for a president .. ". And the reader is left to wonder why such a radical, such an unimaginably unlikely scenario, has been created for the murdered super-hero? Why has the Government of the United States on Marvel-Earth chosen to not only sponsor a state funeral for Captain America, but to drape the event in the exclusive traditions associated with presidential funerals?
And, in particular, two significant conundrums appeared in my mind as I read this scene which I've been unable to shift since.
Firstly, how is it that Captain America's standing with the citizens of the Marvel Universe's America has become one in which he's regarded with such unprecedented veneration? Because when the good people of Marvel-USA first heard of Captain America's return from his supposed death in World War II, back in November 1963's edition of "Strange Tales", Steve Rogers wasn't such a popular and talismanic figure at all, though you'd expect a country where most of its' population has actually lived through the War to have exploded with ticker-tape parades and huge golden keys to ten thousand cities. Oh, the people of the small town of Glenville, who were the first to hear of his "return", were certainly excited that Captain America was " ... really alive ... ", but you couldn't say his visit to their high street was any more important to them than a meet'n'greet by a middle ranking TV celebrity. (Sue Storm, for example, didn't even remember that Captain America was "real". To her, he was an "an old comics magazine hero .. ") And "Cap's" presence at the "Glenville Antique Auto Show" was hardly a media-frenzy either. There was a banner with his name on it flapping above five or six old cars and very little else of note. Captain America, it seemed, was a well-respected crime-fighter and servant of the nation from several decades before, but that's all he was. An object of respect, not veneration, and certainly not the fetishistic relic of martyrdom which Mr Loeb describes. (*3)
Or to put it another way: how did CAPTAIN America become Captain AMERICA? How did a "super-soldier" serving the nation become such a powerful symbol of the nation that his passing so traumatised Marvel-America?
And, secondly, how is that the public and the Government of the United States Of America are united in the hallowed collective endeavour of a state funeral - and an exceptional pseudo-presidential funeral at that - to a man who was so evidently a traitor to most every fundamental principle that America and its' constitution was founded upon?
At what point did Captain America become such a precious and inviolable figure that his actions ceased to have any consequence where his public standing with so many Americans was concerned? How was it that the character, who was so fondly if unhysterically hailed upon his return from death in Avengers # 4, evolved into a super-hero synonymous with the Constitution, his actions equivalent or even superior in worth to those of the legitimate government, his transgressions so paradoxically consecrated and revered that for so many Americans they superseded the value of the rule of law itself?
Because, where the events of "Civil War" were concerned, Captain America wasn't merely guilty of failing to comply with the provisions of the Super-human Registration Act (*4) He was in every likelihood guilty of a deliberate armed revolt against the authority of the American State. At the very least, Captain America was guilty of Sedition, one of the most serious crimes on the statute book, but I very much doubt that the label of Sedition would be enough to describe his behaviour. And since the level of violence initiated and practised by Captain America and his cohorts was so profound, the scale of the disorder so extensive, and since the armed troops of a foreign and often hostile power to the United States Of America were called in by Captain America's forces to engage the legitimate men and women of America's armed and police forces, well; I think that's treason, don't you? (*5)
And treason isn't a little word, and it isn't a tiny, tiny crime of conscience. Treason is treason. And they hang folks for treason. They don't give them country-closing presidential funerals. Honestly. They just don't. Not even in comic-book universes, where yellow suns super-charge Kryptonians and gamma rays make you very green and very strong indeed, if they don't make you very clever. And getting shot after committing treason doesn't work in any sane world as a "get-out-of-infamy" card. It just means that Captain America avoids being tried for his crimes.
So, what's wrong with this picture then, and did how we get from the much-missed frozen soldier in the iceberg to the messianic icon in the "single" casket? How did we get from, for example, Mark Gruenweld's Captain America, who in "CA # 401" worried that " ... my style of professional behaviour is out of fashion, at odds with this increasingly violent society ... Maybe guys like the Punisher, Cable and Wolverine are the answer to the kinds of threats America faces today." to the Cap of "Civil War", who leads the Punisher and Cable - amongst other anti-social "super-heroes" - in rebellion against America itself.
(*3) It wasn't actually Captain America in that tale, anyway. It's was the profoundly uninteresting super-villain "the Acrobat" pretending to be Captain America. It's noticeable that there's no mention of any public weeping when this is revealed. The closest to the agonies of loss that Johnny Storm comes to is the declaration that "Boy! I sure dig this guy the most" when he's looking at the tale's end to an old Cap comic-book. Say "I sure dig that guy" at Cap's funeral and I suspect a public lynching might well result. You can't "dig" the sacred, after all. You can only "dig" the profane. The sacred is beyond opinion. The sacred is sacred and that's that.
(*4) As if violently resisting a constitutional Act Of Congress is somehow a "minor" offence, as so many of the readers of Marvel Comics have unconsciously connived to believe, of course.
(*5) We'll return to the fighting men and women of Atlantis later. I'm amazed how few commentators noticed the significance of how they helped to turn the fight in "Civil War" # 7. And since Sue Storm was responsible for soliciting their presence on the New York field of battle, she's definitely guilty of Sedition if not Treason too.
3. "I Am Not A Crook."
I. America has been particularly canny when it comes to the crime of Treason. The Constitution, of course, was carefully framed in this example to limit who can be regarded as a traitor and the degrees of punishment at hand for being regarded as so. Treason is defined in article III , section 3, of the Constitution, as being the acts of;"... levying War against (the United States) ... or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort."
And as the centuries have passed, hardly anybody has ever been convicted of the crime of Treason in the USA, which in a nation that, to take but one example, spent its' Civil War years slaughtering each other in fearsomely industrial numbers, is a remarkable thing. So, the nominal leaders of the Whiskey Rebellion were pardoned by Washington, and even the much-maligned Gerald Ford felt his status secure and his conscience strong enough to pardon "Tokyo Rose". On the whole, Americans learned from the poor example that we Brits showed of how not to throw the big "T" word around too often, and if nobody from the Confederate States was ever convicted of Treason after the War Between The States, then it's exceedingly unlikely that Captain America would have hung for his actions during the super-hero Civil War. But if we examine what Cap actually did during that "Civil War", I think it's fair to say that at the very least he'd have been indicted at least for Sedition or most probably for Treason itself had he "lived".
And it's very important that we're clear on the issue of Captain America's criminality here. Because, as we've discussed in this blog before, there is a tendency for super-heroes to escape being regarded as culpable for the laws they show contempt for because, well, they're super-heroes. They're not judged by the same criteria as, for example, you and I are. They are, in fact, considerably above the law when compared to the common folk, and that's particularly relevant where Captain America is concerned, who has consistently pledged his loyalty to the Constitution;
"We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal ... "
II. So, what did Steve Rogers actually do during the super-hero Civil War? What could he be justly accused of?
Firstly, it ought to be mentioned that Captain America was obviously guilty of far more serious crimes than simply refusing to comply with the Superhuman Registration Act, but that that was no little crime in itself. There's no suggestion that the Act was in any way unconstitutional, so it was a perfectly legitimate expression of the sovereign power of Congress. Or, as President Obama commented when informed that an Aunt of his was living illegally in the USA: "(America is) .. a nation of laws ... If (my aunt) is violating those laws, those laws have to be obeyed." Because that's what the Rule Of Law means. Without it, human beings are immediately reduced to the rule of vendetta, to physical force closing all arguments, to a situation rather like the metaphor of costumed muscle-folks knocking seven bells out of themselves and Manhattan, forever.
But beyond failing to comply with the SHRA, Captain America violently assaulted Federal Forces going about their legitimate business, and he engineered the escape from Federal custody of a large number of super-powered individuals detained quite properly under the provisions of the Law. He also organised an exceptionally violent conspiracy of super-heroes to rebel against the Federal Government in order to ensure that the SHRA could not be upheld. (Though Captain America's ultimate aim is never clearly expressed, it seems that this master of strategy was planning to just keep hammering away at the State until it left the super-heroes sympathetic to his point of view alone, somewhat as the Drug Lords of Mexico have long embarked upon a programme of striking back hard against any power seen to threaten their will in an attempt to create their own kingdoms within the Sovereign state of Mexico itself. These mobsters use lethal force to a far far greater degree than Captain America and his colourful rebels, but the principle is the same; hammer away at lawful opposition until the Law itself is forced in word or deed to abandon its' purpose.)
And tellingly, Captain America includes in his conspiracy a known and exceptionally-wanted criminal, the psychopathic mass murderer the Punisher, as if in his campaign to rebel against one law he has accrued the right to ignore the provisions of many more. He also publicly incites non-compliance and physical resistance to the SHRA, directly challenging the legitimacy of the democratically elected government of the USA., including encouraging Federal Law Enforcement officials to disobey their duty. (This is cleverly disguised in the narratives by having the "resistance" engage mostly with the forces of S.H.I.E.L.D. and Tony Stark's super-powered troops rather than Government itself and its' more typical law-enforcement officers.)
But most unforgivably of all, I suspect, to the shades of the Framers of the Constitution, Captain America unleashes the troops of Atlantis, an often hostile Foreign State, under the leadership of the Prince of Atlantis, on sovereign American soil to help him forcibly defeat Federal super-human forces. (Considering the rebellion against King George III that was the American War Of Independence, this last act is remarkably inappropriate and anti-American.) Anybody with a copy of "Civil War" # 7 might care to examine the panels where Namor's soldiers attack American citizens with fearsome blades and ask themselves what exactly is Captain America doing here, no matter how the fact of the matter is obscured by having the men of Atlantis mainly engage with the super-villains conscripted into the Federal forces.
And so, if we just engage with what Captain America actually did rather the fine if totally illogical and confused sentiments which the character expressed, and rather than with the almost-holy aura of sanctity which the character has increasingly accumulated with the passage of time, we can see this was quite probably considerably more than merely sedition. Indeed, this was almost without question the " ... levying of War .. " against the American Government, and it involved the staggering decision to invite the troops of Atlantis onto the streets of New York with a certainty that those warriors would be thrown against the troops and other servants of the USA just a few years after the horrors of 9/11 in NYC.
Now, it's not as if it would have been more acceptable for Captain America to have called in M-13 or Alpha Flight. The sovereign territory of the USA remains so regardless of who invades it. But Atlantis! Atlantis is a state which has had consistently catastrophic relations with the United States during the however-long-it-is that the modern age of super-heroics has existed in the Marvel Universe. I have quite lost count of the number of times that Atlantis has actually invaded America, let alone the multiple cases of serious territorial incursions, terrorist attacks and so on. (I have no doubt that Atlantis was on President Bush's list of members of the "Axis Of Evil" during his administration, and it would be hard to argue that Atlantis wasn't a terribly dangerous and unstable, if not "evil", state.) And yet Cap and his co-conspirators seem more than perfectly happy to allow the soldiers of this estranged and often hostile power to support them in their war against America on the streets of New York City!
A "war against America"? Well, of course it is! What is a state if it isn't the organisation which administers the laws within a specific territorial space? America isn't merely an idea to be fought over by super-powered costumed acrobats up and down Fifth Avenue. America is the fact of it's Constitutionally-legitimate government administering its' laws and customs. It's not possible to slightly rebel against America using a super-powered army, or to do so in a way that's forgivable and forgettable.
Captain America's Civil War was a fundamentally transgressive revolt against the legitimate government of the United States Of America. It was a profoundly anti-democratic, anti-constitutional rebellion.
So how was it that the disgraceful and disgraced Captain America came to be immediately forgiven by so many citizens, and how is it possible that this most un-American of super-heroes came to be instantaneously granted such a spectacular state funeral?
4. "We're An Empire Now, And When We Act, We Create Our Own Reality."
I. It's interesting to note how often Captain America seems to talk in a terribly ill-informed and general fashion when he's declaiming about the Constitution and America and Liberty and so on. In at least some of his adventures, it's as if he's not very sure what the Constitution actually says, or means, or what the Rule of Law is, or why Representative Democracy is constituted as is in the USA, for good or ill. (It's a point we'll touch upon in part 2 of this blog, when we'll also look at a good few examples of when Cap actually does seems to know what's he talking about.) Take, for example, the following speech Cap makes while refusing the nomination for President in Roger Stern and John Bryne's "Captain America" # 250;
" .. I have worked and fought all my life for the growth and advancement of the American Dream, and I believe that my duty to the dream would severely limit any abilities I might have to preserve the reality."
Now, isn't that an odd speech? What is this "American Dream" Cap mentions that prevents him from engaging in Government? In what way does it supersede the fact of the Law and the business of law-making, because Cap does seem to be saying that he's got to stay separate from government so he can make sure that Government does the right thing? What part of the Constitution gives Captain America the duty of "preserving" this particular dream? Why indeed does Cap speaking of preserving the "reality" of the American Dream? Is there a "real" and objective "American dream" which exists in a fixed form which mustn't be challenged? And how can this "preservation" of the "dream" be achieved by all America's citizens, since democracy relies on each and every citizen having the means to engage in the democratic process? What are the components of this dream and how come only Cap seems to be able to perceive it? Why is it his job to do so? If he can perceive it so strongly, shouldn't he be in power so the running of America matches the dream of it? Or can't he trust other Americans to see what must be done as well as he can?
And so on.
Because the question is so often: "What exactly is Captain America talking about?" Consider again the quote above. We know what he's saying in a vague way, in an imprecise fashion that can't be translated into precise principle or specific action. It reads far more as if Cap was clutching at a rather vague way of ending an argument without engaging in any measure of intellectual thought, as if he didn't want to offend anybody by actually saying anything.
Or is it possible that, politically speaking, some of the Captain Americas that we've come across actually don't know what they're talking about? Could it be that Captain America's politics are on occasion nothing more than a mixture of folksy oh-shucks commonsense aphorisms and taken-for-granted assumptions about the business of government? That he's just CAPTAIN America, a soldier chosen at random to receive super-powers who's somehow worn the colours for so long and been deferred to so often that he thinks he actually is "America", and that much of America thinks that too.
As if he's special just because of who he is rather than what he does. Because that seems profoundly un-American to me.
And it's all something of a worrying thought, that perhaps at least a few of the versions of Captain America that we've seen are actually from the "faith-based" community, where sincerity of thought takes precedence over intellectual preparation and capacity, where a good heart trumps a fine mind every time, and where the "will of the people" translates into "whatever makes me feel good today". It would, however, explain Captain America's decision-making processes in "Civil War", and throw a light on those fortune cookie morals that Stan Lee used to pepper his Cap stories with, such as the following from "Tales Of Suspense" # 74;
"It's over! We've won!! It wasn't all in vain! The world still belongs to the brave --- and the just -- and the free."
Well, ignoring how most of the world - or even most of the United States - in 1966 might have felt about whether their socio-economic situation was justly correlated to their virtue or not, what does Captain America's ability to knock Nazi weaponry out of the sky tell us about his ability to balance the budget, or manage immigration, or organise legitimate opposition to laws already on the statute book?
And could Cap's lack of political nous explain why when, in a moment of staggering impossibility, the United Nations asked the Avengers to " ... lead the World ... " during a "... state of emergency ... " in Avengers # 58, volume II, Geoff Johns had the Captain reply to the invitation with the stirring, inspirational and especially ill-formed undiplomatic words;
"We're ready." (*6)
Boy, that would have gone down as well as President Bush's call for a "crusade" in the Middle East. Can you just imagine the response of at least two-thirds of the UN representatives there when Captain America simply declared that his Avengers were "ready" to take over the world?
Is that the best that Captain America can say at a moment like that? Is it possible that when he looks at the faces of so many people from so many nations, which rightly or wrongly are often suspicious if not openly hostile to America, and immodestly declares that power is something he's ready to take, that he simply doesn't understand how America is seen by so much of the world? (*7) If Ambassador Winant had expressed the interests of the American government in such a way during his time in London during World War II, I can't imagine how the War against Fascism might have gone, nor how the excellent relationship he created against so much opposition between the UK and the USA might otherwise have developed.
It's almost as if, in certain versions of the character, Captain America doesn't actually know anything about politics, about international affairs, about law, and a million other things too. As if just being called Captain America and having been transformed into a "super-soldier" has made him morally invulnerable as well as physically capable.
(*6) How did that get through the Security Council, by the way. Because I can just see France, China and Russia giving the world to Captain America and his mostly American crew, as if nowhere else in the world has competent and organised super-human forces.
(*7) Don't get me wrong. I'm not lining up with the Axis Of Evil. After all, I'm writing a blog about American super-heroes. My broad sympathies should be clear here.
III. Perhaps Captain America's sometimes political naivity and ignorance (*8) can help explain, as I've suggested, his response to the Superhuman Registration Act. It must be that he couldn't truly grasp any of even the broader brushstrokes of political science, and was so lost for alternatives to his treasonous opposition to the SHRA, that he was quickly reduced to snarling and throwing all of his splendidly spangly toys right out of his red-and-white striped pram. For the only explanation for his rebellion is that he acted as he did because he lacked the intellectual arsenal to consider anything other than rebellion and violence. In Ed Brubaker's script in "Captain America" #22, for example, Cap defends his decision to step outside the law and the political process by declaiming that:
"What they're doing is wrong. Plain and simple. They're endangering innocent lives, and destroying the lives of heroes. Men who have bled to make this world a better and safer place."
Now, ignoring that word "men" there, though I'd quite like to lacerate that slip of the tongue, let's take a look at what Cap seems to be saying;
- Laws must not endanger innocent lives. (Laws must protect everyone absolutely who isn't guilty.)
- Laws must not "destroy" the lives of heroes. ("Heroes" defined as "Men who have bled to make this world a better place.")
- It is necessary to break the law if that law is a poor one which endangers innocent lives and/or destroys the lives of heroes. (Including the Punisher, for example, a man whose done alot of bleeding, and some of it from his own veins too.)
And if those points above are the criteria for when a citizen is obliged to break the law violently, then where was Cap during the Detroit insurrection in 1967, or the holocaust of the AIDS epidemic in the '80s when ignorance and prejudice condemned so many American citizens to a cruelly painful and stigmatised death? If his "American Dream" is of the right, then why isn't Cap rising against the abortion laws, or if he's of the centre and the left, then what of the torture in Guantanamo Bay? Why does such a moral principle of necessary violent rebellion only become imperative when his fellow costumed super-heroes are affected?
5. "Democracy Cannot Succeed Unless Those Who Express Their Choice Are Prepared To Choose Wisely. The Real Safeguard Of Democracy, Therefore, Is Education."
I. Every super-hero comic book fan has their favourite Captain America. Even the least enamoured of Cap fans might have a soft spot for the Simon and Kirby original, for example, or Mark Waid's on-the-nose-and traditional take from the '90s. I have to admit to a particular weakness for the Captain America of my youth, the Captain America of the first two-thirds of Steve Engelhart's run, where Cap clearly perceived his constitutional role far more precisely and humanely than the Captain of "Civil War" did. And I will admit that it's to that Captain that I turn here, to his keen sense that his role was to oppose violent oppression while encouraging rational debate and cooperation in a Constitutional framework. Is it shameful for a British citizen to say that I was absolutely inspired by that Captain America? Well, I was so inspired, and I fear to imagine what a young woman or man might take by way of political inspiration from "Civil War". Respect for the law? Belief in the political process? Admiration for peace-makers rather than punch-throwers?
I don't think so.
But that other Steve Rogers of Mr Engelhart, the one who fought the red-baiting Captain America of the 1950s - while declaring "America's in danger from within as well as without! There's organised crime, injustice and fascism, or wouldn't you recognise that?" - would have surely perceived there are obviously so many legitimate and lawful alternatives to violent rebellion that it's beyond belief that any superhero would race from "I don't approve." to "Rebel against the state." without pausing to engage their brains first. And so, just to make the obvious screamingly obvious for the sake of showing how there was no excuse for Captain America's actions, I offer up some quickly-considered alternative strategies to lawless violence which include such outlandish options as;
- seeking out experts in the fields of law and politics to discover whether there were legal means to challenge the SHRA. I can't find any evidence of Captain America searching out any specific help or advice from the academic and professional communities beyond super-hero-ville. (He didn't just throw a big hissy fit and walk out on civil society entirely, did he?)
- actually engaging in the political process, joining a pressure group or political party to agitate for legal reform or to even challenge the Government in the next election. After all, that's actually what democracy is. President Obama and defeated Presidential candidate Gore didn't reach for the sub-machine guns when the Iraq War was begun without United Nations approval, and former-President Bush isn't holed up now in a Texas rebut arming his family and preparing to fight for the right of the nation to use torture on the authority of Presidential whim. Seriously, Cap, that's what democracy is. You put aside the angsty adolescent's inability to wait for what he wants and engage in the marketplace of ideas instead.
- standing for office himself on a single-issue platform. America has elections of national significance every two years. If Cap wanted a say in government, all he had to do was engage in the process and accept the procession of democratic engagement.
- participating in peaceful civil disobedience as Martin Luther King encouraged. If Cap so disapproves of the Law, he might place himself in a position of maximum public visibility and express his opinion. Peacefully.
- resisting the arrogant urge to cluster to himself the right to make and unmake law, choosing instead to leave the country altogether. Yep, that's what some folks do when they can't live under a flag anymore, especially when the government they so despise is still legally constituted. They get up and leave. (In fact, isn't that what so many immigrants to America actually did themselves, and still do?) They don't kill people, or punch people, or smash people through sky-scrapers. They don't rise in rebellion, incorporate psychopaths into their conspiracies, recruit minors into their front lines; they either engage with the process or they leave.
II. And if the counter-argument is that two years following Captain America on the campaign trail wouldn't sell any comics, I'd suggest that the point has been somewhat missed. For the options weren't limited to having, on the one hand, the icon of democratic America portrayed as an anti-democratic, anti-American idiot, and, on the other hand, selling no comic books at all.
There were other options, other stories, and even other ways of telling the same story.
6. "Arbitrary Power Is Most Easily Established On The Ruins Of Liberty Abused To Licentiousness."
This Captain America worries me greatly, this Captain AMERICA of empty soundbite platitudes and ill-considered violent rebellions. He worries me because he seems to be that most dangerous of creatures, an equal mix of ill-considered shallow politics and a knee-jerk willingness to resort to violence before any - let alone all - options have been considered. His patriotism seems to be close to that of Franklin's "scoundrel", separated from demagoguery only by his sincerly good intentions and noble dreams, which means, in real terms, not separated at all.
To Be Continued:
And in part two of this rather obvious and sincere love-letter to American democracy, I'll be asking how it is that Captain America ended up as a character who could be cast as the antagonist of "Civil War", and what Mr Brubaker and Mr Hitch's "Reborn" offers us in the way of an honourable exit strategy from the Cap who declares, in "Civil War" # 4, to Tony Stark, in what seems like his best considered statement of purpose in the whole series; "You really think I'm going down, to some pampered punk like you?"
I hope that I might see your unpampered - if perhaps punkish - selves there.
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