The Falcon and the Winter Soldier Episode 2: The Star-Spangled Man

It’s John Walker. At the end of last week’s Falcon and the Winter Soldier, all Marvel Comics readers of a certain age immediately knew he was the new Captain America, and this week’s episode confirms it.

 

Walker has a long history in Captain America comics. He took over the role from Steve Rogers in 1987. At the time, Steve was asked to report to the Federal Commission on Superhuman Activities and refused, wanting to be loyal only to his country and not to bureaucracy. He turned in his shield and the government offered the Captain America identity to Walker, who had just saved some hostages.

 

John Walker is basically the asshole version of Steve Rogers. In the TV show, he came off kind of annoying but he was more abrasive and extreme in the comics. The main difference between the two men is Walker is more loyal to the government while Rogers is more loyal to the country. Walker has low-level super strength, in contrast to Rogers, whose Super Soldier serum gave him the greatest strength possible for a human to achieve, but nothing superhuman. (I always thought the message of that was important: That Cap was not a god but a normal person who excelled to the highest of his natural ability, something that could inspire other people to live up to their potential.)

 

Walker was Captain America for a few years. His partner was Battlestar, the same as on the show. Battlestar was originally named Bucky, on the theory that a Captain America needs a Bucky, but they changed the name after readers commented on the racist origins of calling a Black man Bucky. During this time, Steve Rogers called himself The Captain and super-heroed in a variation of his original costume. (This wasn’t the first time Steve became disillusioned and quit. In the ‘70s, shortly after Watergate, he fought the Secret Empire, a nefarious group that had infiltrated the government. This culminated in the group’s leader, Number One, shooting himself. They never showed Number One’s face but it’s heavily implied that this was President Richard Nixon who killed himself in the White House, which is pretty messed up. Steve was understandably traumatized by this and he became the superhero Nomad for a short time.) Rogers soon took back the Captain America identity, while Walker became US Agent, dressing in a variation of his Cap costume. The government mandated that he join Avengers West Coast, which pissed off everybody on the team (because Walker was a pain in the ass without the leadership skills of Steve), especially Hawkeye, who stomped out in a huff and quit the team.

 

John Walker is one of seven people who has subbed for Captain America when Steve was unavailable or presumed dead. Both the Winter Soldier and the Falcon have wielded the shield in recent times—the former when Steve was presumed dead and the latter after Steve retired. But a few obscure names also took up the shield in the ‘40s and ‘50s, although they were retconned in.

 

The original Captain America comic ran from 1940–1950 before being cancelled, like many other superhero comics, due to a moral panic against comics. The Avengers discovered Cap frozen in the ice in Avengers #4 in 1964, and we find out that he had been there in suspended animation after being shot down at the end of World War II. How does this explain that the original comic ran until 1950? Marvel explained that two men, William Nasland and Jeff Mace, took up the shield and served as Captain America while Steve was on ice. Nasland was also known as the superhero Spirit of ’76, and Mace was the hero the Patriot, also appearing on TV in a different capacity in Agents of SHIELD. In the ‘50s, while the Captain America comic was on hiatus, Stan Lee tried to revive it, so a fake Cap, William Burnside, ran around briefly with the shield, fighting communists. Burnside had taken the Super Soldier serum without any precautions and ended up psychotic. He later became the fascist Grand Director, who seemingly killed Sharon Carter in the ‘70s. Burnside’s partner was James Monroe, known as the new Bucky in the ‘50s. Monroe later became the new Nomad and was Cap’s (Steve’s) partner in the ‘80s.

 

Then we have Isaiah Bradley, who Sam and Bucky met this week. In the comics, Bradley was retconned in 2003 as the Black Captain America. The government experimented on him (in a reference to the Tuskegee experiments) and Bradley took up the identity of Cap and destroyed the Nazi Super Soldier program. He’s unknown to most of the general public but Marvel’s Black citizens and superheroes revere him. On TV, he’s understandably bitter after serving 30 years in prison even after serving his country. Living with him is his grandson Elijah, who in the comics was the Patriot of the Young Avengers (along with Wanda’s kids).

 

It was painful seeing Bradley treated so badly by his country. This is the first hint of real-world racism in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Sam gets a taste of it when the police stop him for no reason and then let him go, delighted at having recognized him as the Falcon (but if he hadn’t been a celebrity, they would have been fine with arresting him). This scene was tonal whiplash so close to the later scene where Sam and Bucky have that goofy therapy session with knees in crotches.

 

More on Zemo, who also has quite a history, next week.

 

 

The Falcon and the Winter Soldier Episode 1: New World Order

Sure, why not. Nothing better to write about. These aren't so much recaps or reviews as an excuse for me to talk about comics. As we pick up the story with two Captain America–adjacent characters, we find the Falcon retiring Cap’s shield to the Smithsonian and having problems with his family’s seafood business. The Winter Soldier is having flashbacks to his time as a Hydra assassin.

 

Who is the Falcon in the comics? Sam Wilson took on the superhero mantle in 1969 in Captain America, making him one of Marvel’s first Black superheroes. He was a loooonngtime associate and ally of Cap’s and for awhile in the ‘70s, the two were co-billed in Captain America comics. The Falcon joined the Avengers in the late ‘70s when the government criticized the whiteness of the team and told them to recruit a Black member. However, the Falcon felt like a token on the team, so he left after too long. He would occasionally return to active Avengers duty in emergencies.

 

The Falcon doesn’t have any powers but in the comics he does wear a suit of wings, similar to in the movies. In the comics, Redwing is an actual falcon that Sam trains and has a rapport with, so while the living Redwing may not have all the technological capabilities of the mechanical one on TV, real falcons will mess you up, making him pretty handy in battle. 

 

On the first episode of The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, Sam is dealing with money problems, like everybody else, exacerbated after he was missing for five years. He and his sister and trying to get a loan and save their family’s seafood business. (Did I miss something or did they leave takeout orders of shellfish unrefrigerated in the cab of their pickup while at the bank?) The Louisiana connection comes straight from the TV show; in the comics Sam was from Harlem and was sort of the protector of the neighborhood.

 

The Falcon noted that the Avengers only were paid in exposure and goodwill, but didn’t make any money for saving the world. In the comics, the Avengers got a paycheck, presumably from Tony Stark, and could also live at Avengers Mansion if they wanted, saving themselves the cost of New York City rents. I don’t know what they made in modern times but in 1983, that salary was about $52,000. I know this because Spider-Man ran into She-Hulk on the street in an Avengers comic, and she told him she made $1,000 a week (not sure if this was net or gross). This made the perpetually broke Peter Parker want to join the team. A thousand a week may not be much of a salary today for saving the world and living in New York, but it was more in 1983, and Marvel’s sliding timescale makes the comparison meaningless anyway. The point was, they did make some money, although some of the Avengers had side jobs. Captain America was a commercial artist. Thor, as Don Blake, was a doctor. The Wasp was a model and fashion designer and was an heiress anyway. So they all did OK.

 

Anyway, the Winter Soldier’s story in the comics was basically the same as in the movies. James “Bucky” Barnes was Cap’s partner during World War II and died in the mission that left Cap in suspended animation in the ice. Cap thought Bucky was dead but didn’t know the Soviets brainwashed him and would use him as an assassin and send him back into suspended animation when they didn’t need him, or when his memory resurfaced. For decades, Marvel Comics had an informal rule: The only characters who didn’t come back from the dead were Uncle Ben and Bucky (and I guess Gwen Stacy). When Bucky resurfaced in 2004, everybody liked the story, as it wasn’t cheap and made sense of Bucky’s story and legacy. He later overcame his programming and became an ally of Captain America.

 

In the show, the Winter Soldier is coming to terms with his time as an assassin and making amends to the people he hurt. At first, I thought his friendship with the old man was sweet, since as a 106-year-old man out of time, he probably can’t identify with any young people. Then I realized he befriended the man because he killed his grandson and the friendship became something darker.

 

A few minor Captain America villains appeared on the first episode. Batroc the Leaper is pretty straightforward in the comics: He’s an acrobat who likes to kick people in the face, who speaks with a French accent full of “zis” and “zat.” He wasn’t meant to be taken seriously in the comics, and nobody did. One thing I remember Batroc doing in an old issue of Captain America was team up with Mr. Hyde (Daisy’s father from Agents of SHIELD) to hijack a ship with a nuke onboard, which they were going to detonate in New York Harbor, a plot Cap foiled. The Flag Smashers in the comics are the Flag Smasher, a guy who objected to nationalism and borders and fought Captain America in the ‘80s.

 

Also, I know who the new Captain America is, and his comics background, but I’m not going to tell you until next week.

Pants for Schlubs

I read recently that the Millennials and Generation Z are starting to fight over their cultural signifiers. I don’t particularly care who comes out on top during this tempest in a teapot but there is one thing about this battle that amuses me: The fight over skinny jeans.

 

Apparently one of the generations (I guess it’s Generation Z but I’m too lazy to check because I only really care about this as a springboard for strip-mining content to fuel this sad-sack blog) does not approve of the other generation’s skinny jeans. They are fed up—fed up, I tells ya!—with their forefathers’ clingy denim. Fed up like Howard Beale. Someone made a comment about skinny jeans on TikTok or whatever the hell it is, and it was on. Many indignant responses ensued.

 

This entertains me because I’m so far removed from caring about fashion on that level. These days, you know what excites me in fashion? That I recently was at Target and finally found the correct pant size for me in their house-brand pants. So now I don’t have to try on anything. I can just find my size, pay and leave. Yay!

 

It had been distressing to see so many pants at Target labeled “skinny” or “slim.” I am neither skinny nor slim. I am an overweight middle-aged man. I just want pants for regular schlubs like myself. (I love the “Athletic” size. Just say “Fat.” You mean “Fat.”) I couldn’t care less whether it’s fashionable to wear skinny or slim jeans. I’m not going to look like hell to look fashionable, you know?

 

It’s not that I don’t care what I wear or look like. I know what colors and styles I like, as well as which fashion trends I would look awful in. I like mixing and matching and holding onto items for awhile so I try not to get too trendy. It’s just that at this stage of my life, if someone made a commercial for the types of clothes I wear, the slogan for the brand would be, “When you don’t care.”

 

The generation battle extends from pants to hairstyles. I’m also hearing that one of the generations despises the other generation’s side part. This is also hilarious to me since I’ve basically had the same hairstyle since 1988.

 

I think it’s idiocy when generations fight each other wielding the broadest paintbrushes they can find. Young people saying “OK, Boomer,” is not the devastating comeback some people think it is; it’s just glib and dimwitted. People younger than my Generation X probably blame us for not tackling or preventing some of their problems but that’s an oversimplification. On the other hand, it’s also an oversimplification when Generation X looks down their nose at Millennials and Generation Z.

 

One thing that never goes out of style is that people always blame their parents’ generation for their problems. So while Generation Z is railing at Millennials for skinny jeans or side parts, or more serious things, I hope they realize their kids will find a whole raft of problems to blame on Generation Z.

 

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to tie an onion to my belt and yell at a cloud.

All I Want to Do

All I want to do is cram into some well-worn dive bar with any friend who will come out. Have a few scotches and not care who is breathing into my space.

 

All I want to do is order the smoked salmon appetizer with the medium-rare T-bone. Maybe cheesecake if I’m up for dessert. Talk with my husband and know we can some back whenever we want.

 

All I want to do is sweat and scream and sing along to the greatest hits on the setlist. Feel the bass rumble through my hips and dance until my knees creak.

 

All I want to do is show up fashionably late with hors d’oeuvres and talk all night with my friends, unwary of hugs or handshakes.

 

All I want to do is sit down at the dining room table with everyone and dig into Mom’s roast beef. To read to my nephew again. To watch my son sit in Dad’s old recliner. To all be together again under one roof.

WandaVision Episode 9: The Series Finale

So I have some questions about “The Series Finale.” What is the status of the white Vision? Our Vision transferred his consciousness into the desaturated synthezoid so isn’t he technically still out there? In the comics, the rebuilt Vision desaturated his green and yellow costume because he thought the white made him look more spectral, like a vision. He was drained of emotion but eventually regained it, so maybe there’s hope the love between the Vision and Scarlet Witch will survive.

 

I love the tear the Vision shed when he left. This was a reference to the Avengers #58 story, “Even an Android Can Cry,” when the supposedly emotionless Vision cries when the Avengers offer him membership.

 

It was emotional watching the Scarlet Witch make the right decision in letting her husband and children go. To do otherwise would mean holding the innocent people captive, and an Avenger wouldn’t do that. Those kids were imaginary but they were real to her and although it broke her heart to let them go, Wanda did the right thing. Of course, the people still resent her. That’s how it is in the comics: people hate mutants no matter how many times they save the world. The Transian villagers hated Wanda in the comics when she was starting out and lost control of her powers.

 

Another question: What are Monica’s powers? She seemed to be able to perceive mystical energy but then she also transformed into energy like in the comics. Monica is much more science-based than magic-based, but I guess mystical energy is just another form of energy that she’s be able to see. It was funny when Pietro kept her captive because in the comics, Monica would have laughed in his face. Quicksilver is pretty fast but Monica can move at the speed of light. I’m very pleased we’ll be seeing more of Monica, no matter what code name she takes.

 

It turns out there was nobody above Agatha Harkness and she was acting on her own accord against Wanda. I think it’s for the best, as it would have been distracting for there to be too much hierarchy pulling the strings. The irony is that in the real world, the accused women of Salem didn’t deserve the treatment they got. But Agatha was pretty evil, so that kind of proved the point of the intolerant people in that community. I mean, I wouldn’t burn anybody at the stake, but I think they were right to be concerned. I was disappointed that Agatha turned out to be a straight-up villain, as I wish her motivations mad been more complicated. I think this is the first instance of a comics hero in Marvel becoming a movie villain. Still, Kathryn Hahn’s performance was just too delicious to pass up.

 

I was concerned about Wanda’s punishment for Agatha. It was a satisfying taste of her own medicine but it did seem a little harsh. It reminded me of what Phoenix did to Mastermind. In the Dark Phoenix Saga in X-Men comics, the illusion caster Mastermind (coincidentally one of the original Brotherhood of Evil Mutants with the Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver) had psychically manipulated Jean Grey, causing her to lose control of her vast powers and become the corrupt Dark Phoenix. When Jean found out what Mastermind did to her in the pursuit of power, she said, “You want power? Oh, I’ll give you power, little man.” She then expanded Mastermind’s consciousness so he could see the totality of the universe like she could. He couldn’t handle it and was catatonic for a time.

 

This demonstrated a few things: Jean achieved a serious level of power, she had done something morally questionable (she had been morally shaky for some time and this was the last thing she did before going full Dark Phoenix), and she had evolved to the point where she meted out her own higher level of justice. I see similarities in the way the Scarlet Witch imprisoned her own foe in her own creation, so I wonder if they’re suggesting she’s on a similar slippery moral slope. At the end, we see Wanda splitting off her astral form (while living in Mount Wundagore?) so part of her could study the Darkhold. That other side of her looked evil, and appearances definitely have meaning in comics: When Phoenix went evil, her costume changed to red. I mean, Wanda looked great in the headpiece and the red outfit, but it looked a little like it was edging into something darker.

 

The Darkhold, as its name implies, is not a force for good. It’s Marvel’s evil book of spells and it had previously been a big part of Agents of SHIELD. The book is very dangerous and you basically forfeit your soul if you try to use it. In Marvel Comics, you basically don’t even open it. During a conflict with Dracula, Doctor Strange was once able read the Montesi Formula, a Darkhold spell, to destroy Earth’s vampires (they later came back), in a story in 1983 that coincidentally co-starred the Scarlet Witch and Monica as Captain Marvel. Doctor Strange was powerful enough to resist the corrupting influence of the Darkhold but who knows what the effect on Wanda would be. She’s powerful but relatively untrained. Her powers are more instinctual.

 

So after all the speculation, there was no Mephisto, no Nightmare, no Doctor Strange, no Reed Richards, no X-Men. All those things were just what comic book readers projected onto it. It’s a lot of fun looking for Easter eggs and speculating and talking about classic Marvel comics but ultimately, the most important thing about the show was just the text.

 

In the end, WandaVision was a poignant look at grief, with great performances by Elizabeth Olsen and Paul Bettany, and a deeper look into my some of my favorite Avengers characters.

Firsts

Three years ago this week, just ahead of a nor’easter, we set eyes on you for the first time.

 

Our greeting: A handshake and a “Nice to meet you” instead of cradling and cooing. Your first words: “What’s your Wi-Fi password?” instead of repeating one of our simple syllables. Your first feeding not formula and your first sleep not in a crib: We sat down to pizza and later you slept huddled against winter in the room we decorated in the hopes of finally finding you.

 

We came in a little late to this movie. We did not mark a first step or word, did not get to see your eyes light up with every recognition of what is possible in a world much bigger than you thought.

 

But there are firsts as yet untold and we met you just in time for them. And we get a front row seat now to watch you outgrow T-shirt sizes and see you get a little closer every day to the man you are quickly becoming.

WandaVision Episode 8: Previously On

With the sitcoms no longer running, this was the first episode of WandaVision that looked and felt totally like a Marvel movie. Agatha Harkness takes Wanda on a trip through her own mind to see what makes her tick. Some of the way Agatha talked to Wanda reminded me of a therapist talking to a patient. Maybe she is trying to help Wanda or stop her from abusing her powers. Agatha could simply be evil, but given her heroism in the comics, maybe there’s more going on here.  

 

Wanda relives her childhood in Sokovia when her parents used DVDs of sitcoms to try to soothe her and Pietro during the war. (It bothers me that they had to invent the fictional nation of Sokovia and call her father Oleg. If they’re making up names anyway, why not go with the comics’ nation of Transia and call her father Django? It would be a pleasant little Easter egg for fans.) We witness the bombing that kills the Maximoff parents (oddly, this was very similar to Storm’s origin, except set in Eastern Europe instead of North Africa) and the bomb that doesn’t explode. We see Wanda’s exposure to the Mind Stone with a silhouette of a woman wearing the classic Scarlet Witch headpiece in the background (or is it the elder god Chthon?). We see Wanda mourning Pietro’s death with the Vision, as her consoles her with the lovely, deeply moving line “What is grief if not love persevering?” (Shades of “Sometimes It Snows in April” here.) Then after the Vision dies, Wanda goes to SWORD to get his body back, but it’s already been disassembled. In her grief, she creates a new Vision and a new town of Westview.

 

Agatha confirms two significant things about the Scarlet Witch’s power: She created a probability hex that disarmed the Stark bomb, and now her power is chaos magic. These reflect the greater understanding of her powers in the comics. (It bothers me that she has telepathy because she didn’t in the comics. It also bothers me that she can fly because the comics were adamant that she could not. But I guess I’m a curmudgeon about these things.) Wanda finally gets her Scarlet Witch moniker.

 

This episode had references to the comics that were blatant and subtle. The most obvious was the scene with the disassembled, desaturated Vision, a direct reference to the Avengers West Coast story in 1989. A few years before, while recuperating from an attack, the Vision had tapped into the powerful computer ISAAC. He then developed a delusion of grandeur that he could bring peace and prosperity to the world, so he gained control of the computers of world governments. The Avengers brought him to his senses and the Vision and Scarlet Witch left the team to start a family. The world governments were content to let him be but once he rejoined the team, his knowledge of government secrets was a threat, so they kidnapped him with the unwitting help of the Avenger Mockingbird, physically disassembled him and erased his Wonder Man–derived personality. The Avengers rescued him.

 

More subtle was the home in the background of the scene when Wanda hexes Westview, which looked a lot like the Maximoff home in Leonia, NJ in the comics. The whole way each person or object in Westview became an analogue of itself reminded me of Uncanny X-Men #190–191 in 1984. The sorcerer Kulan Gath transformed New York City into an ancient city of barbarians, and the X-Men, Avengers, Spider-Man and Doctor Strange had to stop him. The Scarlet Witch did something similar in the 1997 Avengers reboot, when Morgan le Fay used her power to transform a small pocket of the world into medieval times. This gave the Avengers medieval costumes and names, which was pretty cool. During this story, the Scarlet Witch’s dramatically boosted powers allowed her to recreate the deceased Wonder Man, which reminded me of her recreation of the Vision. Finally, the way the Vision spoke so poetically of love and grief was reminiscent of the comics, in which he constantly longed to have a real human body but was often one of the most soulful members of the Avengers.

 

Why haven’t the Avengers intervened following the Vision’s death? In the comics, every time the Vision was offline, they got all the team’s scientists, like Tony Stark, T’Challa and Hank Pym, to put him back together. There is no way the Avengers would let SWORD or SHIELD or anybody else hold his body. They would have marched in there and just taken his body, with any objections met by a terrifying glare by Captain America or Thor bringing down lightning and yelling, “I SAY THEE NAY!” The Avengers of the comics fought and bickered among themselves but in the end, they were a family, and they would have seen the Vision’s deactivation as family business. This brings home the fact that the Avengers of the movies are not as tight as those in the comics, at least not yet.