cap_ironman | Soo... does anyone know if this means what I think it does???

Holy... shit.

... -remembers- Didn't they say they're bringing back Cap and the Invaders back from WWII into the modern timeline...? >>;;; Unless that happened already but... yeah.

I didn't think the regular books were going to crossover with Avengers/Invaders (the first one has come out, btw).

Did you read #38? I think that explained it.

I'm not sure if you want spoilers so, just in case, a bunch of spoiler space:

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I'm 99% sure it's not Steve, alas. It's the 50's Cap, who is horribly burn scarred and was preserved and healed (enough to live) by Doctor Faustus, who has now brainwashed him into thinking he's the "true" Captain America and that Bucky is unworthy of the title and must be killed.

Aw. That sucks... I was waiting for my hopeful June.

I guess hoping for four caps at once was too much.

My comic shop guy, who usually has pretty good dirt, said it was Steve.

Yeah, but which Steve? There were TWO guys named Steve Rogers who wore a Cap uniform after all ;)

We've already got so many versions of Cap running around 616-verse that it's silly. There's this Cap, Bucky!Cap, Cap-from-1944 (in Avengers/Invaders), and what's-up-with-this-Cap? from Secret Invasion. I think that's all of them... I said to

aureliapriscus last night, Cap's dead and yet he's appearing more than ever!

sigh.....

it's really ridiculous... i forget who i said this too... i think it was lan... but Cap is like Marvel crack! they let us get him in little bursts and we just keep coming back for more...

IT'S AN ABUSIVE RELATIONSHIP MARVEL AND I WILL NOT STAND FOR IT!

::goes to buy moar comics::

sigh.....

IT'S AN ABUSIVE RELATIONSHIP MARVEL AND I WILL NOT STAND FOR IT!

It's so true! They love to torture us.

I almost wish they'd have no Cap at all until they bring Steve back. All these notSteve!Caps just make me grumpy because it Cap but it's not Cap.

Sadly, it's almost certainly just Brubaker being a dick, and 90% sure to not actually be Steve -- according to this month's Captain America, it's the crazy guy they used as a temporary replacement for Steve in the 50s, brainwashed into thinking he's the real Captain America.

Honestly? I don't see Cap coming back for a few years. Bendis loves the character, clearly, but he's trying to establish yet another New Marvel Order, post Secret Invasion. I estimate we've got a few more years of an MU with shifting centers of power. I could be completely wrong, but I think it's smarter for Marvel, from both a story-telling and marketing perspective, to give Bucky a chance to develop as New Cap, and for the long-term impacts of Steve's death to crop up.

That's not to say that I don't want him back, because I do. ;)

Edited 2008-05-29 15:03 (UTC)

I could have sworn I'd actually read somewhere that Bendis planned originally to have Steve be a pretty significant part of the storyline he's doing now - before Brubaker killed him off. For one thing, he was clearly headed in the direction of reassembling the Avengers, something he now can't really do until/unless Steve comes back. he could put together a team, but it wouldn't really be the Avengers in spirit.

Whatever they intend to do, Marvel really needs to stop deliberately tricking fans into thinking they're going to give them what they want and then taking it back again. The more they pull stunts like this promo ad (and the Alex Ross cover for Avengers vs. Invaders, and a skrull Cap showing up in the Savage Land, and every thing else they've done to give fans a moment or a few weeks of hope before dashing it again), the more disenchanted and irritated their readers are going to get. Right now, Steve's still one of their most popular characters (as witnessed by all of the miniseries they keep pitching involving him), and just the sugestion that they might be getting real Steve back is enough to get many fans to buy a comic, but Marvel can only play "boy who cried wolf" so many times before fans' annoyance at being cheated over and over will start outweighing the momentary boost in sales caused by each stunt (and those single-issue sales boosts will eventually stop as well, because fans will start expecting a cheap trick and not bothering).

*sighs* With the exception of Marvel Adventures and Thor, comics have gone from being something I loved enough that Wednesday was my favorite day of the week, and something I could gleefully bond with my girlfriend over, to something I have to painfully force myself to read, because the possiblity of a light at the end of the tunnel gets more remote every month. I don't know that I can hold out "several years."

I also think waiting that long would be a mistake as far as the individual Captain America title goes. The title's sales have been steadily dropping - it went down over thirty places on Marvel's "copies sold" list the month Bucky put on the costume, and it hasn't gained any readers back. My sole hope is that sales on Captsain America will drop low enough that Marvel will be forced to pull Brubaker off the title and replace him with someone else who will bring Steve back (since I'm starting to doubt Brubaker ever will -- not since it became obvious that the whole storyline's basically an excuse to put his Mary Sue in the costume and have him replace Steve as the main character. And to think I used to actually respect his writing).

Well, that and that if they really want to do a Captain America movie in 2011 and be able to promote it via the comics/sell comics through it the way they have with Spiderman and Iron Man, they're going to need Steve (real Steve) back in 616 canon by then.

*eyes post* This was originally three times as long, until I cut the worst of the ranting out -- I didn't realize I had so much anger and resentment towards Brubaker in me until I started typing.

*eyes post as well*

::applauds you::

i really really hope he's back for his 2011 movie... i don't even care anymore if it doesn't make much sense i just want Cap back please.

IAWTC. Enough already Marvel, bring Real!Steve back.

Marvel really needs to stop deliberately tricking fans into thinking they're going to give them what they want and then taking it back again.

I agree with you, because it's never a good idea to piss off your fanbase. As Bendis said recently regarding the Spider-Woman series that never was, it's not a good idea to sell people something they weren't intending to buy - there's a kind of unspoken contract between creator and audience, and if you jump the shark too many times, and needle your audience too many times, eventually you alienate them completely.

I think that right now, all the Cap-centric marketing initiatives and appearances are motivated by 'OMG THIS WOULD BE SO COOL' but it won't take much for them to go over the line and start to deliberately strong along the audience, in a frankly mean spirited way. There are a lot of fanboy creators who hate fanboys. Some of them are infamous for this. fwiw I don't think that Marvel is deliberately trying to piss off fans, or even string them along. At the moment.

I'm still enjoying comics, but not the big flagship books. I don't bother to buy either Avengers title. Occasionally I'll download them, if something interesting happens, but I can't justify spending money on something that I don't like. It's all too decompressed and 'cool' for me. Marvel Adventures continues to be awesome, though. I find that if I stay away from the events, and team books, I enjoy comics so much more, and don't get bogged down in the idiocy of editorial snafus and bad characterization.

Re Captain America - I think this title is still solid and will get a serious push from SI. From the previews, it looks like Bucky Cap will play a role in the event, and may fight alongside IM and Thor. It looks like Bendis has reformulated his reassembling plans to take into account Steve's death. Bendis quite likes the character, and he and Bru are friends, so I'm sure they worked it all out. (Bru even gives Bendis a shout out in his thank you page, in Criminal). Once Bucky Cap has appeared in a major event, and has been exposed to a wider audience, I have a feeling that the book's numbers will improve. Bucky Cap is exactly the kind of character to appeal to today's comic reading base. ie. 18-25 yr old males with disposable income, and love for all things hip and street.

I still respect Bru. His work on Captain America continues to be good, even though, as you say, he doesn't seem to be planning on bringing him back anytime soon. Still, even if Bru doesn't bring him back, someone will. It's inevitable. I don't know, I guess my thing is that I'm happy to wait for Steve's resurrection, as long as I need to, in order for it to be a good story, not motivated by 'OMG so cool!' I'd rather have a good story about Steve's return later, that a shitty one now.

Re the Cap movie - I tend to think of a Cap movie as being an inherently dodgey proposition. They've tried it twice before, and screwed it up both times. It's only going to work if they get the same kind of fantastic creative team as they did on IM, and if everyone exercises a LOT of restraint. But yeah, they'll most likely bring Steve back a bit before the movie, in order to cross-promote. One scenario I can see working for them in terms of marketing, is bringing him back just before the movie is released, and then having the movie be about Steve getting thawed out. That way they can have two Man Out of Time stories going at the same time. Works just like Fraction's IIM is supposed (but totally doesn't).

Anyway, rant away! I'm always happy to hear other fans opinions, and I'm not going to be offended. ;)

I'd rather have a good story about Steve's return later, that a shitty one now.

I'm more like a fanboy I suppose - I don't care how it's done, I just want him back as soon as possible. Inexplicable glowing pod on the ocean floor a la Jean Grey would be fine by me.

The other disappointing thing about the whole Fake!Bucky!Cap storyline is that it's ruined Bucky for me. I used to really like Bucky and Winter Soldier, but now I'm with those fanboys who resent him and want hom to die in a fire. Anything, just as long as he gets the hell out of a costume that no one but Steve will ever have the right to wear.

Much as I once liked him, characters like Bucky!Cap/Winter Soldier are a dime a dozen (oooh, I'm violent. Oooh, I'm an assassin. Ooooh, I have dark, broody angst and guns, like the Punisher's mini-me), but Steve is something much more unique (plus, he doesn't need guns to kick ass).

It probably doesn't help that I loathe legacies in general with a burning passion. Putting a different character in a dead character's costume sends the massage that the costume is all that mattered, and that the characters are interchangeable and disposable. It's a sign that the writers don't really respect the characters or the fans. It's also a DC tradition, not a Marvel one, and the relative lack of legacies was something I previously respected Marvel for and one of the reasons I always preferred them to DC.

Much as I once liked him, characters like Bucky!Cap/Winter Soldier are a dime a dozen

Oh, absolutely. They're seriously popular though, and easy to write, which is why writers so often fall back on them.

Steve is most definitely the more interesting character.

It probably doesn't help that I loathe legacies in general with a burning passion.

Once in a while it's done well, but more often than not, it's pretty egregious. I'm not a legacy person either and that's been one of the things I've disliked in DC. Black Canary is imho an example of how to do it right - make the characters distinct, but respectful of each other and don't trash one of them in order to promote the other.

One thing Bru has done right is always respect the Steve part of Captain America.

But I totally understand where you're coming from.

Soo... does anyone know if this means what I think it does???

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