Stephen Colbert sat down with Joe Quesada and joked through the confirmation that Sam Wilson, nee The Falcon will be the New Captain America, or as Colbert suggested, “Captain African-American.” This was necessitated because Cap was artificially aged so people could feed him Ensure due to Rick Remender’s disgusting geriatric fetish***. In a burst of innovation, the new book will be called All-New Captain America, and Remender and Stuart Immonenn will be the team…but Carlos Pacheco designed the new Cap’s spiffy new togs. The new team did their first interview on Marvel.com:
“While Sam shares many of Steve’s beliefs in a general sense, he’s also a very different person with a very different background,” adds editor Tom Brevoort, “He didn’t grow up in the 1930s, he’s a modern day man in touch with the problems of the 21st Century. For most of his professional life, Sam has worked as a social worker, so he’s seen the worst of urban society up close, and how crime, poverty, lack of social structure and opportunity can affect the community. So he’s got perhaps a greater focus on the plight of the common man, and perhaps a greater empathy for the underprivileged than maybe even Steve himself. He’s also not a military man, so he’s more apt to be instinctively skeptical of any situation that calls for just following orders. Sam, like Steve, will be led by his personal morality and beliefs as to what is right and what is wrong—and where his beliefs may differ in their shading from those of the previous Cap are where the interesting stories will be found.”
In a third assault on Avengers normalcy, EW revealed that Iron Man is getting a superior makeover in a series by Tom Tayler and Yildiray Cinar:
In November, Superior Iron Man #1 sends Tony Stark to San Francisco with a new outfit and a new perspective on life. “The Genius Bar costume is there for a reason,” Marvel editor-in-chief Axel Alonso tells EW. “The newly-transformed Superior Iron Man has very ambitious plans for the city that some of its residents embrace, but not all.” Comic book fans will note the very pointed addition of the word “Superior” to the title. The last time that happened, it was Superior Spider-Man, and Doctor Octopus took over Peter Parker’s brain. Doc Ock won’t be invading Tony’s frontal lobe, but Alonso does note, “Like the Superior Spider-Man, Superior Iron Man is a character that’s hard to root for.” In a series written by Tom Taylor and drawn by Yildiray Cinar.
Obvs. we’ll have more to say about this when we’ve had some much needed sleep, but three things jump out:
A) Nice way to handle the news cycle, Marvel. Beats the days when you broke everything on Newsarama.
B) While obviously white men Thor and Cap will be back at some point—reinforcing the narrative of the white male hero—the diversity of Lady Thor and AfAm Captain America shouldn’t be swept aside either. The emerging fandom has been calling for diversity and here it is. Now, I would like to see more diversity BEHIND the page at Marvel, but overall let’s praise the step towards inclusion.
C) That said, comic book heroes are always turning into other things, getting skin conditions, moving to new dimensions, losing limbs and so on. The Shocking appearance of change! When all is said and done these will be remembered as stories, first and foremost, and that’s how it should be.
*** kidding
Sheesh, all diversity driven, but you really can’t replace the original characters. Thor a woman, Captain America an African-American. What’s next, Iron Man, a cross dresser, and Spider-Man the Korean?
Maybe they should just invent more cool heroes and introduce the diversity that way? Inferno looks like a promising new hero, who seems to be Hispanic.
“What’s next, Iron Man, a cross dresser, and Spider-Man the Korean?”
I’d buy both of those comics, though I think the Iron Maiden one would top the list.
But yeah, new heroes strike me as the better proposition. The problem is that in the era of multi-media synergy, the big 2 would be taking a big risk trying to get traction out of a new creation, at least where potential legal claims are concerned. And any creator with a great idea for a new character (of any stripe) would be silly to give them over to Disney or Warner. If you want innovation, look elsewhere. But diversity is possible even within the narrow parameters of Marvel and DC legacy characters.
If I had the chance to ask the Marvels powers that be a single question, it’d be this: “This is because Tumblr is in love with Anthony Mackie, isn’t it?”
@Dave – so what if they did become that? You’ve heard of legacy characters, no?
Lame, invent a new character if you want more diversity
Spider-Man the Korean?
Mark Millar already did this one in his Ultimate Avengers series that followed the Ultimates. If I remember right the character was also supposedly able to talk anyone into suicide.
That said, the replacing of the lead with another character is pretty common for Captain America and Thor. Remember US Agent and Thunderstrike? They did this same thing as recently as 2011 when Bucky replaced Cap and What’s His Name replaced Thor for like two issues after Fear Itself.
1. I really hope that this is a solid story and not just a gimmick to garner publicity and increase sales. As a long time comic reader, we all know that this is a short term thing before the inevitable headline of “Cap Returns!” (Um, Cap was dead, how long ago???)
2. It really makes sense from a character standpoint that Sam got a turn. Good for him. Not from left field at all. And I mean that non-sarcastically.
3. I wonder what Kyle Baker thinks about all this? Especially the statements of “Cap has never been black before.” Um. Truth, anyone?
My greatest concern is that Tony Stark moving to San Francisco will upend any plans Mark Waid has for Daredevil. Other than that possibility, this all looks fun to me.
Remember fun?
The House of Original Idea is truly over and done. Steve Rogers has lost the serum and is old now. I think I already read this “back in the day” with Captain America #291 (thereabouts) which led to a superb finale with the battle between Cap and the Red Skull in Captain America #300 and #301 where Cap returned to normal. And Marvel wonders why I stopped buying their shit.
It’s a back-door pilot.
The “new” version gets the spotlight. Marvel tests a new character, created in-house, and if worthwhile, spins it off, or moves it over into a team book.
DC did this with Batwoman in Detective.
Marvel did it before with Captain America/The Captain/U.S. Agent.
John Byrne did it with Alpha Flight.
white people
Fond as I am of Sam, there are other black men associated with Cap– and sadly, Marvel seems to have forgotten them… I’ll always love Eli if they don’t, tho’. :(
This feels like a rather hollow gesture when it comes to diversifying the line, since this is obviously a temp move. I suspect both Thor and Steve will be back to status quo by the time Avengers 2 comes out. So that’ll be what? About two trades worth of material each for nuThor and Sam? I don’t think it’s worth getting het up about because there is some definite positive aspect to all this, but I’m not inclined to go crazy applauding it either.
You know what’s funny about this? There were a certain contingent of people whining about the Thor announcement, that it was sexist because it was a woman taking a male characters name and how it subjugated female identity and why can’t we get original female characters with agency. What those people don’t get is that argument by default is inherently entitled and racist because just as it says we can’t have a SHE Hulk or a Spider WOMAN, it also says we can’t have a black Nick Fury because he’s not the REAL nick fury, he’s just the BLACK nick fury. There’s a variety of reasons why creating original characters in the big two environment is a problem for creators and I don’t want to wait for diversity on the timetable of those arguing we should wait for companies to give us original diverse characters rather than having a female version of a male hero or a black version of a white hero because AGENCY! It’s taken decades but She-Hulk is her own character, Spider-Woman is her own character, Batgirl is her own character. A black Nick Fury is now accepted as is Miles Morales Spider-Man. These are iconic characters, once white males, who are now women and people of color. It’s more important for women and minorities to take up that mantle than to wait for an “original character” slot to debut in. I love what Image is doing and their diversity, but lets face it, not a single Image character, with the possible exception of Spawn, is iconic. And probably never will be. But we have Sam Jackson/Nick Fury toys in the toy aisles now and that’s pretty dang cool. An original diverse character is great. But not as great as a black Captain America or a woman being worthy to wield Mjolnir.