Rather, it’s the individual of Steve Rogers and his values of humility, kindness, and protection (the shield motif isn’t just a call to his weapon of choice, but how that weapon operates) against HYDRA, a fictitious force that’s coded in the Nazis’ fascism, but allows the story to dodge the messier realities of the Nazis’ ethnic cleansing of Jews and other assorted war crimes. The First Avenger then proceeds to keep expanding the conflict so that it’s not really “America, the Uncompromised and Always Good Side” defeating evil foreigners. “bullying”), he feels the need to stand up and fight. Rather, looking at the actions he sees as harmful (i.e. Again, he’s not someone who relishes violence or has already dehumanized his enemy. But in the larger context of The First Avenger and with the throwback earnestness director Joe Johnston constructed, it’s really more of a credo designed to take Steve away from a singular conflict and into a larger one. I don’t care where they’re from.” In a weaker film, this would seem like a wishy-washy statement designed to minimize the harm Nazis did. When asked if he wants to kill Nazis, Steve responds, “I don’t want to kill anyone. Abraham Erskine ( Stanley Tucci) puts it, “Good becomes great.”īut the real touch of genius is the scene where Steve and Erskine first meet. The super soldier serum is merely a chance to manifest what’s already on the outside, so that as Dr. This, compounded with other signifiers like his awkwardness with women and his lack of ego, make Steve relatable, but also someone that we as an audience want to protect.
His heart is truly in the right place-he’s not a violent man or someone who relishes war, but rather his empathy for those dying overseas makes him feel like he needs to stand alongside those risking their lives against evil. The first act of Captain America: The First Avenger is crucial in showing Rogers not shaped by trauma or a singular event, but rather that who he is as a person is someone who wants to get into the fight, but is limited by his physical shortcomings.
The film's first answer to that is to push hard on Steve Rogers’ ( Chris Evans) humility. It’s in his name after all, so the problem is how do you not make him a walking advertisement for jingoism and a nationalistic furor that America is somehow better than any other country? And yet “America” seems to be inseparable from the character.
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His first cover famously showed him punching Adolf Hitler in the face, a full year before Pearl Harbor and America actually entering World War II. You have to remember that Captain America has always been a political character. And yet screenwriters Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely wisely found a way to adapt the character for the 21st century without losing the spirit of his heroics. The popularity of Batman and the studio hand-wringing over Superman being “boring” have given way to a line of thinking that only dark, complex superheroes can succeed, and certainly one called “Captain America” would be doomed in a climate where characters need to succeed on a worldwide stage. And yet it’s arguably the best origin story Marvel has done thus far, and done with a character who doesn’t easily lend himself to the complexities that audiences supposedly demand from their superheroes.
As Captain America: The First Avenger turns ten years old this week, it’s easy to take it for granted, or put in the shadow of larger outings like The Winter Soldier and Civil War.