Hail Hydra

Let me open by throwing some phrases at you guys and seeing if they mean anything to you. Look before you leap. Treat others how you wish to be treated. Don't count your chickens before they hatch. Embrace change. What point am I trying to make? Well, just when you thought a change to a fictional character wouldn't matter one bit that very change turns people into freaking animals. We're talking about Captain America being a Hydra sleeper agent.

Nick Spencer is a damn good writer. "Superior Foes of Spider-Man", "Ant-Man", "Sam Wilson: Captain America", "Avengers Stand-Off", and now "Steve Rogers: Captain America". All great books. But that last title has risen a few flags for people, "triggered" them. At the end of Steve Rogers' first issue he pushes his friend out of a plane to protect a super-villain and then says "Hail Hydra". This signifies that Steve Rogers-the guy in the movies who everyone really, really likes-is actually a sleeper agent for the terrorist organization Hydra. Oh lordy lordy what happened to my comic books! You know I've gotten pretty salty on comic book controversies before (Batgirl's Joker Cover, Thor and Cap being gender/race swapped, and so forth) but this is by far the stupidest thing I've had to defend. And I don't mean the idea of Steve being a Hydra sleeper is stupid, I mean the response is stupid. Chris Evans JUST played Steve in "Captain America: Civil War" which was a film Marvel pushed so hard they even started a new comic event called Civil War II. With that much banking on Cap why would Marvel say "Yeah, just make him a full-on villain. Say he was villain the entire time. It'll be great". Of course he's not evil! Of course the whole thing was a trick!

Okay so if you only read online reviews of "Steve Rogers: Captain America" and complained about it without picking up either Issue #1 or Issue #2 because you wouldn't be caught dead in a comic book store, Steve was never a Hydra sleeper. The Red Skull had used a cosmic item to implant fake memories into Steve's mind and make him believe he was always a Hydra sleeper. That's it. Brainwashing, memory tampering, basically what those "Captain America is a Nazi" articles did to you. Now that Steve is brainwashed his friends are going to have to save him and the whole story will probably end with Steve punching Red Skull in the jaw. The end. Hooray. But I guess a quick fix to ever-frightening change in history may not satisfy you. After all, Captain America was created by two Jewish guys and now Cap is a Nazi, right? Wrong. Yes, Joe Simon and Jack Kirby were Jewish. Good for you and your Google skills. But did you ever bother to look up Hydra? No? Oh, that's right. In the movies Hydra are Nazis, so it MUST be the same in the comics. It's not. Hydra existed before the Nazi Party and intended on overthrowing ancient governmental powers. Hydra wasn't part of The Nazi Party, The Red Skull was. When Hitler threw The Red Skull out of the Nazi Party for being "too evil even for him" The Red Skull took a powerful spot on Hydra and forced his Nazi viewpoints onto it. If Captain America said "Hail Hitler" than yeah, he'd be a Nazi. But he didn't. He hailed for Hydra, a group who followed the Nazi's path to assure victory and not to persecute the Jewish people. And if you're a movie-goer who's only stake in this is that you like Cap in the films turn your attention to "Agents of Shield" where Gideon Malick explains to Grant Ward that Hydra had originally been founded to find and rise to power the first Inhuman, The Hive. And-again-Red Skull just diverted the organizations goals and tarnished their reputation. Hydra are not Nazis.

But you know what? I could get over the misconception of people who don't read the comics, but "know everything about the movies". In fact that demographic of people is going to be the target of another post. I can't even get mad at people who hated the change because trying new things is scary and comics should stay the same forever, right? But the thing that gets me, the thing that made me want to write this (even through I didn't even want to stoop down to it) is how much hate Nick Spencer got. This is a writer who made a divorced, down-on-his-luck father into an awesome superhero. This is a guy who looked at all the potential challenges of writing a black Captain America and said "Let's do this". And people have the nerve to say awful things to him. Go on Twitter and look at Nick Spencer's page. It's disturbing.

@Danedenaan "kill yourself right now please"

@dayyook "kirby and simon didn't die so you could ruin their legacy and then laugh about it"

@durinfunerals "75 years of a character you've just defaced, it's repulsive"
Those are only a few and trust me there are much, much more. All of them just as stupid, whiny and uncalled for as the last. I have never seen a comic book writer get so much hate. In fact, the last guy who got death threats like these was Dan Slott the writer of "Superior Spider-Man". In that story Doctor Octopus took control of Peter Parker's body. And you know what happened despite people telling Slott to kill himself? Superior Spider-Man got extended, Superior Spider-Man was successful, Superior Spider-Man was a good story, and Dan Slott continues to write the main Spider-Man title today!
So if you aren't a Fake Fan, if you like Captain America and you like good stories and you like good comic book writers go to Twitter and support Nick Spencer! Remind him and everyone else out there that stories are about conflict! They're about mystery and suspense and that's what Spencer brought to Captain America! This story doesn't spit in the faces of Simon and Kirby! This story doesn't erase the Captain America movies from history! It is NOT a bad story and I'm so very sick of people being offended by it. When Nick Spencer dresses as Captain America, breaks into your home, and shits in your mouth, then you can go to Twitter and tell the man to kill himself. But until then leave Nick Spencer alone.
Thanks for reading.
By the way, Stan Lee thinks the idea was fascinating. So suck it.