Captain America May Not Be the Patriot We Once Knew

By Bryan Robinson

After all these years, Captain America may not be the patriot we once knew.

With his 70th birthday one month away, it has been revealed that Marvel Studios is shortening the title of its upcoming summer blockbuster movie on star-spangled superhero from Captain America: The First Avenger to The First Avenger in markets in South Korea, Russia and the Ukraine. On the surface, it's a marketing decision. Cap's brand recognition apparently is not as strong in those three regions and filmmakers want the movie to be a worldwide sensation, not just a U.S. hit.

Still, this revelation comes months after Avenger director Joe Johnston told The Los Angeles Times' "Hero Complex" that Steve Rogers, man behind the Captain America mask, would not be a "this sort of jingoistic flag-waver." This may alarm some longtime fans of Marvel's "Sentinel of Liberty." Our Captain America would never hide from his own name, they would say. He'd never trade in his stars and stripes for plain navy blue tights like Wonder Woman did. With his trademark red, white and blue shield in hand, he would yell his name from the mountain top, waving the American flag proudly, without hesitation.

Not so fast, True Believers. Maybe our Captain America was never supposed to be our father and grandfather's Captain America.

Captain America was born during a simpler time when the United States was much more united against a common enemy. World War II and the battle against the Nazis provided the backdrop when he debuted in Marvel Comics in 1941. The cover of the first issue of Captain America shows him punching Adolf Hitler in the face.

Cap and his costumed contemporaries of that period, Superman and Wonder Woman, represented patriotism and in some ways, wholesomeness, omnipotence, idealism and innocence. Besides battling the Red Skull and a slew of other supervillains, Cap battled the Nazis.

However, things changed after World War II. Against the background of the civil rights movement, assassinations, and the Vietnam War, heroes -- along with the rest of the nation -- lost their innocence in the 1960s. Marvel Comics' creator Stan Lee introduced characters such as The Fantastic Four, Spider-Man, The X-Men and The Incredible Hulk, all of whom had very human problems and weaknesses such as trying to pay the rent, maintain a marriage and trying to gain acceptance in a society that didn't understand them. Even Superman and Wonder Woman eventually buckled under similar angst.

The times, they were -a-changin' - and so were our heroes. They had to.

"One of the reasons stories such as Robin Hood or Pocahontas or Batman or Superman can continue to be told is that they continue to evolve to suit the times," said Robert Thompson, the founding director of the Bleier Center for Television and Popular Culture at Syracuse University. "To continue to tell the story of your grandfather's Captain America, we have to tell the story of your grandson's Captain America."

"We don't know what he'll be like in the movie, but you've had 70 years in which the country has gone through a lot," Thompson continued. "From Vietnam to Watergate to 9/11 to the Iraq War, our idea of patriotism is a lot more complex than it was 70 years ago."

And Captain America and his battles have become more nuanced. In the 1970s, as the nation reeled from the end of the Vietnam War and Watergate scandal, Cap targeted more homegrown enemies. At one point, he became so disillusioned that he ditched his red, white and blue threads and temporarily assumed another moniker, Nomad. In a 2003 Marvel miniseries, "Truth: Red, White & Black, he learned that the super-soldier serum that gave him his enhanced abilities was first tested on black servicemen anxious to fight in World War II.

And in 2007, debates over the war on terror and the role of Big Government arguably led to Captain America's death. A new law requiring all heroes to register their secret identities with the government pitted Cap against some of his allies. Believing the law was passed out of fear and violated all Americans' civil liberties, Cap became an outlaw and led a rogue group of heroes who refused to be manhandled by the government.

Ultimately, the Sentinel of Liberty surrendered, and an assassin's bullet killed him as he faced life in prison. It's no coincidence that Captain America's fictional struggle paralleled the very real debates that still simmer in a post-Sept. 11 world. But these issues also provided Marvel's writers a way to reinvent one of their oldest characters without changing his essence.

"Killing Captain America was really a more compelling story for our readers," Dan Buckley, publisher at Marvel Entertainment, told me at the time. "It was more interesting than to see Cap in jail, reflecting. ... We know about Captain America, the hero, the icon, but we don't know much about Steve."

Death is never final in the comic book world, and Captain America has since been resurrected. But questions still loom even as he collects Social Security. Is Cap a Lefty or a Righty? Liberal or conservative? Does he support the Tea Party? Flag waver or not, rest assured this: He still represents the best of America - red, white, black and blue.

At age 70, Captain America is still a patriot. Whether he's enough of a patriot may depend on how you choose to fly Old Glory.