Wow. Just...wow.

[jerrygoodman]

And this is why I like you, Steve Rogers.

[river_chaos]

I applaud you, Captain Rodgers *applause*  That's a real hero right there!

[¬./Anonymous¬]

Nice.....

 

 

 

Edited December 13, 2014 by Anonymous

[durendal]

Hmm... when was this?  I haven't seen this before.  Based on the artwork, I'm guessing that this is from an avengers story line?

Yeah, I love Captain America.  Didn't like it when they made Sam Wilson into Captain America.  And with the way things are going in Axis, I'm hoping that Steve somehow gets the mantle back with some comics magic.

[Salkafar]

That was actually one of the dumbest things he ever did.

 

Let me set the scene: the 'Illuminati' - a group of powerful men in the Marvel Universe (originally Iron Man, Black Bolt, Professor X, Reed Richards, Doctor Strange and the Submariner), working in secret to fight terrible threats, trying to pre-empt the destruction of the world basically - discovered that the multiverse is slowly dying. An unknown event caused the destruction of an entire universe and now it has become a chain reaction. The destruction works like this: two universes collide at one point, and unless they are seperated again within eight hours, they are both destroyed. The cruncher is that the point where the universes crash into each other is always the same: it's always Earth. That is why the other powerful races of the universe have not realized what's happening yet: the window of opportunity is only eight hours long. And the only way to seperate the universes is to destroy the collision point - Earth. One of the Earths has to be destroyed for both universes to be saved. This is apparently an impossible choice for many people, even though it is of course not a choice at all.

 

For a time the Illuminati lucked out - they actually managed to push the universes apart once using the Infinity Gauntlet; in another case, the other Earth was destroyed by that universe's Galactus (that actually seems like exactly the sort of thing the big G is supposed to do anyway) ; in yet another, the other Earth had already been stripped of all life by Mapmakers (evil, transdimensional super-robots). But it was inevitable that they would get faced with the inevitable necessity of destroying an inhabited world to save two universes. In that case it was Namor, the sub-mariner, who did the deed.

Currently it's Thanos and his death squad who have taken it upon themselves to destroy alternate Earths to save their native universe (and incidentally the other universe as well).

 

In any case, let it be clear: there is a choice... the choice is between destroying one Earth, or destroying, through inaction, two universes including the Earth you refused to destroy.

 

Captain America refused to face this choice, instead insanely insisting something would come up that would spare them from making it.

 

This page is from a related story: I mentioned the Illuminati, including, at the time, Captain America, had used the Infinity Gauntlet - the most powerful object in the universe - to push the other universe away, saving them both without destroying either Earth. In the process, however, the Infinity Gems shattered, and are believed lost (although I doubt it... they will probably re-form over time) except for the Time Gem, which fled into the time stream. Now it started to reappear, dragging people with it and ditching them again, until finally only Captain America was left in the distant future, faced with Immortus (the guy with the hat), Kang the Conqueror and Nathaniel Richards, aka Kid Immortus, aka Iron Lad. These three are actually the same person at three points in his own timeline, and they/he were there to stop Captain America from travelling back in time to interfere with the Illuminati.

 

Iron Lad/Kang/Immortus believe that the multiverse has a chance of survival if they take Cap out of the equation and let the Illuminati do whatever it takes to stop the destruction of Earth.

 

And that is his response. He doesn't care about the destruction of the multiverse, or even of the universe. He doesn't even seem to understand the situation, instead inanely insisting on a form of heroics which, in these terrible circumstances, can change nothing and help nobody.

 

He has no idea what to do. Apparently he does not acknowledge the fact that if he stops the Illuminati from destroying another Earth, the result will be the death of everybody in the world, as well as everybody on that other Earth, as well as everybody in their universe.

 

Now, I personally do not think this fits the character of Captain America, but it does suit the increasingly insulting characterization inflicted on him by many modern writers. So while this seems to be a heroic portrayal of him, it is in fact the exact opposite: it depicts him as a blinkered idiot, a suicidally, genocidally blinded lunatic who can't see beyond the immediate to realize the scale of the threat.

 

Simultaneously proving the Illuminati completely justified in what they did before: Erase his memory of the events he took part in. If they hadn't, this would have happened a lot sooner and the Marvel Universe would possibly have been destroyed because a World War II veteran was too small-minded to realize he was toying with the fate of the world.

 

Kind of ironic, isn't it? That this thread is about the exact opposite of what it seems?

 

'Cap was right' – He wasn't right during Civil War, and he is infinitely less right now.

 

 

The two preceding pages.

 

It's not fair, I grant you, but that doesn't change that that page was the wrong choice for the subject. I want Cap to be cool again, rather than Grampa Simpson.

[durendal]

Ah, now I remember that story line.  Although I didn't bother reading it to the end.

 

Captain America is a symbol, and should be standing up to what people believe as the ideal.  As Kang mentioned, he is an idealogy that certainly has gone extinct.  Which is quite sad actually, since no matter what the situation, people still need an ideal.

 

I'm not happy with how the current writers are treating Cap.  I think it's quite unfair how people see cap as a monkey in a colored suit, like how they depicted him in the first Avengers movie.  But at least they made up for it in the Winter Soldier.  

 

Well, at least Steve Rogers is not a bad guy right now.

[jerrygoodman]

I don't think the problem is that the ideal is outdated.  It's that not enough people believe in it these days.

[Salkafar]

No, the problem is that the ideal is completely null and void in this case.

 

The ideal of Captain America is the ideal that everybody should be free - free to think and speak any way they want, free to act so long as that action does not infringe on the freedom of others; and free from fear that someone or something will take those freedoms away.

 

In the face of the purposeful, complete annihilation of everything that has ever existed or ever will exist... what should his response be? The smartest men in his world have done whatever they can to stave off the end. What should his response be? He has the strength of his convictions and his good right arm, and that's it. What is he going to do to stop this ultimate infringement of freedom - the freedom to exist?

 

He has made no attempt to even discover what exactly is the cause for the destruction. The new Illuminati - as described in 'Time runs out' - have sent out a team of Earth's most powerful heroes - including Thor, Hyperion, Starbrand and Nightmask - across the Multiverse to find out who Rabum Alal is. Why wasn't he with them? (Well, actually, Cap recently lost his power when the Nail negated the super-soldier serum in his body and now he actually looks like a World War II veteran).

 

Bottom line: this was not Cap's finest hour. At all.

[jerrygoodman]

Kang, Immortus, the Illuminati...they're all so focused on the "big picture" that they really fail to take into account all of the minute details that make it what it is.  It's easy to quantify...when you don't have to look at the faces of those being affected.

The ideology is not extinct.  In fact, especially in this day and age...I feel that it's needed more than ever.

[Salkafar]

Kang, Immortus, the Illuminati...they're all so focused on the "big picture" that they really fail to take into account all of the minute details that make it what it is.

 

And Captain America is so focused on the minute details that he would let the entire picture be destroyed. Including details.