In our previous article, we told how it is revealed that Captain America, Steve Rogers, was always Hydra…because originally Hydra (and thus, the Nazis) won World War II. The Allies, in a last ditch attempt, use a Cosmic Cube to alter reality so that Hydra and the Nazis lose, and that is the Marvel Universe we know. A world that was artificially fabricated by the Allies, including a truly Allies-loyal Cap (possibly because the Allies never learned of his deception?). And thus, when Kobik turned Cap to Hydra, she was actually awakening his true self from the original timeline before the Allies changed everything, and thus allowing Rogers to restore Hydra to its ‘rightful’ position.
Yeeeeah, I’m not surprised by this.
There was a time long, long ago when things like this would have surprised me. Back before Metroid: Federation Force, before the sabotage of everything Polaris starred in, before Polaris’ exclusion from things like Children’s Crusade, before 3rd Birthday, before FFX-2, I used to be very naive. I used to think companies and the people running them knew where to draw the line on certain things, and that there was consensus within companies to try to put the best effort forward.
I’ve learned a lot over a decade and a half.
Marvel has always been slow to trends. This one is part of the “ruin heroic figures for shitty reasons or no reason at all” trend. Some person with control over a character perceived as a bastion of good decides “Hey, let’s make them the opposite of what they are, that’ll be exciting.”
That’s the generous interpretation. The not so generous one? That they aren’t just doing it for “buzz,” but because they genuinely loathe heroic icons and want to see them destroyed.
Marvel pulling this “Hydra Cap” thing was already bad. This is akin to Marvel storylines in the 80s and 90s where the company thought it was a good idea, it got backlash one way or another, and the company had to make up an excuse to set things right. Only this time, Marvel’s going even further instead of fixing their mistakes.
Before, the shittiness of “Hydra Cap” could’ve been presented as “Okay, this is unnatural, the cosmic cube made him that way, but he’ll be fixed soon.” Or it could’ve been a fake.
Now? Now Marvel’s basically saying that Captain America was never a bastion of good, that he was always part of Hydra and the cosmic cube is what made him good.
This storyline might, might have been fascinating as a What If? storyline. The kind of storyline that has no real validity, that acts as a fun tangent for how things could’ve been. But when Marvel messes with the 616 versions of these characters, they’re messing with what is considered to be the “real,” “defining” versions of them.
All in all, Marvel sucks. I’ve known that for years as I’ve seen them screw Polaris over while pretending to be open to her, but now it’s becoming even more obvious.
I also wonder how much of this is directly the work of Nick Spencer and Tom Brevoort, and how much of it is a demand from Ike Perlmutter. Given Perlmutter is supportive of Trump and was recently cited as THE major player in veteran affairs with Trump. Perlmutter’s a man who is willing to screw over the X-Men and Fantastic Four just cause Fox owns their film rights. I don’t think it’s much of a stretch that he’d go out of his way to ruin the most iconic representation of America in comics to get in good with Trump and his people.
salarta 