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Thursday, June 29, 2017 

If Ta-Nehisi Coates becomes Captain America writer, nothing is fixed

Not that anybody who's a realist expected Marvel to finally admit they were wrong and apologize, to be sure. So long as Quesada/Alonso are still in charge, there'll be no difference made. And if this Bleeding Cool article turns out to be prophetic, then they'll only be replacing one problem with more:
When Marvel recently released the names of their 52 monthly comics from October, as part of their Marvel Legacy and Make Mike Marvel promotions, one book was notable for its absence, Captain America. The current Captain America comic and the Secret Empire event series has seen Steve Rogers revealed as a secret sleeper agent for Hydra all along, seizing power through legal means and enacting a takeover of the Unites States of America, with the aim to remake reality itself through the Cosmic Cube.
I don't know if they're sending it the same way as Fantastic Four was (the article does seem to indicate they will continue to publish Cap), but the current staff has to shoulder considerable blame for bringing the whole Cap brand down to the absolutely awful level it's at now, to the point where you'd wonder if they decided to stop publishing it altogether for goodness knows how long, which would be merciful. IMO, the Cap brand died as far back as 2002. My collection goes up to about the 49th issue of the volume written by Dan Jurgens, and I don't see myself bothering about anything further for a long time. I've avoided, for example, the Marvel Knights series that was the beginning of the end for any respect Quesada and company supposedly had for Steve Rogers, since it turned him into a character who thought his country was literally to blame for terrorism it suffered.
Reaction against the storyline has been strong in some parts, condemned as taking a character designed by two Jewish creators as a piece of anti-Nazi propaganda before the USA entered World War II, and remaking him as a member of a group with ties to that very Nazi Party, albeit fictional ones. Despite Marvel’s assurances that the character will be rehabilitated, some have found it impossible to conceive of such a thing. And the character’s absence from the Marvel Legacy books in October – despite being front and centre of Legacy #1 in September – has led some to believe that the character has been put on hold at the publisher.
So long as Quesada's gang are hell-bent on forcing their brand of ultra-leftist rhetoric down the audience's throats, it certainly won't be possible to repair the brand. One fair way to set things right is simply to tell everybody that the stories Spencer brewed up are no longer canon, and quietly drop them, returning to a simple good-vs-evil vision that every sensible person can find satisfying. But whatever direction they have planned, if at all, I doubt they have anything positive and respectable in mind.

In any case, it does say here that:
...we have been given to understand from pretty well sourced folk that Captain America will return to monthly status, with a Marvel Legacy renumbering of #694 at some point.
But what exact vision will they offer? One that conservatives need not feel alienated by? Not if a certain "journalist" who's been writing Black Panther lately is allowed to keep foisting his vision on any protagonist put in the Cap costume:
But the big name who will rehabilitate Captain America, who will find a new way to explore him as a symbol of America, then and now, will be the current writer of the Black Panther comic, Ta-Nehisi Coates.

Coates is well known as an author, as a correspondent for The Atlantic, and recipient of a “Genius Grant” from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. One can imagine that when/if this news is made official by Marvel Comics, possibly at San Diego Comic-Con that articles such as “The Case for Reparations” will be brought up and pored over interminably by people who will say this will make him ineligible to write a comic like Captain America.
What makes Coates a poor, discouraging choice for writer is his record of anti-American beliefs. It's laughable how Bleeding Cool claims his credentials as a writer for a leftist magazine like the Atlantic, which has been going downhill in quality for a long time, and some journalistic prize that's probably only awarded to ultra-libs, alone make him qualified for writing the Star-Spangled Avenger. Interesting they won't suggest Marvel reconcile with writers like Chuck Dixon and Mike Baron, whom they've largely blacklisted over their conservatism. If Steve Ditko, who was close to being conservative, were still in business today, they'd probably blacklist him too because he was so big on Ayn Rand.

If Coates is appointed to write Captain America in any form, whether with Steve Rogers or Sam Wilson in the role, then politically speaking, it'll be more of the same. Some of the commenters to the article understand what's wrong with Coates, and one said:
Captain America's brand was only made toxic in the comics because Marvel decided to mess him up. In the movies, Steve is probably their most loved character and he has his traditional personality. Just write him as a really good guy helping people and having adventures - not that complicated.
Yet no chance they'll agree to that. Another said:
Please for the love of Cap no. This will not boost sales (Since his writing is dulled down with endless monologues), or put the character back in a good light, Coates series will just be about tearing Captain America down more.
To which somebody replied:
Yes. But he's the hot new pseudo-intellectual now...and he's writing COMIC BOOKS. CAN YOU BELIEVE IT?!?!?!?!?!
Alas, I can. That's what they've been about for nearly 2 decades now, hiring farcical phonies. Another stated:
If his writing on Cap is like his writing Black Panther, he'd talk us into boredom. He's still a neophyte comic writer, his writing isn't improving on the titles on which he currently works, and you don't put one of your flagship properties into the hands of a guy who hasn't demonstrated yet he can be successful in the medium.
More than that, you don't put ANY properties, major or minor, into the hands of somebody so untalented. If they gave him Power Pack, Shanna the She-Devil and Quasar, which are pretty minor today, and he turned them into some ultra-leftist cesspool of anti-American propaganda, would that be okay? Of course not. As Mark Gruenwald once said, "every character is somebody's favorite." So you shouldn't just want to turn even a minor 3rd tier into a shambles. Here's another comment:
Ta-Nehisi Coates is going to....de-toxify...the brand.?

Is Rich trolling here, or has he just never read any of Coate's long-winded, pseudo-intellectual windbaggery?

The same Ta-Nehisi Coates...who basically wrote that him being bullied by other black youth as a kid was the result of white racism? Who wrote that the first responders who died during 9/11 represented nothing to him but inhuman aggressors?

That doesn't sound toxic at all.

The only thing they need to do to redeem Captain America is take a page from the MCU. Done.
If anything, it sounds insane, doesn't it? Here's one more:
The fact that he only really knows Brubaker's run and doesn't mention anyone else's further cements the fact that this guy doesn't know comics at all.

I'm doubting that writing a book about a white-skinned, blue-eyed man in a position of power - is going to work for his "brand", he won't do it, he just won't.
Now that I think of it, who knows if Coates really read that many comics at all, even from Marvel? I figure somebody who claims his intake was almost entirely Marvel is enough to wonder if he even knows enough about their own history and other contributors like Kirby and Lee. Why wouldn't it be a shock if he doesn't know diddly squat about creator-owned books like Jim Starlin's Dreadstar? Anybody who's that obsessed with agendas cannot be expected to have even a modicum of understanding what makes popcorn entertainment work well in any form or medium. And if Coates gets the Cap assignment, it'll be all we need to know why they have no intention of improving storytelling, let alone relations with the audience, and why nobody should waste their money.

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Excuse me, but what the frak is so 'anti-American' about Ta-Nehisi Coates, to you, and why is his being a writer for Black Panther and this title a problem for you? If you or any of the other Trumpian fascists don't like Marvel (or DC) broadening their base, you and the other neocons don't have to read said books: that's all there is to it. This is nonsense from a pack of sore winners who feel the need to attack anything and anybody that isn't a neocon like yourself, and it's complete bullcaca. Plus, you don't even live in the USA, anyway! So why does Coates's writings about the USA affect you? What is so poisionous to you about BLM, and black people wanting to end police brutality towards black people?

As with the extreme left, please get up off your asses and create your own right-wing comic books with right-wing superheroes being as right-wing as you want them to be. Better yet, why don't you all go back in time and stay there? You'd all be a lot happier in the 1940's or 1950's America (and Israel) instead of living in 2017, since all that you seem to crave is an all-white world.

Why can't Coates (Waid, Marz, Slott, Simone, et al.) create their own leftist heroes instead of corrupting beloved characters from the Silver Age and even Golden Ages?

Because leftists are not builders or creators. Like Muslims, they can only steal or tear down what others worked to build.

Comic book sales are a fraction of what they were in the sixties and earlier, when they were unpretentious and apolitical.

And "police brutality" means police officers shooting back at thugs who attack them. Libtards condone unprovoked aggression, then condemn any use of force in self-defense or in retaliation.

Superheroes have always been social justice warriors; why else would they fight evil for no money?

Superman in his earliest issues fought for the rights of the wrongfully convicted, for mineworkers whose safety was jeapordised for the profits of greedy mine-owners, and for abused kids. When right-wingers in the U.S. were isolationist, trying to keep immigrants out of the country and avoiding alliances with European democracies and proclaiming America First, Captain America was punching Hitler in the jaw and the other Timely heroes were fighting World War II while America was still officially neutral. Rex Dexter of Mars gave us a Martian utopia out of the Communist Manifesto, where money was obsolete and each gave according to his ability and received according to his needs.

In the late 1940s, Timely was already replacing white male heroes with women counterparts, sending Bucky and Toro to the farm and replacing them with Golden Girl and Sun Girl.

In the 60s, heroes crusaded against bigots such as the Hatemonger and Sons of the Serpent, and the books introduced scores of African=American characters. They campaigned against pollution. Eartha Kitt became a black Catwoman on the Batman tv show; while race blind casting gave us an Italian Modesty Blaise. In the seventies, we had a Hispanic Wonder Woman in Lynda Carter; later Lois and Clark gave us a part-Hawaian-Asian Superman and Smallville gave us a Jewish Lex Luthor, an Eurasian Lana Lang, and a black Pete Ross.

This is not surprising. Most of the creators of the early comics were the ones who would work cheap and fast - second generation immigrants, young, the children of the sweatshop garment workers in New York, Italian and Jewish; they saw their parents exploited at work, saw how unions could help people, knew what it was like to face discrimination and have to work twice as hard as the people who came over on the Mayflower simply in order to get to the same place.

Lee, Kirby, Shuster, Siegel and the rest were leftists, new deal liberals. Comic books were never apolitical, and they were more likely to be left-wing than right wing.

Eartha Kitt was cast as Catwoman only when Julie Newmar was no longer available, and the sexual tension between her and Batman was dropped.

The original Sons of the Serpent turned out to be communist agents provocateurs.

The FDR Democrats were pro-labor, and the New Deal was about helping laid-off workers get back on their feet. Today's "liberals" (and most Republicans) are anti-labor, and the modern Progressive agenda is about taxing workers and giving the money to welfare recipients in exchange for votes.

And both parties want unrestricted immigration, as a source of cheap labor and, for the Democratic party, a source of votes.

So, when are we going to see Captain America punch an ISIS leader?

Or Batman subduing antifa thugs who are rioting in the streets?

Or Matt Murdock defending a white cop who is on trial for shooting a black mugger in self-defense?

There is no valid comparison between Jews fleeing the Holocaust and Muslim immigrants.

Jews were not Nazis. The Syrian "refugees" are Muslims,meaning that they share the same basic ideology as the faction from which they are supposedly fleeing.

Holocaust victims did not have a lot of options as to where they could go. There was no Jewish state at the time. There are plenty of Muslim countries that could easily take in Syrian immigrants. They won't, because of the danger of terrorist Trojan Horses. The US has the right to take the same precautions as Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE.

The US once had an open door immigration policy. That was before 9-11. It was also before we had a massive public welfare system. Immigrants had no choice but to work, obey the law, and assimilate.

And the victims of 9-11, San Bernardino, and the Boston marathon bombing might have benefited from an isolationist, America first policy. But protecting the lives and rights of American citizens was a low priority under Obama's America Last policy.

And the victims in Paris, Nice, Brussels, and Cologne would have been better off with their governments putting their own countries' interests first.


If you want to see Captain America taking on antifascists, check out Captain America: Sam Wilson no 17. Wilson became very right-wing in the course of the series, for example covering up corporate crime on the basis of a trickle-down theory of economics.

You will be unlikely to see any white cop on trial for shooting a mugger in self-defence. You would more often see the ambiguous ones,where the cop made a wrong split-second choice and shot someone who was not dangerous, and the court has to decide whether his wrong decision was nonetheless reasonable in that moment.

Holocaust victims did not have a lot of options as to where they could go because the United States was trying to keep them out before and after the War; the country let some in, but only a fraction. From the perspective of now, they seem different from the Muslim Syrian
refugees; but back then there was the same hatred of them that there is against the Muslims now. When the U S did have an open door policy, the police chief of New York published a bigoted article blaming the bulk of the City's crime on Jews, who of course were also seen as dangerous bomb-throwing anarchists and revolutionaries. Not all of them, of course; but better to play safe than sorry and not let any more in, no?

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  • From Jerusalem, Israel
  • I was born in Pennsylvania in 1974, and moved to Israel in 1983. I also enjoyed reading a lot of comics when I was young, the first being Fantastic Four. I maintain a strong belief in the public's right to knowledge and accuracy in facts. I like to think of myself as a conservative-style version of Clark Kent. I don't expect to be perfect at the job, but I do my best.
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