Captain America on France

[espanolbot]

Since it's the Fourth of July Weekend, I thought that I'd post this and give my commentary on it.

During the second Ultimates series, we got this... "iconic" moment.



Several pages later they had Nick Fury bringing up the line as if Mark Millar was patting himself on the back for coming up with such a snappy quip. Thing is though... even though Ultimate Cap was intended to be a more "accurate" depiction of a man out of time than regular universe Steve, both he and the entire Ultimates series was far more a reflection of the time the stories were written than the time Steve's from... if that makes sense.

Written in the early days of the War on Terror, there was a fair among of ludicrous anti-French feeling circling about in the US due to their opposition to the invasion of Iraq (resulting in such bizarre things as French Fries being renamed Freedom Fries in certain places... even though they're actually Belgian), so the idea of a gungho 'Merican action hero randomly slamming France would make a degree of sense... if he was from the early 2000s rather than the 1940s.

It seems a touch bizarre that Steve would insult the French resistance fighters, who he would probably have been working with only a few months before from his frame of reference. Admittedly a lot of modern stereotypes regarding the French did originate from the Second World War (the one about Americans thinking that French people smell was caused by the GIs being baffled by the notion that people in rural areas of a country occupied by the Nazis might not considering hygiene to be high on their list of priorities, particularly since there was a lack of hot and cold water in some areas), but it's still really weird.

A short while later in the regular universe Captain America title, Ed Brubaker had Cap explain his views of France which seem a lot more in-character than the Ultimate example.

Comments

[lilacsigil]

I thought at the time that it was a meta-joke on Americans for their bizarre anti-French sentiment, but having read more Millar since, he seems to divide his work into "occasionally subtle" and "blatantly obvious and direct" and this seems to be the latter.

[thatnickguy]

I can't recall any time I would call his work "occasionally subtle."

[icon_uk]

His Superman The Animated Series run perhaps?

[filthysize]

It was optimistic and nice, but not really subtle, no. You just don't mind it because of Superman (especially animated) is a character that still works really well written broadly.

[mrstatham]

It doesn't help that a good bit of Millar's later work at Marvel was quite anti-American, to me; Civil War, for instance, has no interest at all in portraying the government based pro-registration side as being as good as their rogue counterparts. So this, to me, was always Millar tackily slamming America.

[onceaskrull]

I would argue that was anti-government sentiment but not necessarily "anti-American." There are many people in the US who loudly proclaim themselves to be the "real" Americans in the same breath that they denounce any movements by the government they don't agree with.

The fact that Cap, symbol of America, was on the anti-Registration side makes it hard for me to see Millar as taking a jab at America (the myth). American government, sure, or perhaps all governmental invasions of privacy. But I don't recall anything in Millar's work that suggests to me that he was taking a sideways jab at the myth of America as a dominant, superior, always-right force. But, admittedly, it's been quite a few years since I've willingly read anything by Millar.

[ablackraptor]

Well, given that the Pro-Reg had the in-universe highest amount of support from the American public, one could make the assumption that the intention was to depict Americans as hypocritical and only care about being 'true to the American ideals' when it suits them, especially as in the end Cap surrenders.

Though, supposedly Millar was on record saying Pro-reg were the intended 'good guys' and he thought most American readers would support them, so take that as you will.

[darkknightjrk]

I guess his thinking is that in fiction we proclaim love for the idea of freedom and the underdog, but in reality we at least silently support the elites who only want to stifle it for the impossible promise of "security."

[espanolbot]

The thing is, both sides have their points. It makes sense that the government know who has what superpowers for the same reason you'd expect people top have a gun license. In a real world sense, if makes sense that the governments knows if someone's had the right training to actually superhero properly, just so civilians aren't killed accidentally or property damaged unnecessarily.

In-universe they have the excuse that governments are inherently evil (never mind the multiple human rights nightmares done by the UK, US and Canadian governments in regards to mutants, wasn't the Red Skull able to become secretary of defence or something for a time?), but for an attempt to inject reality into the Marvel Universe it kind of reduced a morally grey arguement into a black and white one. Even though Tony could clearly have been written as being in the right, with Steve being written as the out of character superhero with the mentality of someone thinking that ID checks for potential gun owners equals the government coming to kidnap them in the night via black helicopter.

[janegray]

The problem is that you can't inject reality into a context that has historically been characterized by inherently evil governments. That's why I could never accept the argument that "you'd be pro-reg too if superheroes were real!" In real life, no government has ever built gigantic war machines to hunt down civilians, no peaceful country has ever been completely burned down with nukes and its entirely population exterminated, and we don't depend on superheroes to save the universe every few months.

It's like trying to write realistic consequences of concussions into Tom & Jerry. "In real life you wouldn't find it acceptable to hit somebody's head with a hammer!" No shit?

[starwolf_oakley]

Indeed. During CIVIL WAR fans said superhero registration might work in real life or a separate superhero universe, but not in the Marvel Universe. Mostly due to what the X-Men go through. The US Government itself never sent out Sentinels, but people kept building and saving them "just in case." (The post Decimation Sentinels were manned by pilots, so they weren't robots, if that matters any.)

[janegray]

the Pro-Reg had the in-universe highest amount of support from the American public

To be fair, that was after Tony sent an assassin at the Atlantean ambassador to provoke Atlantis into threatening war to America and scare the American citizens into supporting more extreme laws.

[deh_tommy]

I think the problem with Civil War lay not entirely with Mark Millar, but rather the tie ins which often just took one stance and portrayed the other negatively (or so I've heard, I've only read the core miniseries).

[mrstatham]

Not really, given Millar was never interested in portraying the Pro-Reggers in a remotely positive light and only had them 'win' because Cap just gave up for no real reason.

[daningram.insanejournal.com]

You really didn't have to wait until Civil War to see Millar slamming America. The next Ultimates arc had Iraq, Syria and a few others making their own super hero team, called the Liberators (with no sense of irony at all), attacking America to 'free' it.

[halloweenjack]

I'd divide it into "can write a decent story when he bothers to" and "just flat-out pandering to the lowest common denominator".