The United States of Captain America #5

[cyberghostface]

 









"...isn't that also kind of amazing? Because, hey, the truth is... we've got your back."

Comments

[reveen]

Ok the sternly looking into the distance look they're trying on the cover doesn't work if they're all looking in different directions. They look like friggin storks.

[shakalooloo]

"Does... anyone remember where we parked?"

[mindsweeper]

LOL. I thought it was inspired by Mount Rushmore.

[super_fly]

They had Daredevil directing the photoshoot and he didn't have the heart to tell them why it's a bad idea

[juniper6]

It really kind of looks like a class portrait from the school for the blind I used to volunteer at. (And every kid in that school would find this comment hilarious.)

[shakalooloo]

"No physical or mental torture, nor any other form of coercion, may be inflicted on prisoners of war to secure from them information of any kind whatever. Prisoners of war who refuse to answer may not be threatened, insulted, or exposed to any unpleasant or disadvantageous treatment of any kind."

Sleep 'adjustment' is still sleep deprivation.

[agent8]

Not exactly. Two different things. Sleep Adjustment is a method that disturbs the sleep cycle, such as reversing day and night, or making sleep time 11- 6 on one day, then 8-3 on another. Not at all the same as deprivation.

[super_fly]

So how long did Steve go for a walk while this was happening that they could adjustment their sleeping time

[silverhammerman]

Lmaooooo this is fucking incredible. I had this pegged as a deeply weird and somewhat oblivious comic from the jump, but having the multicultural coalition of "Captains America" bust in and talk about how great America and its difference is after the issue started off with Cap turning a blind eye to USAgent torturing a woman (even if it's not technically tortured and she's a neo-Nazi it still counts) is amazing. The epitome of identity politics being used to obscure a refusal to engage with systemic problems and institutional sins.

Snyder and Capullo's Last Knight on Earth finally has competition for my personal label of "most Biden era superhero comic" because this is beyond parody.

[laughing_tree]

What happens in Last Knight?

[silverhammerman]

I dashed off an essay about it a couple of years ago, which I think mostly holds up:
https://knifeonmars.tumblr.com/post/626629028223254528/i-let-them-in-and-they-broke-me-the-politics-of

Basically, the human race "voted" to be evil, the apocalypse happened, and now a clone of Batman from before all of that took place has to battle the original Batman, who's basically a blackpilled doomer who turned fascist, and it ends with the same group of heroes back in power and behaving the exact same way they did before things fell apart. It's a story in which heroism literally comes from ignorance and institutional change or self-reflection is impossible.

I mean, I overstate things a bit, but it came out a little while before Biden was elected, and I've always found it hard to read as anything but political allegory.

[laughing_tree]

Ah! Interesting essay...

[whatsmoothbeast]

f u c k
t h i s
c o m i c

"I won't torture you, but I'll go for a walk while my friends do" is something they just keep having Steve Rogers do, for some reason. I've seen it at least three times and I feel l'm forgetting a few.

Portraying the embodiment of American Exceptionalism is a cowardly self-righteous hypocrite is probably better than making him a moral paragon, but I don't think they're doing it on purpose. I honestly don't know what they're trying to do when they keep bringing this beat back.

[philippos42]

I don't even like them writing John that way. This is just making him the "evil party member."

[tinygaylaura]

Really?

It's all his other stories he's appeared in that made me think he was an asshole

This story is actually the only time I've LIKED John

If all his appearances were him torturing Nazi's, he'd be my favorite Marvel character ever

[hotfoot]

"Torture works!"
No. No it doesn't. I'm really tired of people telling stories where it does because it promotes something factually untrue that actively harms people. There have been multiple studies on this. Torture just results in giving whatever answers the victim thinks the attacker wants. That's it. It could be utter nonsense, it could be completely wrong.

Just...it is so tiring.

[t209]

Even worse when you had "Torture is bad...but it kinda works".
Like Secret Empire where Black Widow's torture shown to work but her sidekick decided against it because morality. You know instead of "torture don't work and mostly just coercing people to say what you want rather than what they know".
Same with my few critique at 1984 where it is based on Orwell's observation two political prisoners who pledged their loyalty after being tortured on the news but ignoring that they were coerced into saying that and promptly sent to labor camp.

[lordy_co]

On the whole I enjoyed this (Cantwell's usually hit-or-miss for me), but I share the concerns other have raised above. Of course no-one's saying you can't rough up on a nazi, but torture is still a bit too far (which, we get it, is why they left it to Walker, but Steve shouldn't be okay with it anyways).

[onsokumaru]

Whelp, I didn't think John would really torture her, but here we are. And another case of Steve letting other people dirty their hands for him.
And as I said for the previous issue, Sin probably had some harsh training from her father and from Crossbones, something far worse than whatever John did to her.
Also, isolation? Sensory deprivation? Sleep adjustement? That means he tortured her for days, not for hours. Did they have so much time?

Between that and his Doom series, I'm becomming wary of Cantwell.

[beyondthefringe]

I'm really soured on Cantwell as a writer. The good parts of this mini were all the parts he didn't write. And by that, I guess I mean all the members of the Captains network, many of whom I'm sure won't get killed off the next time a storyline needs cannon fodder.

[scorntx]

Hey, you never know, they might just go the way of Free Spirit.
Fading into the aether, only occasionally resurfacing every now and then to suffer horribly for a few issues, before going right back to obscurity.

[jaxjyls]

Anyone else find it weird that Sam doesn't have his wings?

[tinygaylaura]

I'm deeply horrified at what Steve did here...because it means he owes USAgent a thank you now. And that is truly awful

Steve you know a fuckton of psychics who could have ripped the information out of what passes for the brain in the head of the Red Skull's whelp

You didn't have to go crawling to Billy Bob here for help

[agent8]

which raises an interesting ethical question.

Is sending in a psychic to "rip the information" out of a detainee's brain more or less ethical than employing enhanced interrogation techniques?

Keep in mind that most of the enhanced interrogation techniques John lists are allowed under both US and international law and many of them are employed by US police who operate under even tighter restrictions, interrogation wise, than the military does.

[t209]

Also there are psychics and also psychic-proof training, which Red Skull would have latter.

[tinygaylaura]

Any of the Omega level telepaths of Krakoa could break through anything that a mentally inferior flatscan piece of garbage like the Red Skull and his filthy offspring could create in less time than it takes to heat up a hot pocket

[t209]

You just pointed out one thing though.
Krakoa.
Like Steve wont get one in expedient manner along with paper works.
Shield may have at least one to be honest.

[tinygaylaura]

I am pretty sure if you called up Emma, Jean or Rachel and were just like "Wanna fucking destroy a nazi's brain for me" they would be like "I am so there" honestly

[tinygaylaura]

I'm fine with anything and everything being done to Nazi's personally

Because I don't think Nazis count as people

You know that monologue Agent Smith gives in The Matrix where he says that humanity is a virus?

That's my feelings about Nazi's summed up in a nutshell

[blues32]

Nah, John volunteered. They went to him for help capturing Sin in the first place.