Captain America has long been one of the most beloved heroes in Marvel’s roster.
He’s also one of the oldest, having first appeared in Captain America Comics issue 1
published by Timely Comics prior to when the company became Marvel.
Gotta love a golden age hero!
But not everyone is as adoring of Cap as others.
So today, we’re taking a look at this other opinion of the first avenger with our list
of the top 10 major things wrong with Captain America.
And we promise we’ll be as objective as possible with this one.
So with that in mind, let’s get to it!
10 He’s Easily Manipulated We’ve seen a handful of times in the comics
where Captain America was manipulated by the opposing side.
Most recently, in 2017’s Captain America Steve Rogers and the following Secret Empire
story event, HYDRA has chosen Steve to manipulate as their sleeper agent, thanks to a hefty
dose of brainwashing.
Here’s the kicker though – compared to the other Avengers, he’s one of the most
corrupted heroes over the years.
This happens in Tales of the Suspense issue 67 from 1965, when Red Skull recruits Steve
by brainwashing him with the intent of having him assassinate the Allie’s top military
leader.
It also happens in Captain America issue 234 from 1979, with the hero being brainwashed
and beating up protestors, carrying around a new version of his shield that has flames
and a Nazi symbol painted on it.
Luckily, Cap always returns to his normal self, but clearly, he’s an easy target for
manipulation compared to other members on the Avengers team.
9 His Racist Past Cap has a history that stretches back to the
Golden Age, in a time where Marvel Comics had yet to exist – instead, they were being
published under their predecessor, Timely Comics, who would later evolve into the entertainment
giant.
Steve is a man out of time, from another era, and an ‘old fashioned’ one at that, to
put it nicely.
So it shouldn’t be much of a surprise to take a look into Cap’s history and pick
up on some pretty racist behaviour.
Aside from going after Germans and the Japanese thanks to World War 2 propaganda in comics,
Steve hasn’t been the most politically correct when it comes to tossing around slurs about
Chinese people or Native americans.
Now, to be fair, Steve is far from being a character who would discriminate like that
in his contemporary appearances, and his racist behaviour is thanks to the writing at the
time, but it’s still a little hard to shake once you’ve really analyzed those past panels.
8 He’s Judgemental Being someone who constantly stands on high
moral ground ain’t easy.
And while it’s respectable that Steve sticks to his code of honour, sometimes, that makes
him a bit judgemental towards other characters in both the comics and in the MCU.
For example, take that scene in Captain America Winter Solider, the opening black ops mission.
When Black Widow is acting out on orders and acquiring information that wasn’t part of
the plan (or at least the plan Steve knew about) he gets up on his high horse and criticizes
her and Nick Fury for doing so, claiming that those ulterior motives could have compromised
their mission.
Now, he does have a point – not knowing what Natasha’s additional task was could
have left them open for possible holes in their plans.
But, considering that Fury decided it was better to leave Rogers in the dark because
he would, in fact, get up on that high horse, really does say a lot about how other characters
view him at times.
7 That Time he Ditched America Steve Rogers is a man who stands for many
positive ideals, but perhaps one of his most defining features is the ideal his superhero
persona is named after – his patriotism and devotion to his country, the US of A.
The irony is though, once upon a time, Captain America actually ditched America when he felt
he was representing a country he no longer recognized or trusted.
While that’s become an interesting staple in Captain America’s character dynamics
over the years and it’s something that defines him from the likes of other highly ethical
heroes the likes of Superman this instant in the mid-70s made some think twice about
Cap’s love for the red white and blue.
In Captain America issue 180 from 1974, Steve became Nomad after the Marvel Universe took
on their own version of the Watergate scandal.
He felt as if he was a man without a country.
Eventually, he reassumes the Cap mantel after deciding that he was a symbol of American
ideals rather than it’s government.
6 That Time he tried Drugs Accidentally During a story arc titled Streets of Poison
that appeared in Captain America between issue 372 and 378, Cap became addicted to meth.
The story begins when Cap is looking to help one of his tech employees with a meth addiction
he acquired when trying to deal with the workload of stuff he had to do for the Avengers.
Yikes, how bad is it at that compound?
Anywho, Cap finds a rehab center for him, and then decides to hunt down the drug dealers
responsible, and when he confronts them at their meth lab, the place blows up, and Cap
inhales a lethal dose of meth.
Fuelled by meth, he goes on a bit of a rampage trying to blow up meth labs, inhaling more
meth in the process, and fighting his friends like Black Widow and Daredevil.
Eventually he confesses to Hank Pym what has happened after having some serious hallucinations.
5 Ultimate Cap Let’s talk about an alternate version of
Steve Rogers, the one from the Ultimate Marvel universe.
For starters, the Ultimates comics, aka Earth 1610, differs from Earth 616 by reimagining
many of the heroes we love, like Captain America, playing with different perspectives on the
classic superhero icons.
While Steve was very much still a man out of time, the character, rather than being
his usual empathetic fight-for-the-little-guy and the innocent self, Steve’s ideals and
values were very much pulled from the considerably less progressive perspectives of the times
he hailed from.
He was an old white racist and misogynistic dude in the body of a ripped superhero.
He’s aggressively nationalistic to boot, and it was quite unsettling to think that
under slightly different circumstances, this is the kind of man Steve Rogers could have
become in the main Marvel continuity had his origins been slightly altered.
4 Bucky Barnes Clearly, Bucky Barnes is one of Steve’s
biggest weaknesses.
While we could get into the whole history behind Bucky’s death and reappearance in
the comics (a character who was once long believed to be one of the only characters
to remain dead in the medium), perhaps the most prominent depiction of the Stucky relationship
is in the MCU.
It’s a huge plot point for Cap, and his devotion and loyalty to his best friend, the
one thing from the past that he still has, is a narrative that has a significant impact
and consequences in the MCU.
Steve refuses to give up on Bucky, essentially starting Civil War.
His devotion to Bucky, despite all of the horrible things the Winter Soldier has done,
ruins his friendship with Tony Stark.
Yet despite all that, despite all of the things he’d do for Bucky and put on the line, what
we get from the two of them in Avengers Endgame was baffling to most.
SPOILERS FOR AVENGERS ENDGAME – HEADS UP – SKIP AHEAD 10 SECONDS IF YOU DON’T WANNA
HEAR THIS – in the end, he doesn’t even have the proper closure with Bucky that we
all wanted.
DUDE WOULD’VE DIED FOR HIS BEST PAL YET HE CAN’T EVEN SAY GOODBYE???
C’mon Steve.
3 He’s Killed Every superhero whose originated in the Golden
Age has at least once or twice caused the death of SOMEONE.
While most of the heroes who fall into this category have been developed further over
the years and have stuck to the code of not killing.
Steve has had his day as a murderer too.
Now, to be fair, we’re not counting the enemy forces he had to face during World War
2 – that was an unavoidable tragedy, as per the time.
Instead, we’re talking about relatively non-threatening individuals and lowly criminals,
specifically a group he encounters in Captain America Comics issue 3 from 1941, where Cap
takes on Red Skull in order to save Bucky.
Or at least that’s the story on the cover.
There’s another story in the issue titled The Queer Case of the Murdering Butterfly
and the Ancient Mummies, in which Steve takes out a henchman by the name of Lenny by impaling
him with a dinosaur bone while shouting “you asked for it, brother!”
It’s not confirmed if he died, but based on where that bone landed, it’d be a pretty
good guess to think, yes, he did die.
Butterfly, the criminal mentioned in the story’s title, also dies in the issue, which we do
see on panel, when he gets hit by Cap’s shield and his neck breaks.
2 Civil War/Sokovia Accords Whether you’re looking at the comics or
the MCU, it’s no debate that Captain America is largely to blame for the events of Civil
War, both the story event and the event in his third solo titled film.
Let’s look at the comics though – Civil War’s main premise follows the US Government
passing something called the Superhero Registration Act, in which is designates that super powered
individuals must act under official regulation.
Cap opposes it, and those who support it, specifically Iron Man, who grows increasingly
authoritarian throughout the storyline.
The whole thing explores the idea of freedom versus security.
As you know, Cap in the comics has had some major history with dealing with the US government
and what it stands for, as we noted in our previous number concerning Nomad.
But starting a whole super powered civil war over the issue is one of the least responsible
actions he’s been a part of.
It’s reckless.
And it also screws around with a lot of other heroes in the process, like Spider-Man, whose
life is left in shambles afterwards, his identity revealed, Aunt May almost killed in an assassination
attempt on his life, and he gets sued by J Jonah Jameson.
Cap would eventually turn himself in and surrender at the end of the storyline, and is imprisoned
because of it.
1 Hypocritical Despite his code of honor and the ideals of
freedom he fought for during Civil War, Cap has done some pretty hypocritical stuff over
the years.
After Civil War, we got to see that first hand in the Avengers vs X-Men story event,
in which Cap opposes the mutants when the Phoenix Force, the cosmic entity of rebirth
and death, makes a return and finds a host in the form of Hope Summers.
Hope, being the daughter of X-Men leader, Cyclops.
Believing she’s the mutant saviour, the X-Men fight to keep her safe, whereas Cap
and the Avengers believe her to be a major threat and want the X-Men to hand her over
in order to keep the planet safe.
He invades the X-Men sanctuary of Utopia in an attempt to forcibly remove Hope and take
her away.
It’s not the only time he’s hand beef with mutants, either.
In Age of X, an alternate universe in which Charles Xavier never created the X-Men team,
the government goes around hunting mutants, sterilizing them, assaulting them and restricting
their civil liberties – all of which Cap is an enforcer of.
It’s another example of just one thing being altered in a timeline that would’ve pushed
Cap just a little too far in the wrong direction.
There we have it friends!
Are you bothered by any of these numbers on our list?
Or are you a hard core Captain America fan, and think he can do no wrong?
Give us a shout in those comments below and let us know!
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