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nmcannon 's review for:
Captain America: Death of the Red Skull
by Mike Carlin, Ron Frenz, Michael Ellis, J.M. DeMatteis, Paul Neary, Bill Mantlo, Herb Trimpe
I feel like I say this after every Cap comic, but this is my favorite Cap comic. For the first time in forever, reading Captain America is not like snorting testosterone and instead like reading the adventures of the most Gryffindor man to ever Gryffindor. The amount of diversity in this comic is astounding, and each character is allowed emotion, vulnerability, AND badassery. Like, seriously, Steve is friends with gay Jewish black disabled pacifists. I'm not talking just subtext here. Explicitly in the text, both Steve's best friend Arnie Roth and fiancee Bernie (btw, I love Bernie, I want to be best friends with Bernie and invite her over for board games and frame all her lines of dialogue on my wall and shove them in annoying people's faces) are Jewish. Falcon is Falcon, and dealing with a failed election campaign. Steve's other other best friend is Dave, a Vietnam veteran who is now so devoted to pacifism that it literally withstands bad guy brainwashing. And then, AND THEN, readers would have to have the most heteronormative goggles ever to see Arnie as anything but gay. People with more sensitive slash goggles can see Steve as bi.
The only diversity point that didn't sit right involved a hero called Black Crow. It seemed like DeMatteis did some of his research on Native American issues: I was impressed with the depictions of economic struggles both on and off reservation, the changing of traditions, the multiplicity of tribes, and the possible Navajo-accurate costume. However, this was interspersed with literal "Indian magics," "Earth Spirits," and background drawings of "Navajo" teepees. You couldn't read just a couple more encyclopedia entries, dude? Come on, you did so awesome with the others.
But I haven't even gotten to the fight with Red Skull yet. The fight with Red Skull is hilarious because Red Skull is all dramatic, "I am a dark god, Captain! You are a beacon of light! We will now die together and battle for eternity!" and Steve is like "WOULD YOU SHUT UP: WE'RE JUST TWO CRANKY OLD MEN FEEBLY PUNCHING EACH OTHER. THIS IS EMBARRASSING." Beautiful stuff, right there.
In conclusion: read it. Read it and giggle.
The only diversity point that didn't sit right involved a hero called Black Crow. It seemed like DeMatteis did some of his research on Native American issues: I was impressed with the depictions of economic struggles both on and off reservation, the changing of traditions, the multiplicity of tribes, and the possible Navajo-accurate costume. However, this was interspersed with literal "Indian magics," "Earth Spirits," and background drawings of "Navajo" teepees. You couldn't read just a couple more encyclopedia entries, dude? Come on, you did so awesome with the others.
But I haven't even gotten to the fight with Red Skull yet. The fight with Red Skull is hilarious because Red Skull is all dramatic, "I am a dark god, Captain! You are a beacon of light! We will now die together and battle for eternity!" and Steve is like "WOULD YOU SHUT UP: WE'RE JUST TWO CRANKY OLD MEN FEEBLY PUNCHING EACH OTHER. THIS IS EMBARRASSING." Beautiful stuff, right there.
In conclusion: read it. Read it and giggle.