Captain America is the original World War II hero and despite being created by two young Jewish men and owned by a Jewish family never battled the infamous threat of the death camps directly, though he mowed down many a Nazi in his time. Taking on the "Holocaust" would have to wait until the Bronze Age of comics and issue #237 of the second Captain America series. The talents who bring Cap face to face with the final solution are writers Chris Claremont and Roger McKenzie and artists Sal Buscema and Don Perlin.
It happens that Cap had just put down the threat of the National Force led by a former Captain America the racist Cap from the 1950's. After the seeming death of Sharon Carter he's looking for a new direction (something Cap did a lot alas) and seeks to back away from his hero identity and find some solace as a private citizen named Steve Rogers. To that end he moves into a new apartment building, one owned by Anna Kapplebaum a survivor of the camps and in particular one which Cap himself had helped liberate. So we finally get to see the Living Legend battle the Nazis on the ground on which they murdered countless numbers.
Note: This post originally appeared at Rip Jagger's Other Dojo.
Rip Off
I had this issue of Captain America and it might be where I first heard of Kristallnacht, the night in 1938 when Jewish shops and businesses in Germany were burned and looted by Nazi mobs.
ReplyDeleteBut I also watched the TV mini-series 'Holocaust' starring Meryl Streep and maybe that's where I first heard of Kristallnacht.
I'd be hard pressed to remember. But that kind of targeted hooliganism is something to be on the watch for. There are always characters who I'd like to go all "ultra-violent" on some target or other and if they get a wink and or a nod from the authorities it will be a grim day. We've had a tiny bit of that here with attempts to downplay some of the racist rallies from a few years ago by authority figures who want to make it all about free speech. I live in a land in which certain elected officials call an attack on the capitol of the country merely "political rhetoric". Grim stuff indeed.
DeleteCorrection: "There are always characters who would like to go all "ultra-violent" on some target or other and if they get a wink and or a nod from the authorities it will be a grim day."
DeleteSounds sort of like I endorsed it for a minute there. Not the case.
I will never understand how anyone in USA could have stood up for that shocking attack on the capital just beggars belief.
ReplyDeleteI used to read Captain America a lot during the 1972 -1976 period but missed this one as it was after this time, but it looks an interesting storyline and it was nice to see that Sal was still drawing Cap at this time.
It's stunning to listen to the idiotic attempts to explain away what was clearly an attack on the standing government in broad daylight. It was a defacto coup attempt by the then sitting President to hold onto power after being soundly defeated in a fair and legal election. But the Republicans in my country are a dwindling breed despite their loud screeds and they know that in a generation or maybe even sooner power will begin to slip away from them, so the grasp at it desperately. I remember soon after Trump's first election a reporter said that Republicans realize they will soon not be able to win fair elections so their solution is not to have any more. Seems that prediction is proving out. Hopefully fair play will win the day, but we'll see in a year's time. Some of the shine seems to be rubbing off Trump and I can only hope he will soon be be part of the ever growing slag heap of history.
DeleteSorry I sort of vented there. Sal Buscema was such a rock steady artist for so long that it's easy to forget sometimes. He had extensive runs on Cap, Hulk, Defenders, Nova, Marvel Team-up, Spectacular Spider-Man, and more.
You'd have thought Jack Kirby, being Jewish, would've tackled this subject in his '70s run on Cap, but he steered well clear. It's easy to see now why so many readers were disappointed with his return to the title, after other writers had tackled weightier topics.
ReplyDeleteI would argue that the Fourth World is in many ways his most vibrant and fully-formed response to the horrors of World War II and the Holocaust. His Captain America return was less impressive but still he touched on quite a few heavy issues with the opening story of a new American Revolution (I need to read that again in these modern times) and later the Doctor Mengele overtones of Arnim Zola.
DeleteKirby's best stuff operates on near a mythic level, addressing the concerns of the day in an elliptical way but still with focus and power.
As you know, I'm not as impressed with his Fourth World stuff as you are, RJ, but that's neither here nor there. Other writers on Cap tackled such subjects in a way that readers seemed to prefer to Kirby's caricatures of 'evil', and though his work hinted at such topics, he handled them in a less effective way than those who took the more direct approach. And that's why he only did 22 issues and 2 Annuals, and regular Cap fans (as opposed to Kirby fans) rejoiced when he left. As Cap's co-creator, it was a sad end to his connection to the character, but he just wasn't giving the readers what they wanted or expected.
ReplyDeleteDon't forget that remarkable Captain America's Bicentennial Battles tabloid. One of the strangest Cap comics I've ever read. And I hope amigo that one day you join us Kirby faithful on the other side of the great Fourth World divide.
DeleteI've got the Bicentennial Battles tabloid, but I thought it was just okay, nothing brilliant. The most interesting thing I found about it was Smith's inks on Kirby. Fourth World was okay, I just don't see it as his masterpiece - his dialoguing let him down. Jimmy Olsen I thought was generally great though.
ReplyDelete