Okay, that's freaking awesome. I can't wait!

It was really solid - it's definitely worth picking up the first trade to see his take on the character. Marvel might have spread Coates and the Black Panther a bit thin with a bunch of (since canceled) miniseries ahead of the movie, but they've all been good stuff.

I'm curious to see Coates' take on the character. It'll be an interesting to see what he does with the character. I'd be more curious to see his version of Sam Wilson as Cap though.

And I'm kind of sad the conversation around Secret Empire has died down because I finally read it last week and enjoyed it quite a bit.

Really?

It didn't bother you that none of the non-American heroes or goverments tried to oppose Hydra? ( I'm sure that the Israelis wouldn't have ANY qualms about a bunch of Nazi's taking over the most militarily powerful nation of the face of the Earth )

That all the remaining heroes we're constantly playing pass the idiot ball, at least when they weren't full on out of character. Like Frank Castle, Punisher for Hydra.

The "White Washing" Hydra away from it's Nazi roots didn't bother you? ( Heck even the Whedon's weighed in on that one )

The loss of Sam Wilson as Cap during a time when I feel that we could have really used him as Captain America?

The frankly amazing amount of "Hand Waveium" with the whole Cap'N' Nazi wields Mjölnir.....nope not going to explain how they changed the enchantment. Especially poorly done if you've been reading the run of Jane Foster's Thor which was simultaneously exploring Mjölnir AND HOW IT CHOSE IT'S WIELDERS......

Now top it all off with what even it's most ardent defenders have to admit is an incredibly lazy and poorly written finally that doesn't even try to deal with the repercussions of Secret Empire ( notice that Vegas is back literally the same month after being bombed into oblivion and that while one schoolyard getting blown up kicks off the whole Civil War event this SH%^ gets quietly swept under the rug. )

And lets not forget we're now saddled with Cap'N' Nazi who'll flare all this B.S. up again at some point in the future. So we can look forward to the tired retread of a tired retread.....whoopee.

I was trying to think about what else bothered me, but I think I'll let my self from earlier in the thread do the talking.

Heheheh, yeah I guess you could say I have "Feelings" about the Secret Empire event ( Which sadly isn't even related to the original Secret Empire event, no dead Nixon means no Secret Empire in my book! ).

I still dislike it when people call Hydra a Nazi organization.

That was a retcon that has been retconned over and over and over again.

Wow, so much to respond to. But most of it, honestly, doesn't seem like that big a deal.

Hydra took over a small nation before taking over the United States. If the world didn't stop that small move, why would they stop the big one? Cap's seizing of power was pretty straightforward, and when you have control of the most powerful military in the world, and SHIELD, what coalition is really going to stand up to that?

I had questions about Punisher, that were answered when we find out Cap had been promising his family. Someone mentioned The Hood doing the same thing, instead of a long drawn out discussion about the increasing irrelevance of continuity, I'd say the Punisher is more likely to consider the promise of his family to be in good nature when it's coming from Captian America instead of The Hood. Also, Punisher has streaks of fascism in him, so it wasn't the toughest sell.

This happened years ago. So I've gotten over it. I don't really care what the Whedons think about it. Also, the re-branding of Hydra as "not Nazis" is part of the commentary of how noxious ideas snake their way into political discourse under similar re-brandings. When people argue that Hydra are Nazis as a criticism of the story I feel like they're so close to getting what the story was actually trying to say.

Part of the story was Sam's loss of faith, which he finds by the end of it. That's kind of the point.


I'm not reading Thor, so I can't speak to that, but Cap lifting the hammer was such a small, virtually symbolic gesture, that I don't understand how it can be so upsetting. Anyway, it was explained in the final issue that it was done via cosmic cube. It didn't really bother me.

I don't think it was lazy or poorly written at all. As for the rest of what you wrote, are you honestly surprised everything went back to normal? This is literally the direction comic books always go in. Things are different, until they're the same again.

I'd say this story was different enough (as different as super hero stories can get anyway) by pushing the evil hero trope as far as it can go. I know you didn't ask, but I'm going to go ahead and actually explain why I enjoyed the story.

The last few stories like this we got (Superior Spider-Man/Iron Man) tended to focus on a hero being swapped for a villain. In Secret Empire a hero was transformed, as best as possible, into an actual villain. So we get a version of Steve Rogers that lived for Hydra, and in a real sense, knows what it's like to live as his enemy. We see the qualities everyone loves in Steve Rogers being used to a nefarious purpose, and it's a commentary on how we're not just the products of our inner workings but also the world we inhabit.

The heart of the conflict is the idea of a fractured nation, one being driven in different directions. The idea of someone being "My Captain America", which came up many times in the lead-in to Secret Empire, is a metaphor for how people view their nation, embodied in one man. The very idea of tying this to a man, a place, or a flag is what's being critiqued. The whole point of Secret Empire was to tear down the idea of Captain America being forever good and pure, beyond question or doubt, and asking people to look critically at their heroes. I can see why it made people so uncomfortable the same way I can see why people are uncomfortable when someone takes a knee during the national anthem or refuses to say the pledge of allegiance. It's someone taking on an icon, hoping people will realize the danger of having an icon in the first place.

Ultimately, the conclusion drove home that idea that symbols and people can be corrupted and turned into weapons by fascists. But only when we let them. I found it surprisingly somber for a super hero comic which as a genre usually wraps up the story with face punching and a victory party.

It certainly wasn't the greatest comic of all time, and maybe some parts were lacking, but on the whole I enjoyed it and thought it touched on some interesting themes.

I'm glade you found something in it that I didn't, I disagree. We're comic fans, it happens.

I'd say that it's destined to be one of the forgotten events ( or purposefully ignored ) like The Crossing. It could have been something interesting if more time and effort was put into it, if consequences and repercussions during the actual event itself were more important than headlines and controversy for its own sake.

For now it's gone down with the likes of Identity Crisis ( Which is far worse in my opinion, seriously someone needs to give Brad Meltzer a hard smack and a court ordered course on how to write about women ), One More Day ( Lazy, lazy writing ) and the Clone Crisis ( Another perfect example of something that could have been done better that was wrecked by editorial mandate and marketing interference ).

I'd throw The Killing Joke in that category as well ( beloved as I know it is to many ), heck even Alan Moore has come out about his reservations on that story and how he was told it was never meant to actually be part of DC continuity.

Heck at least its better than the movie version that somehow manages to marginalize Barbara even more and up the squick factor through the roof.

I will say this for Secret Empire at least they didn't get Frank Miller to write it, imagine that! "Shudder" now who is going to rock me to sleep tonight, that's what I want to know!

It's kind of funny because I agree with pretty much everything you just said about all those other stories (save The Crossing which I haven't read, but do sadly remember).

I'd only kind of disagree about Frank Miller because the madness he comes up with when he's allowed to run wild makes me laugh. Although I can only laugh because I read his stuff via the library, I might be less forgiving if I had to pay for it.

Also, for those keeping track of Nick Spencer, it looks like he's taking over for Dan Slott on Amazing Spider-Man. I'm hoping this means we get more Boomerang stories.

Does this means Mary Jane is going to be outted as a nazi ???

In retrospect, this was the biggest lie to come out of Secret Empire.

(The lack of events for 18 months, not TF buying comics. I have no idea what his buying habits are.)


Or... DO I?!?!?!?

::sigh:: Yeah. Upshot is that they're not going line-wide with a crossover yet. Or are they? I haven't paid attention.

Been about two years since I bought a Marvel comic. Sadly, can't say that I've missed it much.

I did get back in with Domino and Exiles, and getting Quicksilver. But most stuff I get in trades.

From what I recall, it was a Nazi organization to begin with.

And frankly... if you're being run by Nazis, you espouse Nazi values, and you work side-by-side with Nazis...

Well, you know, the Germans have a word for the Germans that worked with Nazis in WW2.

Nazis.

IIRC originally it was just a counter spy network to be the bad guy in Nick Fury's SHIELD. Granted, that could be me playing favorites with Steranko's SHIELD series and selective memory.

But the origins of Hydra have been retconned so many times that trying to tie them down to one distinct origin is almost meaningless.