A "Brief" History Of Captain America

I've read Cap on and off over the years, and it's been pretty bleak for that character overall. Quite honestly, I've felt sorry for the Cap fan over the decades.

The 60s and early 70s weren't so bad. You had Stan Lee, Jack Kirby, Jim Steranko and Steve Englehart as creative forces. And before that you had Joe Simon and Kirby. That's not bad at all.

Then in rolls the mid-to late 70s. Here we get Frank Robbins art, a not-so-great Jack Kirby, a hit-or-miss J.M. DeMatteis (more miss than hit, but when he was good, he was very good) and Mark Gruenwald.

Let me step back a bit, as I don't really want this to be seen as me slamming these creators.

Robbins is a great writer - he did excellent work on Batman in the late 60s / early 70s, and along with Denny O'Neil, he helped recast Batman (I seem to be the only person noting that O'Neil was not alone in this effort) to be the great, dark character he is today.

Most will consider my assessment of Kirby here as comic book blasphemy. But I read CA 193-215...it wasn't pretty. Some interesting things in there, but mostly...just killing time.

J.M. DeMatteis had a lengthy run, with notable storylines including the Red Skull/Nomad story in issues 261-263, the Deathlok story in issues 276-279 (really good comics) and the Skull story that led into issue 300. Other than these issues, I don't remember much about the DeMatteis run at all.

As for Gruenwald, I seem to remember him justifying a lengthy, but largely uninteresting, run on CA by proclaiming that he was the longest-tenured of CA's writers. True and noteworthy for sure - but other than having Cap giving up his identity in issue 332, there isn't any truly classic CA tale to be found in his 100+ (not sure about this number) issue run.

The years from 1975 - 2008 weren't all bad. We had some great CA stories in the early 80s with honorable mention going to excellent writers Roger MacKenzie (pre-Frank Miller Daredevil guy) and Roger Stern (from about issue 220-255), and the aforementioned DeMatteis efforts.

Then, in the late 90s, came the excellent Mark Waid issues. Too bad that was so short-lived. I'd heard that Waid was really pumped about getting to write Cap. I'd also heard rumors that he was heavily interfered with by Marvel at the time. The readers loss, whatever happened. His run at the end of CA volume 1, and the first 15 or so issues of volume 2 were some of the best CA comics since the 70s.

And don't even get me started about how good Fabian Niceiza's Sentinel Of Liberty mini-series was. This may be one of my favorite Cap comic arcs ever. It was excellent and any and all Cap fans should seek it out. Since a lot of comic readers don't seem to know what a good story is, you might be able to find these issues in 50 cent/dollar boxes. Sad.

Then Cap went through a weird period where he couldn't sustain a readership. Or that's what I imagine must have been the case. I can't think of any other reason that Cap was stopped and started so much in the late 90s / early 2000s. I believe the Brubaker Cap is volume 5.

I've enjoyed Brubaker's writing on titles such as Catwoman and Batman, and I fully intend to get some of his Daredevil issues. And I've seen some of his CA work, and I liked what I saw. I don't have his entire run, so I have not had a chance to read much of it. But I look forward to it.

Except for the Winter Soldier / Bucky parts. But that's a subject for another post. This "history of Cap by a demented fan" post has already gone on too long. Sorry about that. To be continued...