★★☆☆☆ Big, handsome, blonde, and boring

Captain America

Jack Kirby (illustrator), Joe Simon, Stan Lee, Jim Steranko (illustrator), John Romita Sr. (illustrator), Ben Saunders (editor)

Captain America was born in 1940, when Joe Simon (writer) and Jack Kirby (artist) published a crude anti-Nazi propaganda comic. Notably, the USA would not declare war against Germany until a year later. (Japan bombed Pearl Harbor in December 1941, the USA of course declared war on Japan, Germany declared war on the USA, and the USA in response declared war on Germany.) There was still a lot of pro-German sentiment in the USA in 1940. Kirby and Stan Lee revived Cap in 1964.

In my (sure to be unpopular) opinion, Kirby's artistry is uninspired. His Steve Rogers is a big blonde handsome man -- boring. His Captain America is a dork. Don't take my word for it. In his Foreword, Gene Luen Yang writes

Captain America: the hero with no fancy guns, no gamma-ray rage, no adamantium claws. The hero who wears little wings on the sides of his head, whose only weapon is a glorified Frisbee. The hero who dresses like an American flag. You can't get much cornier than that.
No doubt about it, Cap was a dork through and through.

(To be fair, Yang later walks this back a bit.) Cap also has a teenage side-kick (Robin to Cap's Batman) who is, if possible, even more of a dork.

Kirby and Lee try to give Rogers and Cap some psychological depth by killing off his first sidekick Bucky Barnes. This never really landed for me. Even after his 1964 revival Cap's story remains mired in the 40s for many issues. These stories are mostly more of the crude anti-German propaganda with which the character started.

Later, in 1969 Jim Steranko took over as artist from Kirby. His cinematic drawings prove that it is indeed possible to improve on Kirby's uninspired work. Unfortunately, the plot of the Steranko issues is dull.

These original Captain America comics are inferior to those in the The Amazing Spider-Man. I was surprised, because the Steve Rogers of the Marvel movies is an interesting character. He's a huge improvement on his source material.

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