Captain America | Creators, Stories, & Films
Director Joe Johnston’s Captain America: The First Avenger (2011) marked the character’s first appearance on the big screen in almost 70 years. Chris Evans played the star-spangled hero in a film that expanded on Marvel’s cinematic universe in a manner that delighted both comics fans and critics.
Steve Rogers was a would-be U.S. Army enlistee rejected by recruiters because of his small size. He volunteers to receive a top-secret serum and transforms into a “super-soldier.” Dubbed Captain America and clad in a red, white, and blue costume with a matching stars-and-stripes shield, Rogers joins the army.
Origins in the Golden Age
Simon and Kirby created Steve Rogers, a would-be army enlistee rejected by recruiters because of his small size. Rogers volunteers to receive a top-secret serum, and he is transformed into a “super soldier.” Dubbed Captain America and clad in a red, white, and blue costume with a matching stars-and-stripes shield, Rogers joins the U.S. Army, acquires a kid sidekick—plucky regimental mascot Bucky Barnes—and embarks on a career of enthusiastic Nazi-bashing.
The early stories were simple, straightforward tales peopled with bizarre villains such as the Hunchback of Hollywood, the Black Toad, and Ivan the Terrible. Chief among them was the Red Skull, a seemingly invincible Nazi whose face literally was a crimson skull. The stories of derring-do were gripping and fast-moving, and the comic became one of the most widely read titles of the so-called Golden Age of comics. Audience identification with Captain America was central to that success. The first issue announced the creation of “The Sentinels of Liberty” fan club; eager young readers could join for just a dime, which entitled them to a membership card and a metal badge. The club proved so popular that its badge promotion had to be discontinued because of wartime metal rationing.
By the time of the attack on Pearl Harbor, in December 1941, Captain America Comics had become the publisher’s top-selling title, and, over the course of World War II, Captain America and Bucky fought the Axis powers on multiple fronts. After 10 successful issues, the comic’s creators were enticed away to rival company DC Comics, but their replacements—novice writer-editor Stan Lee and various artists—handled things well. In 1944 the character received the honour of his own Republic Pictures serial, Captain America, which was confirmation of his iconic status. As the war wound down, the market for patriotic superheroes began to shrink, and Captain America and Bucky were literally put on ice. In a story set in the final days of the war, the pair attempt to defuse a bomb on a drone aircraft, but the plane explodes over the frigid North Atlantic, sparking a complicated chain of events that ends with Bucky missing and Rogers floating in the water, seemingly dead.
Britannica Quiz
Marvel or DC?
The postwar years saw a proliferation of differently themed comics: horror, funny animals, westerns, romance stories—everything, it seemed, except superheroes. With the disappearance of Rogers, the mantle of Captain America passed to a succession of replacement heroes, but they failed to resonate with the stalwart Sentinels of Liberty club members. Captain America Comics ended with issue no. 73 (July 1949), and, after two issues titled Captain America’s Weird Tales, the series was canceled. Barely four years later, however, Captain America returned in Young Men no. 24 (1953), and the Captain America comic resumed printing in May 1954. The book, which boasted Captain America…Commie Smasher! as a subtitle, was an obvious product of the McCarthy era. The public did not warm to it. The Captain America series was canceled for a second time in September 1954.
