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Credits
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Credits
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We now interrupt the ongoing Winter Soldier story for a House of M interlude...
The beginning premise of House of M is that Wanda's reality-warping powers have changed the world, giving myriad heroes that which they wanted most... or think that they did. Exactly how deep these changes go, and how much of it will be lasting, will become problematic in the short-term.
Well, so... onwards. In the House of M world, the incident where Bucky is killed and Captain America frozen doesn't play out that way, and his post WWII history is revealed via flashbacks from a dinner honoring Steve Rogers.
On that fateful day, Captain America and Bucky both ditch the drone plane, having sent it back to where Zemo was watching, theoretically killing him (not that the MU has made me cynical about death...). I guess there was nothing here for the Soviet submarine to pick up... *grin*
The Invaders, with the real Captain America and Bucky, participate in V-E; Master Man (and presumably many of the rest of the group that the world would come to know as Axis Mundi) is killed, the Red Skull throws himself off a building in defeat, and Hitler is captured to stand trail.
After the war, Captain America continues his career, and marries Peggy Carter. Bucky (now just "Buck") joins SHIELD.
He resigns when, during the McCarthy-Mutant Witchunts, he refuses to give testimony on his friends Namor and Toro. Rogers becomes known for his pro-Mutant views, and when he (as part of the Apollo program, whose progress is fuelled by Mutant scientific assistance) takes the first step on the Moon, he makes a pro-Mutant re-write of the famous Armstrong quote.
He and Peggy divorce; she isn't happy that Steve Rogers resigned as Cap, that he continues to be loudly pro-Mutant, and that he doesn't seem to be doing anything significant with his life.
Just as he had been pro-Mutant, he also becomes loudly anti-Magnus, seeing the same racism and megalomania which characterized Hitler and the Nazi regime. Unfortunately for Cap, Magnus will ultimately be successful in his drive to power, leaving Cap to an apparently uneventful retirement.
On the way home from the dinner, Steve Rogers is accosted by some mutant hoodlums, who leave him alone when he backs down. Rogers muses, essentially, the old saw about "be careful what you wish for, because you might actually get it" (albiet phrased differently).
I'm of two minds on this issue - its either a "just OK" What If story, or its more. If its a "just OK" House of M tie-in, designed to participate in the House of M (and perhaps garner some additional readers therefrom), and an excuse for Brubaker to tell what is essentially a What If story, all well and good - its an OK read, and if this helps Steve Epting with deadlines, schedules, and RPS, then I don't mind so much... unfortunately, aside from acting as a history primer for the House of M from Cap's perspective, there is no real story here - just exposition of how Cap's life went after WWII.
But... as with the CA #7 issue that dealt with Jack Monroe, I can't help but feel that its more, although whether or not its more for the House of M or for the Winter Soldier storyline I don't know.
I find it hard to believe - OK, perhaps easy to believe but very depressing - that Captain America doesn't have a significant role in the House of M. So far, as far as I can tell, he's basically been ignored by the HoM storyline, dismissed as an old man. Captain America is one of Marvel's headline heroes, and one of their very licensable properties - that he's just dismissed seems wrong. On the other hand, given that Bendis uses him as nothing but a talking head and meaningless slugger in the Avengers, perhaps Bendis just doesn't "get" Cap, and decided that his portrayal would weaken the story (especially when, as in the New Avengers' most recent arc, he can find an excuse to make Emma Frost one of the major players).
If there are elements here which will play into the Winter Soldier arc, they're not as obvious at the moment as the masterful way Fabien Nicieza worked HoM into his ongoing New Thunderbolts saga; however, the major mystery of the Winter Soldier and this story have the same focal event at their beginning - the death of Bucky and the hibernation of Captain America.
There are many subtextual things that Brubaker might be trying to show us here, and which might carry forward into the main story. The HoM Captain America is a far different creature than the "normal" Captain America - this one has given up. When he and Bucky survive WWII, he is, in a way, crippled by his success - his job is done, and with the survival of Bucky some of his reasons for continuing as a force seem to have gone. After the War, we're not told of any major events aside from the McCarthy trial which acts as catalyst for his retirement. Aside from walking on the Moon - and lets not minimize that achievement, but compared to his career as Cap it seems relatively trivial - there isn't much left for our Cap. His fire seems put out, extinguished by bigotry and represssion. The HoM Cap has, essentially, let the fires of liberty extinguish themselves in his soul - he knows the form, but not the substance.
There is an old quote from (I think) Goethe - "You must either hammer or anvil be". In the normal Marvel Universe, Steve Rogers has become the hammer - forged in the fires of trauma and adversity, the events and decisions which forged his life have left him with an undomitable will, and a determination to move forward.
By contrast, by "getting everything he wanted", the HoM Steve Rogers has become just another anvil. His job as Captain America was done with World War II, and by marrying Peggy and settling down, he became just another World War II veteran. His resignation as Captain America was familiar, but the "real" Steve Rogers continued the fight, as Nomad, as the Captain, and as the "Man Without A Country". As with the Commission, he recognizes that the government, in essence, "owns" Captain America, but this Steve Rogers doesn't see any mission beyond being Cap - he was created during wartime, he filled that role, end of story.
As a normal civilian, he continues to do positive things - but as a private citizen, not as an icon, an archetype of the American ideals of liberty, determination, and essential fairness. He ages - perhaps symptomatic of his own spiritual decline? - into almost a dotage, where he is as powerless to affect the tide of events as any other "everyman".
The final scene of the book has the HoM rebels about to contact him - not having read the HoM but having read the spoilers, we know that nothing overt happens here - they dismiss Steve Rogers as essentially worthless, although there are hints that all is not as it seems. Hopefully, thats the case, since it will let me re-evaluate the story in the larger context, and not just dismiss it as a House of M "what if" story.
Of course, there are a few miles worth of things I'd have wanted to know about the HoM Captain America "and his amazing friends!" that remain unanswered:
Artwork for me falls into roughly three categories - horrible, functional, and excellent. Horrible art detracts from the story, as with the artwork on the "The Truth" LS, which turned me off immediately. Excellent art, like the vast majority of the works of George Perez, makes me go bakc through the issue several times, admiring it. The artwork on this issue was neither of those extremes - I didn't hate it, but I wasn't particularly enamoured of it, either.
