My Wife: Wants Captain America To Quit Praying, Start Killing

Once again, Ultimate Captain America came over for a visit.

Ultimate Captain America # 3
Written by Jason Aaron
Art by Ron Garney
Published by Marvel Comics 

I opened this up and read the recap page and I went, "Oh yeah", but not like the Kool-Aid Guy. More like "Oh, yeah. I wondered what was going to happen with this story." 

Unfortunately, it looks like I have to keep wondering. What is this? Here I am actually excited to read what happens next, and we spend the entire issue treading water? 

Oh, and don't misunderstand me. I get it. I get that old what's-his-flag-face-name has a point he wants to make. I get that he wants to torture Captain America to make him understand how the USA has tortured and hurt the innocent in its quest for Freedom and/or Power. I get, too, that all the Cambodian villagers are actually Super Soldiers that are jonesing to kill the Cap'n. I get that Captain America won't break. I GET IT. WE GET IT. 

One sits through an entire comic like this, and you just know that it's building toward something. Right? You know, because it's the same "something" that was promised in the cliffhanger of the last issue. So, here we are, and I've read and seen all these scenarios over and over again, all to come to a final page that gives me...a minor variation on the same Nuke's-gonna-kill-the-Captain cliffhanger I got in the last issue.

Look, I did love the little twist that Captain America prays (and considering how sensitive these comics seem to be about depicting women as human beings, it's pretty gutsy for them to be including actual God & prayer type stuff), and that is what turns everything around. I'm assuming that's what happens, because after praying on his knees, he has this whole thought process ending with: "I have always spent my life in service to what I always believed was the greater good. And now for the first time ever...I know how it feels to be forsaken. I start to curse Him. To curse it all. And that's when out of the corner of my eye......I see the hand of God."

Do we see the hand of God though?  Oh no. Or even if we do - I mean, we are shown an open cellar door - there is no way we can see or understand what he sees. (Unless the next issue shows that he saw a magic lockpick or a fairy holding a machine gun, in which case I will probably stop being impressed.)

Can I also mention the lameness of how Nuke nearly kills Captain America so many times but then just stops at the very edge of all these scenarios with a, "Okay, I'm giving you 5 minutes to pull yourself together. When I get back you better be off the ground." (Okay, that isn't a direct quote - but you get the gist.) I mean - WTF? If you wanna kill him, you just kill him. None of this bullshit. Is he a James Bond villain or a soldier? Soldiers kill people, they do jobs, they don't play games. And if he's trying to teach Captain America something, do that. This is just all over the place, there's never a moment where Nuke makes sense. Captain America is--I can't believe I'm saying this--interesting, but he's not interesting enough by himself, so for this story to work, Nuke has to be something specific. Unless he's just another plotty villain who talks a lot about nothing, in which case this isn't the comic I thought it was and is actually just another predictable super-hero comic for people who never get sick of reading the same thing over and over again.

So, that's what I have to say about this. I don't really feel like this comic was about making Captain America wake up to what America has done to others in this world. I feel like it's the agenda of someone else, like someone on the writing team, perhaps who wanted the readers to understand waterboarding and torture in all its forms. And not in a "aren't these bad" kind of way, which would have been boring, but in a "isn't this fucked up" kind of way, which is pretty stupid. No matter what it is, it certainly doesn't achieve a point.

Good Lord. And I didn't think I had anything to say.

-Nina Stone, 2011

Comments

[Prickle]

I was disappointed that you gave Aaron the benefit of the doubt with previous issue. Glad to see what we all know and you pointed out about Remender: The emperor has no clothes.

[Sharif]

I have an angry Vietnamese friend (who remembers "the boat ride"). I'm actually thinking about giving him the trade for this when it comes out as angry Vietnamese people are the tiny target readership for this book.

[John K(UK)]

I've only read the first issue but since the entire premise seems to rest on UltCap seemingly having expressed little to no interest in the world he's been re-born into couldn't FlagFace just have anonymously sent him a DVD box set of Oliver Stone films? Or maybe a library card?

I am actually half enjoying the book but that's probably because I am quite angry rather than my being Vietnamese; which I'm not.