In 2014, it’s easy to think of Captain America as a bit of a tough sell. He’s a figure of an earlier time, and bringing him into the modern age has always meant a dance between sly retcons and outright hokeyness. He’s also a pain in the ass, sticking up for abstract ideas of justice and liberty when a lot of other heroes are content to just blow up the bad guy and move on. And then there’s that name: When the first Cap movie debuted in South Korea, it bore the unassuming title The First Avenger. After 60 years of military bases, having “America” in your hero’s name had become a marketing liability.
IN CIVIL WAR, WE’LL SEE THINGS GET EVEN BLEAKER
So far, Marvel’s solution has been to bring the conflict front and center, drawing on deep questions about American power that have become newly relevant in the wake of the Snowden leaks. The Winter Soldier was bleak, betraying a real pessimism about US intelligence operations, and if the third movie follows the Civil War plotline as Marvel has suggested, we’ll see things get even bleaker.