Dear fans of Captain America,
The news series Steven Roger: Captain America #1 has dropped a shocking twist on many. In it, Steve Rogers, the conscious of the entire Marvel Universe is revealed to be an agent for the organization known as Hydra his entry existence and the declaration has resonated through the fan community. Some of you are confused wondering how such a story could come to be. Others are enraged and taking the news as some type of insult. These are all normal reactions to a storyline which causes great changes to a character and how you see them overall.
I wanted to let you know I feel for you. I really do because I myself have experienced the exact same thing.
The year was 1996 and the issue was Avengers: The Crossing #1. It was a start of The Crossing storyline (thought to be one of the worst Avengers storyline ever). At the end of the issue, stood Tony Stark was revealed to be evil having killed Marilla, the nanny of Luna the daughter of Quicksilver and Crystal. The story would reveal he had in fact been controlled by Kang the Conqueror for nearly his entire fictional history. The Crossing would end with Iron Man having to sacrifice himself and a teenage Tony Stark from another timeline having to take his place. It would take another event, Heroes Reborn to fix everything and put the proper Tony Stark back in the Iron man armor. To this day the events of the crossing are infamous, never referenced, and best forgotten by fans or creators.
Watching our heroes doing things they think are right in the moment is often hard to watch. It often causes them to clash against their former friends (both the comic book story and movie of Civil War showed how easily this can happen). Watching characters not get along or do something you don’t agree with is one thing. Reading a storyline where a character is completely not themselves or doing something which feels like a betrayal to what they stood for in the first place is another.
Superheroes are subjective to the whims of their creative teams and often fans have no choice but to watch what unfolds and deal with the consequences afterwards. Even now, readers are still dealing with the idea of Tony Stark actually being the adopted son of Howard Stark. Some storylines are hard to swallow and it’s trying to see the heroes we have come to love be used as villains for petty reasons. Don’t give up with on Captain America entirely. Perhaps somewhere down the line it will revealed through some plot device like brainwashing was used and things were only manipulated to happen in this way. For now I can only assure you this will past and one day Steve Rogers will stand for truth and justice once again.
