The Captain America Conundrum: Issues of Patriotism, Race, and Gender in Captain America ...

359 Pages·2011·10.67 MB·English

by  David Carter

The Captain America Conundrum: Issues of Patriotism, Race, and Gender
in Captain America Comic Books, 1941-2001

by

Richard A. Hall

A dissertation submitted to the Graduate Faculty of
Auburn University
in partial fulfillment of the
requirements for the Degree of
Doctor of Philosophy

Auburn, Alabama
August 6, 2011

Keywords: Captain America, comic books, patriotism, popular culture

Copyright 2011 by Richard A. Hall

Approved by

Larry Gerber, Chair, Professor Emeritus of History
Ruth Crocker, Professor of History
David Carter, Associate Professor of History
Abstract

“The Captain America Conundrum: Issues of Patriotism, Race, and Gender in
Captain America Comic Books, 1941-2001” represents a comprehensive examination of
Captain America comic books as a primary source for the study of United States history
from just prior to World War II to the aftermath of the terrorist attacks of September 11,
2001. Just as Time magazine or the New York Times newspaper could be used as primary
sources to examine American society, mores, and culture, it is the argument of this study
that comic books – heretofore considered primarily children’s literature – can also be
used in this regard. Through the pages of this essentially monthly publication, accepted
norms of contemporary American society can be seen, as well as (post-1960) attempts on
the part of the writers and artists to influence those norms.
Within the zeitgeist of American culture, the character of Captain America has
been considered a representation of strong government and ardent conservatism. The
reality, however, is that the character has become increasingly just left-of-center
politically, promoting strong nationalism and American leadership alongside ideas of
racial and gender equality. While the 1940s and ’50s issues portrayed racial and,
occasionally, gender stereotypes, as American society became more open to a more
egalitarian society, those mores are portrayed – and, many would argue, pushed – in the
pages of Captain America. By the end of the 1960s, the comic presented the first
ii
African-American superhero, The Falcon, and a strong female secret-agent character,
Sharon Carter.
Aside from the actual text and images within the pages of Captain America,
advertisements and printed letters to the editors provide additional windows into these
periods of American history. Ads promoting traditional ideas of gender roles and gender
image frequent the books throughout the decades; and, beginning in the 1960s, letters
from fans of the comic book provide evidence that these comic books were not simply
read by children, but high school and college students, professors, lawyers, soldiers, and
housewives as well. As American society swung from left to right over the decades,
these changes in political climate are repeatedly addressed in the pages of this superhero
comic book.
After a brief overview of the more important historiography of comic book /
superhero studies, the remaining chapters proceed to examine the comic book decade-by-
decade. From the hero’s origins just prior to American involvement in World War II,
through its brief return during the height of the McCarthy era as “Captain America:
Commie Smasher,” to its eventual return in the post-Kennedy 1960s as a “man-out-of-
time,” showing how American society had changed since the hero’s inception, the pages
of the various titles of the monthly Captain America comic book show America during
these decades as they are popularly perceived. From the late ’60s through the remainder
of the century, the comic book portrays situations such as: the explosion of representation
of African-Americans and the idea of the “New Woman” in the 1970s; ideas for and
against the so-called Age of Reagan in the 1980s; the questionable status of the U.S. in a
post-Cold War world in the 1990s; and the immediate response to the terrorist attacks of
iii
9/11. American history unfolds in the pages of Captain America, reflecting society – as
the best of popular culture does – while at the same time attempting to influence the
thinking of its readers.

iv
Acknowledgments

There are numerous individuals without which this dissertation could not have
come about. First, I am grateful to my committee members, Dr. Larry Gerber, Dr. Ruth
Crocker, and Dr. David Carter, for allowing me the opportunity to stretch into areas of
historical study that have, for the most part, gone heretofore ignored. Scholarship
concerning comic books is an extremely new field, much of it only published within the
last ten years. My committee members have been extremely gracious in their advice and
assistance in keeping my research on a professional track, and very open-minded toward
what has traditionally been considered by scholars as “low-brow” culture.
Aside from my committee members, other scholars in the field have been very
helpful. Dr. Jason Dittmer of University College London, a geographer who has written
perhaps more than any other scholar on Captain America, has been of monumental
assistance in maintaining my focus and proper perspective and analysis of the textual
material. Likewise, Rob Weiner, history librarian at Texas Tech University and editor of
a recent collection of scholarly essays on Captain America has been of considerable
assistance in finding copies of the older issues of the comic book. Trina Robbins and
Jennifer Stuller, both historians of women’s issues in superhero comic books, were both
kind enough to allow me to pick their brains on what I was doing and provide their own
input into the ideas presented in this work.
v
I am also grateful to several members of the Captain America creative teams from
over the decades. Mark Waid, noted comic book author and writer of Captain America
for two runs in the 1990s has been of invaluable assistance to me both in his personal
insights on the character and in putting me in contact with other Cap writers. Other
writers that have been kind enough to allow me to interview them on their respective runs
on the comic book include Steve Englehart (from the early 1970s), J.M. DeMatteis (from
the first half of the 1980s), Marv Wolfman (from the late 1970s), and Dan Jurgens (from
the late-1990s and leading up to 9/11). These gentlemen have been such a valuable
resource of information on their respective runs on the comic book and their respective
decades of creative input into the character.
Lastly, I am thankful to my wife and fellow-grad student, Maria Reyes-Hall.
Aside from her undaunted patience over the last four years, she has also provided a
wonderful soundboard for ideas, and excellent critic on what did and did not belong in
the final drafts of each chapter as I submitted them. Her own knowledge of politics and
political theory has been a valuable resource in putting together many of the ideas on
patriotism presented in the following chapters. I hope that I have been as helpful to her
research and studies as she has been to mine.

vi
Table of Contents

Abstract ............................................................................................................................. ii
Acknowledgments ............................................................................................................ v
Introduction ....................................................................................................................... 1
Chapter 1: Approaches to the Hero: The Relevance of Captain America ...................... 14
Chapter 2: Birth of the Super Hero and the Super Power: The 1940s and ’50s ............ 30
Chapter 3: The Hero Reborn: Captain America in the 1960s ......................................... 90
Chapter 4: The Relevancy Revolution: Captain America in the 1970s ........................ 137
Chapter 5: Captain America in the Age of Reagan: The 1980s .................................... 201
Chapter 6: Captain America from Cold War to 9/11: 1990-2001 ................................ 281
Conclusion: The Post-9/11 Captain America ............................................................... 326
Bibliography ................................................................................................................ 341

vii
INTRODUCTION
Comic books from their inception at the height of the Great Depression were a
derided medium. Beginning with the first “comic book,” Famous Funnies #1 (1933),
they existed primarily as a way for publishers to re-release previous newspaper comic
strips, making comic books, in essence, the VHS/DVD of their day. Even when comic
book publishers began to turn out original material in the late-1930s, the medium
received little respect. While it was considered “glamorous” to be the writer or artist of a
newspaper strip, writing and drawing comic books was considered “sub-par,” much the
way movies today that are distributed “straight-to-video” are considered of low quality.
That slowly began to change with the publication in 1938 of Action Comics #1, which
featured the world’s first “superhero,” Superman.1
The booming success of Superman comic books began what historians refer to as
the “Golden Age” and led to a flurry of similarly costumed heroes in the years
immediately following. The Golden Age lasted until, roughly, 1955.2 Though many of
those pre-World War II heroes have long since vanished in American culture, a handful
have survived and thrived into the 21st century. Superman, The Batman (1939), Captain

1Bradford W. Wright, Comic Book Nation: The Transformation of Youth Culture in America
(Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2001; Second Edition, 2003), 7; Shirrel Rhoades, A Complete
History of American Comic Books (New York: Peter Lang, 2008), 9-10; Ron Goulart, Ron Goulart’s Great
History of Comic Books, (Chicago: Contemporary Books, Inc., 1986), 7-9; Les Daniels, Marvel: Five
Fabulous Decades of the World’s Greatest Comics (New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc., 1991), 16-17;
Comic Book Confidential Ron Mann, Dir., (Home Vision Entertainment, DVD, 1989); Comic Book
Superheroes Unmasked (The History Channel, A&E Television Networks, DVD, 2003). These are, in this
author’s opinion, the very best overall histories of the comic book industry.
2 Rhoades, A Complete History of American Comic Books, 6.

  1
America (1940), and Wonder Woman (1941) have become mainstays in American
popular culture. By 1943, these heroes, along with their contemporaries, were selling a
combined total of 25 million copies a month, producing an annual profit of approximately
thirty million dollars.3 Mention these characters to most Americans today, even those
who have never read a comic book, and they can recount the hero and know his/her
origin and even his/her more popular antagonists. Of these four heroes, most have
remained fairly loyal to their pre-war origins, simply being “updated” every few years to
stay in pace with changing American culture. The exception to that rule is Captain
America, whose readers have seen the character witness first-hand the changes of our
times, a living “anachronism” of the late-Depression era.
In 1940, writer Joe Simon and artist Jack Kirby, working for publisher Timely
Comics (later to be known as Marvel Comics), created the hero Captain America.
Arriving on newsstands on December 20, 1940, just under a year before the Japanese
attack on Pearl Harbor that would launch America into World War II, Captain America
Comics #1 – the first comic to be named after its headlining hero – sold more than one
million copies, competing on an equal level with its contemporary superhero comics.4
The front cover of the issue made its anti-Nazi message plain: the star-spangled hero is
shown delivering a right-cross to German Chancellor Adolf Hitler.5 This reflected the
serious concerns of most comic book creators, as the medium was dominated almost

3 Wright, Comic Book Nation, 31.

  4
 A note on the use of Primary Sources: Comic book “publication dates” are problematic. A comic
book with a publication date of “November, 1964” would have actually hit newsstands around August of
that year. The date shown as the publication date is actually the date that newsstand operators were advised
to remove the magazine from their shelves. The process of writing and publishing comics – prior to the
1990s – was rather lengthy, having been drawn, inked, and edited several months earlier, with the story
often conceived long before that. Found in Marvel Chronicle, page 9.
5 Mark Evanier, Kirby: King of Comics, (New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc., 2008), 50. This is an
excellent biography of comic book legend Jack Kirby by a man who worked for, and learned the industry,
from Kirby himself, basing his work on first-hand interviews with Kirby.

  2
entirely by Jewish-Americans, who already understood the ramifications of a Nazi world
while the rest of America sought the security of isolationism.

[Image Intro-1: Captain America Comics #1 (March, 1941); Jack Kirby, Artist]

  3