Captain America #321 (1986)
By Mark Gruenwald, Paul Neary, John Beatty
Background: Captain America has setup a hotline for people to get in touch with him and is travelling across America on a special van.
So, What Happens? The terrorist group called Ultimatum, led by the Flag-Smasher, hijacks a plane en route to London and threatens to kill all passengers if Captain America doesn't deliver himself to them. Wanting to save the hostages without falling into a trap, Cap gets some help from SHIELD and finds Ultimatum's base, hidden in the Swiss Alps, where he proceeds to incapacitate a few soldiers and wear one of their uniforms, complete with firearm. He eventually manages to find the hostages, but not before the deadline given by the Flag-Smasher. With only a few seconds left, Cap attacks the terrorists guarding the hostages, but when the last of them starts shooting on the crowd, he has no option other than gunning him down in front of everyone. Immediately horrified by his actions, Cap swears to capture the Flag-Smasher.
Notes: Ultimatum conveniently stands for The Underground Liberated Totally Integrated Mobile Army To Unite Mankind. Kudos to whoever came up with such a long acronym.
Something Silly This Way Comes: Not so much silly as embarassing, but Steve flirting with a single mum is worth a smile.
Review: Reading books or interviews, something most authors say about their approach to writing a well-established character is that the trick is keeping said characters faithful to their past editorial life whilst at the same time adding something new. This is especially true when writing someone as symbolic and inspirational as Captain America. If Peter Parker is the moral compass of the Marvel Universe, the normal guy always striving to do the right thing, Cap is the ideal leading by example, something nearly all Marvel characters are happy to acknowledge. Out of Cap's writers in the '80s, I feel that Stern and Byrne wrote the most realistic, DeMatteis the most conflicted and Gruenwald the most moral. Unfortunately, there's a thin difference between simply being moral and being moral to a fault, and this issue struggles quite a lot to find the right balance.
Reintroducing the Flag-Smasher, a terrorist fixated with the idea that the concept of countries and nationalism made people feel superior to those of different nationalities, the entire story is really an investigation slowly setting up the final page. And it's indeed during the course of the investigation that Cap seems to be written as too strict, for example complaining to himself about having been forced to resort to "terrorists' guerrilla tactics" when infiltrating the enemy base dressed as a Ultimatum soldier. In doing so, not only does Cap forget all his own past infiltration missions behind enemy lines, or the fact that he has regularly worked with spies such as the Black Widow or Nick Fury, but more importantly mistakes strategy for terrorist tactics, fighting fair for going out in the open head-on. This is unlike Captain America, and seems written with the ending in mind rather than in an attempt to stay true to the character.
As for the killing itself, the scene is cleverly designed so that Cap doesn't have any other option, even though he could have tried to shoot the soldier somewhere non vital, or to throw his gun at him. From a moral point of view, two things are immediately made clear: that he didn't have a choice and that he regrets what just happened. This is fine, and it would be unlike Cap to just shrug his shoulders about it, but Gruenwald lays it on too thick, and the impression is that the entire scene is written so that Cap can blame himself while readers would feel there is nothing to blame him for. In other words, it's not about putting the character in a grey area, but about highlighting his morals by contrast. This is something that was already attempted by Byrne in issue #249, but with a far more nuanced - and ultimately successful - approach, in which Cap was horrified by what he was made to do, but didn't harp on about it.
As can be expected, the killing was a hot topic of discussion on the letter's page for months to come, with editor Don Daley replying and occasionally offering contradicting explanations. The first letter was by Jesse Guzman, published on Captain America #327.
Review: Reading books or interviews, something most authors say about their approach to writing a well-established character is that the trick is keeping said characters faithful to their past editorial life whilst at the same time adding something new. This is especially true when writing someone as symbolic and inspirational as Captain America. If Peter Parker is the moral compass of the Marvel Universe, the normal guy always striving to do the right thing, Cap is the ideal leading by example, something nearly all Marvel characters are happy to acknowledge. Out of Cap's writers in the '80s, I feel that Stern and Byrne wrote the most realistic, DeMatteis the most conflicted and Gruenwald the most moral. Unfortunately, there's a thin difference between simply being moral and being moral to a fault, and this issue struggles quite a lot to find the right balance.
Reintroducing the Flag-Smasher, a terrorist fixated with the idea that the concept of countries and nationalism made people feel superior to those of different nationalities, the entire story is really an investigation slowly setting up the final page. And it's indeed during the course of the investigation that Cap seems to be written as too strict, for example complaining to himself about having been forced to resort to "terrorists' guerrilla tactics" when infiltrating the enemy base dressed as a Ultimatum soldier. In doing so, not only does Cap forget all his own past infiltration missions behind enemy lines, or the fact that he has regularly worked with spies such as the Black Widow or Nick Fury, but more importantly mistakes strategy for terrorist tactics, fighting fair for going out in the open head-on. This is unlike Captain America, and seems written with the ending in mind rather than in an attempt to stay true to the character.
As can be expected, the killing was a hot topic of discussion on the letter's page for months to come, with editor Don Daley replying and occasionally offering contradicting explanations. The first letter was by Jesse Guzman, published on Captain America #327.
To which Daley replied[...] I don't get why Cap was so shook up about killing somebody. I mean didn't he kill anybody during World War II? He and the Invaders couldn't have gone that far behind German lines just using their fists!
[...] As far as Cap killing during WWII, here's the scoop. Neither Cap nor the Invaders ever carried guns behind enemy lines during the War. They were never actively engaged in combat with the Axis militia, but concentrated their efforts against Nazi super-agents and their leaders. All this is to say that Captain America never sought to kill anyone on the battlefield. It probably happened that soldiers who shot at Cap were hit by their own ricocheting bullets. but that's not the same as Cap shooting someone We can't deny that Cap was at the centre of a lot of bloodshed during the Big One, but he himself never intentionally shed another man's blood. The Ultimatum incident in CAP #321 was the first time Cap intentionally took someone's life. All clear?So, apparently Cap had never killed anyone during the entire war unless by accident. This didn't seem plausible, and the matter was discussed again in a somewhat more aggressive tone by reader Pierre Corntois on Captain America #328.
Dear Marvel, in Cap #321 and #322, you depict Cap shooting one of Flag-Smasher's men. Okay. But following that you show him going through all kinds of dramatic angst at how he's tortured to think he's taken a life. More to the point, in #322 he says he has never taken a human life! That statement is patently absurd. Is Cap suffering from selective amnesia? […] What do you think Cap was doing in WWII, tiptoeing through the tulips? Here's a quick rundown of what Cap's been depicted as doing to the enemy during the war. TALES OF SUSPENSE #63: Cap torches Dr. Erskine's killer into a bank of machinery, killing him, and later destroys a Nazi submarine. (In the retelling of Cap's origin in Cap #109 he actually punches Erskine's killer into the machinery, killing him). TALES OF SUSPENSE 46167: Becky blows up a roomful of Nazi with a grenade, then kills a platoon of Nazi with a burp gun. [...]And so on, depicting a few more instances when either Cap or Bucky (whom Cap had trained and whose actions he seemingly accepted) had killed enemy soldiers. Daley's reply is more or less defensive.
[...] Now as for your citations of Cap's war record, we do not deny that enemy soldiers died because of Cap's actions. Still, Cap never regularly carried a gun, nor was his mission to kill as many of the enemy as he could. His mission was to “destroy the enemies of liberty.” which are the concepts of fascism, Nazism. and totalitarianism, not the individuals who espouse them. True, you cannot attack abstractions — you can only attack the individuals who act in accordance with them. But it's an important distinction. Further to the point. soldiers at war play by different rules than civilians at peace and Cap has had years to make peace with himself about his wartime actions. We're not saying that Cap is or ever was a pacifist, but he does have profound respect for human life. It's a respect that has grown as he has matured, and includes respect for the lives of his individual enemies. Killing an enemy is always Cap's last resort and every death he's ever been responsible for has taken its toll on his inner peace. [...]The longest letter yet however is published in Captain America #329 and belongs to Carmela Merlo, who's actually the wife of former Cap writer Roger Stern. It's a very long letter, taking up the entirety of the page, so here it is in full, followed by Daley's response.
Perhaps not entirely expecting this passionate response, by the time this letter was published Gruenwald was already quietly moving away from the killing, and towards Steve giving up his costumed identity after a clash with the US government. But before that there was Flag-Smasher to stop, as we'll see next time.
Final Verdict: An interesting concept, but also one that seems to try too hard to make a stir. 3/5
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