Heroes Never Rust #60 by Sean Ironman

Captain America, and the Moral Dialectic of Straightforward Heroism

In issue two of Captain America: Dead Men Running, Sergeant Vicq and the other four American Soldiers continue to dig their graves. The comic opens on a close-up of Captain America’s shield. “We are dead. We start dying the moment we are born. And everything we do in life we do to forget that the Queen of Spades is waiting for us in the end.” This comic is all about the effect the world has on individuals and the effect an individual has on the world. The focus is on why we do the things that we do. The soldiers, who are still running from the cocaine mafia, come across a convent. One of the nuns won’t let the armed men inside. She tells a story about meeting Captain America when she was younger, how he helped pull a truck in the desert so orphans could be fed. She stands up to the soldiers. The soldiers gun her down.

One of the soldiers, Sore, beats on Captain America, who is awake but incapacitated due to being drugged last issue. While Sore cracks his knuckles and gets ready, Sergeant Vicq watches. “Why did I think my like was worth killing Captain America?” Vicq, while not the worst of the group, is far from an angel. He doesn’t stop anyone from killing a nun and he doesn’t stop Sore from beating on Captain America. Sore tells Vicq a story of his great grandfather meeting the super soldier during World War II. His great grandfather was in awe of the superhero, but instead of the typical story readers get in superhero comics, the effect the meeting had on Sore’s ancestor wasn’t a good one.

“Probably had wet dreams about him. So he made his son volunteer for Vietnam. Probably still blames him for getting killed there. That’s why my father ran away. Left behind a letter saying he preferred dying a civilian. Left me, too. Great-granddad swore he’d make a super soldier out of me. He beat me every time I failed to live up to Captain America’s example.”

Readers get a lot of comics about Captain America as a symbol of hope—same with Superman. He can give a lot of speeches. It’s interesting here to get the opposite effect of Captain America: his example is demoralizing. Sore, and the rest of the American soldiers, will never be as strong or as fast as a super soldier. Instead of striving to be great, these men get depressed and angry.

Sore takes off Captain America’s mask and asks, “What chance does a guy like me have against pretty boys like you? Tell me, what chance?” He responds that it’s not a question of chance, that it’s a question of choice. Sore can choose not to be scum. Sore takes a swing. Captain America, now recovering from the drugs, knocks him out in one punch.

Sergeant Vicq spends the issue ruminating on life and death. “Why di I do the things I did? Why do we do the things we do? We are dead. Whatever we achieve, ultimately means nothing.” He’s quite the pessimist. I have my moments too, so I think he’s right. Whatever Vicq does won’t matter. Dying as a bad man or a good one won’t make a difference—He’ll still be dead.

But Captain America is right, too. Don’t be scum.

In this issue, while we get Sore being all mad because his great grandfather beat him because Sore couldn’t live up to the image of Captain America, we also get the nun at the beginning. She met Captain America when she was young and she stood up to the soldiers now because of it. Maybe it’s because I’m a teacher and a writer, but the idea of having an impact on another person so that person will then be better or smarter or whatever you’d like to call it and then go on to affect other people makes sense.

Remember Pay it Forward? That’s why superheroes like Captain America and Superman are so great. Not just that they can beat the crap out of supervillains—they can inspire others.

One of the soldiers, Nystrom, refuses to kill Captain America and one of the nuns. His commanding officer threatens to shoot him if he doesn’t kill the nun and he still refuses. He’s taken into custody along with Captain America. If the other soldiers refused to kill the unarmed nun, if they realized just how bad they had become, maybe they’d make it out okay. But those missiles heading their way on the last page look to prove Sergeant Vicq right. They are dead.

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Sean Ironman (Episode 102) earned his MFA at the University of Central Florida. Currently, he teaches creative nonfiction and digital media at the University of Central Arkansas as a visiting professor. His work can be read in The Writer’s Chronicle, Redivider, and Breakers: A Comics Anthology, among others.

Heroes Never Rust #59 by Sean Ironman

Captain America Vs. The Banality of Evil

There was a time, long before Captain America: The Winter Soldier or The Avengers films, when Captain America didn’t have much going on. The World War II veteran was revived from his iceberg in 1964. Even with the sliding timeframe of the Marvel Universe (where even though the Fantastic Four became superheroes in 1961, the Marvel Universe has only existed for about ten years in the comics), there isn’t much to do with a man from another time. If he walks around confused because of iPhones and all the other new gadgets, readers wouldn’t respect him. He’s supposed to be the greatest American hero; he can’t go about like an idiot. In a way, Captain America became boring and bland. He became the goodie two-shoes superhero. Following 9/11, the character got a renewed focus. Instead of the sci-fi, comic bookie elements, the character was placed in “the real world.” Some of the comics worked better than others. The problem many comics have, and sometimes films, with trying to make things “real world” is that the comics become uninteresting. Captain America is much more interesting going up against the Red Skull than some real-world terrorist.

There are exceptions to this, however. (When aren’t there exceptions?) In 2002, Captain America: Dead Men Running, a three-issue miniseries, was released. Written by Darko Macan (who wrote had a great run on Cable and Soldier X) and penciled and inked by Danijel Zezelj, the comic features five American soldiers making their way through the Colombian jungle with the cocaine mafia chasing them. The soldiers have a handful of children they say they rescued from the mafia. Captain America is relegated to a supporting role. Again, there’s not much to do with a man out of time when he’s been in the new time period for a little while. Honestly, most superhero comics should try placing the superhero in a supporting role. Superheroes typically don’t have much of a character arc beyond becoming superheroes. But one thing they do real well is effect the world around them.

The main character of Dead Men Running is Sergeant Roberto Solano Vicq. He narrates the miniseries, which begins in media res. “We are dead” is the first line. “We lost our way two days ago along with Corporal Jonesy and the radio. For all I know we might be running in circles. We have no food, but we have a hundred mad Colombians after us. In a word, we are dead.” That’s as much exposition as readers get and that’s all that’s needed. Captain America parachutes in, or at least parachutes halfway and then breaks free of the chute and drops the rest of the way. He’s been brought in to help get the soldiers out.

Macan and Zezelj show why Captain America is the greatest American soldier. First, he doesn’t require a parachute. He knows Spanish and helps carry the children after telling them it will be all right, and he knows that the enemy is nearby when he hears the call of a continga at night because contingas are daytime birds. He’s not just super strong; he’s smart. That’s what makes him dangerous.

Captain America’s downfall in the first issue isn’t that he’s a man out of time and is incapable of understanding our present. His downfall occurs because he trusts American soldiers quickly only because they are American. Looking back, I’m surprised a story depicting American soldiers as villains, or at least not great men, was released so soon after 9/11. There’s no patriotism here. The comic shows that anyone, no matter what side they are on, what country they are affiliated with, can do bad things. Sergeant Vicq and the other soldiers didn’t rescue the children. They kidnapped them from the mafia in an effort to get the mafia to pay out millions after a failed coke raid.

The heavy inks in the artwork represent the muddy morality of the characters and the situation. The jungle is thick and ugly. The characters are depicted always in the shadows. Captain America is there to help soldiers who have committed a crime. He realizes it too late, after the soldiers have drugged him and as he falls unconscious. This is the real world Captain America has been thrown in. Not a world made bland because of the lack of comic book tropes, but a world of moral uncertainty. Who does Captain America help? The cocaine mafia who are in the wrong here? Or the American soldiers who wanted to get rich?

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Sean Ironman (Episode 102) earned his MFA at the University of Central Florida. Currently, he teaches creative nonfiction and digital media at the University of Central Arkansas as a visiting professor. His work can be read in The Writer’s Chronicle, Redivider, and Breakers: A Comics Anthology, among others.