#cap a

As briefly mentioned in my overview of Sam Wilson/Falcon, the character of Captain America was originally created in the 1940s by Jewish writer Jack Kirby to directly oppose Hitler’s reign and the rise of antisemitism in the media. His run of comics had Captain America punch Hitler many many times, and fight the Nazis with his friends. It was the peak of American propaganda.

The biography of Steve Rogers is fairly similar from the comics to the MCU - he’s a scrawny orphaned art student with a myriad of health problems and a chip on his shoulder who wants to enlist for the war but gets rejected so instead volunteers for a scientific experiment that will probably kill him. Despite the later introduction of Bucky Barnes in Steve’s life, the reversed age gap between them, and Steve skipping the dancing monkey part of the narrative, the events of CA:TFA are pretty much the same as they are its comic run equivalent.

[Tony’s Version Here]

So, I have a lot of personal feelings about the Accords. And, short of writing my own entire essay on them (I have now done this), I will just say this: the Accords are flawed, and so are Steve and Tony. They’re both right, and they’re both wrong, and it’s all one big Mess. Which, I concede, was the entire point. But anyway. Although I disagree overall with the layout of the Accords, and think that they are incredibly flawed, I would ultimately sign them - because I, like Tony, feel that they were both inevitable, and a long time coming.

But whilst I don’t agree with Steve’s stance in Civil War, I do understand why he made the decisions he did. First of all, you need to realise that the Accords are essentially a McGuffin. The plot isn’t really about them at all - it’s about Steve’s manic need to find Bucky, and it’s about Tony’s Atonement Issues. The Accords just serve to emphasise this.

For Steve, his attitude to Scary Legislation is justified when the political commentary in The Winter Soldier is considered. Remember, in context, Steve has only been in modern day for about a year, serving S.H.I.E.L.D. completely and utterly. When everything he knew was stripped away, he clung to the caricature of Captain America because it was all he knew. He threw himself into serving S.H.I.E.L.D. for the purpose of losing himself to the familiar rhythm of the military. But then, in TWS, he discovers the whole S.H.I.E.L.D-is-actually-HYDRA thing, and he discovers the fact that his best friend is not only alive - but the most feared assassin in the whole world! The fact that in CW he displays a lack of trust in government agencies is hardly surprising. The only agency he trusted since his thawing was S.H.I.E.L.D., and that turned out to be the utter travesty of him serving HYDRA itself, A.K.A. Steve’s Worst Nightmare. He also found out that his sacrifice and Bucky’s amounted to a zero sum. It meant nothing. And then and then and then, Bucky’s alive!? And he’s unsure what’s worse, Bucky being dead or Bucky being alive; because this Bucky doesn’t know who he is, and this Bucky is an assassin, and this Bucky has been tortured for 70 years.

And in Civil War, he’s finally found out where Bucky is, after all this time, and this massively skews his judgement. Not to mention the fact that Peggy died, and he interpreted Sharon’s eulogy completely wrong. He went from what Sharon actually said - “Y’know, once, I asked my Aunt Peggy, a Woman, how she was a successful Agent in a militarised hyper-misogynistic patriarchal sinkhole, and she said ‘well, learn to compromise, but don’t be pushed about, honey’.” - and he interpreted it as “Steven Grant Rogers. Yes you, Captain America. In the front row. Don’t compromise. On anything. Ever. Again.”

When Steve looks at the Accords, he sees another fight, and he sees another HYDRA-fiasco-in-the-making. He still sees this brave new world as one big threat. And, while he must acknowledge that his whole method of dealing with incidents (sulk and ignore it bc ur a superhero) is flawed, he doesn’t want to make himself vulnerable again. Especially not since he’s so close to getting Bucky back again; a man who isn’t in the same country as he. He also doesn’t have the same burning need for atonement as Tony does. Remember, he’s a soldier. He doesn’t like killing by any means, but he’s already made his peace with the justification of war regarding it. He’s not cruel, but he understands better than Tony that sometimes it’s necessary, and you can’t change it. No, the guilt and regret he feels comes mostly from letting Bucky fall off the train, and then; once he’d discovered the truth; not looking for him in the ravine. Steve definitely blames himself for the 70 years of torture Bucky went through. So, Steve’s trying to get Bucky’s forgiveness while Tony’s looking for worldly forgiveness and it all goes sideways.  

Overall, Steve is a mess, and isn’t really in the position to be making clear, coherent decisions regarding the rest of the team and the future of the Avengers. Whilst this adds a certain level of sympathy to the situation, it doesn’t make all the stuff he did afterwards excusable. He was so driven by making Bucky safe, and clearing his name, and stopping the Winter-Soldiers-on-Steroids from taking over the world, that he never made time to sit down and properly talk to Tony about all that was happening. Honestly, if those two just sat and had a good chat, none of this drama would have happened. But hey, I guess that’s the whole point. It’s supposed to be representative of real-life conflict, and slides in a nice little social commentary about war and diplomacy along the way. 

Personal Costume Rating (from least to most favourite) :

Yes, my all-time-favourite Cap costume, is the original. It’s grimy, gritty, practical, and it looks cool. Not as fancy or as flashy as some of the other ones, perhaps, but still badass as heck. And the other ones are still cool, just slightly less so. I actually do really like the likes of The Winter Soldier’s Stealth Suit - just a bit less overall than the ones ranked higher. Except the one I placed last, from The Avengers. I hate that costume. Just looking at it makes me cry inside. It looks like a child’s costume that you could pick up in Asda! Ugh. It’s too bright, too trying-to-be-cool, too everything. And! The helmet is attached to the rest of the suit! Why? How is that practical for fighting in? Ugh, I really don’t like it. Literally, the only way that it could have gone worse, is if they decided to stick the fish-scales on it. The rest of them are cool though.

Helmet Symbolism: The symbolism of the helmet is all to do with Steve’s separation between himself and the character of Captain America. It’s the last part of the outfit that he puts on, and effectively has to put him in the mindset of Captain America the Hero. In this manner, it’s used as a visual metaphor throughout the films to signify when he’s being Captain America, and when things get a little more personal. For example, in The Avengers - as much as I dislike the costume - the helmet is attached to the rest of it, in order to visually represent Steve’s inability to separate himself from Captain America in this brave new world. He clings to Captain America, because Captain America is all he has left. He doesn’t know how to be Steve Rogers anymore; everything he knows is gone.

Bruce Banner is not the only Avenger to actively attempt to kill themselves.

Whether it’s a conscious decision or not, Steve Rogers does as well.

Steve Rogers is renowned for his reckless behaviour. It’s one of his defining character traits. But when Bucky dies, it gets a whole lot worse.

The reckless behaviour that is the norm for Steve escalates to the point where his first plan of attack on the biggest enemy base he’s faced is to just storm it on his own. We also observe him jumping from a moving car onto a moving aircraft that holds the most dangerous bombs on Earth, and a man who’s portrayed as being literally worse than Hitler himself. This is because Bucky Barnes is about 80% of Steve’s impulse control, and he’s not there anymore. In fact, we see it right from the start, with Steve getting mixed up in a super-dangerous government guinea pig test-run for an experimental drug, and also jumping onto a grenade right after Bucky gets shipped out. But the most obvious display of his reckless irresponsibility, comes at the end of Captain America: The First Avenger.

Steve blatantly crashed the aircraft with him on it into the ocean on purpose. He could have just jumped out – he did in the opening sequence of Captain America: The Winter Soldier. He could have dropped the bombs into the ocean and flew home. He could have set a collision course for the plane, and then parachuted. But no, he had to be a reckless idiot and go and kill himself. Think about it – the serum wouldn’t have allowed him to ‘die’ that fast. He would have gone through a very slow process of drowning, with every single cell of his body fighting against it. It would have been painful. Why didn’t he just swim out of the wreckage? He almost certainly would have made it, if he had tried. 

The only conclusion I have been able to detract from all of this, is the following: His purpose as Captain America was to stop HYDRA. He did that. His purpose as Steve Rogers was to be Bucky Barnes’ best friend, which he did. And on top of that, he failed. Steve definitely blames himself for letting Bucky fall off the freight train. So now he’s left without the one person closest to him on the Earth, and knowing that if he’d just done things a bit differently, he would’ve been able to save him. 

Okay, here we go, the overview character analysis of good ol’ Captain America.

Firstly, it’s important to understand the distinct difference between the two - Captain America, and Steve Rogers. And unlike Tony, there is a difference.

Captain America is not so much a man, or a hero, but a symbol. It’s an exaggerated representation of key ‘American values’ - freedom, hope, righteousness, patriotism, and the belief that you can achieve anything if you fight hard enough for it. Captain America won the war, saved the nation, was everyone’s favourite childhood idol. Captain America was a character born of war, and desperation, and he needed to be those things. When Steve was under the ice, the persona became greatly exaggerated, and used as an icon of success and freedom. Steve woke up from up being a ‘Capsicle’, and found that everything that amounted to who he was had been washed away by time. All that was left of him, was an empty grave and his face that had been plastered on a persona and a caricature that wasn’t his. 

Steve Rogers is not. Yes, he embodies these values when he’s wearing the suit. Yes, he fills those shoes (literally). He wears the mask to fight for freedom; holds the shield to defend those who cannot defend themselves; stands as the symbol of justice and heroism. But that’s not all he is. Believing the two are the same, is to have a warped perception of all the good qualities in the man Steve Rogers that were then exaggerated for the caricature of Captain America. It is often said that when Steve had the serum injected into him, it effectively made his insides reflect his outsides - namely; golden, courageous, bold. All the qualities he had before, but this time, with the opportunity and capability to use them. Captain America is the embodiment of golden patriotism. Steve Rogers, is - primarily - a little shit. He’s the stumbling, sarcastic army Captain. He’s the kid who had an incredibly burning sense of justice and was too stubborn to back down from a fight. He’s the kid who spent his childhood in dusty Brooklyn backstreets, running with the older kids, despite his many debilitating health problems. He finds himself in violence, and likes the thrill and the adrenaline of punching and being punched back. He fought in a war! He’s killed people! His guilty pleasure is art - he draws when he isn’t fighting - because fighting and drawing are the same thing; anger and passion and proving points. 

He’s reckless, stubborn, courageous, sarcastic, angry, passionate, protective of those he loves, hot-headed, patriotic, incapable of compromising. He is Steve Rogers, and Steve Rogers is a human being. He’s got flaws, and messy layers, and blind spots, and a past, and issues that he wrestles with. 

Captain America embodies perfection. Steve Rogers does not.