The Captain America sheild in rivals is such an interesting artifact
Okay so I went down a Cap's sheild shaped rabbit hole.
I was looking into the Rivals version of the sheild as I was trying to articulate why I got the impression it was kind of ugly, but then I realized:
It appears this version of the sheild is mixing elements from the golden age and secret wars toyline (plus the energy sheild abilities).
This is such an intersting choice, as Cap's sheild has become very standardized over the last couple of years. And because of that it can creare such an odd first impression.
But, once you read his bio and if you know your marvel history, it makes perfect sense.
As this Cap is just coming off the ice, so he would have just gone through his golden age. Meaning his shield would still look like it did back then. And with no Tony or Coulson in 2099 to serve the role of marvel editorial and revamp the shield it would make sense it is mostly unchanged.
With the exception of the one major visible upgrade being a container(?) around the sheild that looks pretty much spot on to the lenticular shields from the original secret wars toyline.
The "Secret Wars" being the templates for hero/villain team battles (sw1) and multiveral mashups (sw2)
So the sheild is telling you "this guy just got unthawed yesterday, but now he's been plucked out of wherever he was to fighting accross the multiverse"
I may not love the aesthetics, but that's such a fun use of the character's lore to do visual story telling, that I just take off my hat to the designers, freaking amazing.
