Happy Sunday, everyone. Today marks the beginning of the first full week of themed posts in this series. I broke my list of characters down into four different categories: characters from comics, from TV shows, movies, and from books. Of course, for many of these characters they have appeared in two or more of these different media. For example Superman has been in comics, movies TV, and even books (actual novels), not to mention radio programming as well. For the purposes of this series, I have tried to have categorized these characters primarily in the type of media where they started. So, for my first entry in the comics category…
Captain America
There are few heroes I like more than Captain America. To be clear, I am talking about Cap pre Hydra-Cap. I have to admit, there have been few comic book stories that have upset me more than that has. But that’s not really the point. Cap has been around a long time. He has fought Hitler, he has been frozen (kind of multiple times), he has lost his powers and gotten them back. He has been through a lot, and has endured the years well. He is a character that is just as relevant now as he has ever been.
Why Captain America?
From his humble beginnings as just another kid from Brooklyn to one of the leaders of the Avengers, Captain America has come a long way. He has become, by and large, the moral compass of the Marvel Universe (present stories excluded here). He is not perfect. He has made mistakes, some of which have come back to haunt him (like Bucky Barnes, aka The Winter Soldier).Through all of this, Cap has always tried to do one thing: what he feels is right.
One of my favorite story arcs that illustrates this is the Civil War storyline that spanned the whole Marvel Universe ten or so years ago. He felt like the super human registration act was wrong. He felt like it was an invasion of privacy. He felt like it was wrong, and it caused him to go underground, to turn his back on the government and some of his closest friends. He did it because it was the right thing to do. It wasn’t the easy thing. It was only the right thing.
I love the quote in the above picture. Plant yourself like a tree beside the River of Truth, and tell the whole world, “NO. You move.” What a powerful sentiment, especially in this day and age. Too many people are willing to sell out their beliefs and their standards because of pressures from the world. But we need more men and women who plant themselves like trees beside the River of Truth. It’s not always popular, in fact, more often than not, it’s incredibly unpopular. That’s not the point. Despite what the world says, we should all be ready to stand and say to the whole world, “NO. You move.” That’s why I love Captain America.
30 Days 30 Characters Series
Check out the previous days in this series here:
