Marvel Comics' nationalistic supersoldier storms back in Captain America: Patriot. Wait, does Marvel's time machine have a forward button?
I suppose we'll find out when the first issue of Captain America: Patriot, by writer Karl Kesel and artist Mitch Breitweiser, arrives Sept. 15. In the series, reporter Jeff Mace is inspired by Cap to don his own jingoistic costume and call himself the Patriot. Of course, Mace already did that during World War II, before getting retconned as Captain America in 1976. Which, for those of you counting, was the United States bicentennial. God bless America!
Whether it's because of a subconscious reaction to a perceptibly faltering American empire or because Marvel is simply softening up the entertainment landscape ahead of next year's movie Captain America: The First Avenger, Mace evidently has to do it all over again.
Are you buying it? Do we really need another origin story of the Patriot, or even Captain America? Do readers today need headlines like "Japs Bomb Hawaii," when they've got their own nasty geopolitical tangles and suspicious Patriot Acts to work out? Wouldn't Captain America and the Patriot become more interesting characters if Kesel and Breitwieser could cleverly calibrate them for our deeply politicized 21st century, rather than time-warp them back to the '40s? Pledge allegiance in the comments section below.
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