Warning: Captain America: Steve Rogers #1 spoilers below.
Captain America is arguably one of Marvel's most influential characters. He is probably the most iconic superhero in all of the Avengers, draped in America's flag and all. That said, his transformation in Captain America: Steve Rogers#1, out today, comes as a shocker seeing the superhero who once served as the Avengers' backbone turning into someone totally unexpected – a Hydra plant. In other words, a supervillain.
In fact, in the comics, where Steve returns to his youth while Sam Wilson (the Falcon) fills in Captain America's position, Rogers doesn't just "turn" into a villain, he is shown to be one right from the start.
In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, writer Nick Spencer and Marvel editor Tom Brevoort talk about this surprising twist, stressing the fact that being a villain from the beginning really is Steve's doing.
But first, take a sneak peek at the Captain America: Steve Rogers#1 artwork:
Image Credit: Marvel
Image Credit: Marvel
Image Credit: Marvel
Image Credit: Marvel
Image Credit: Marvel
Asked about their inspiration for turning Steve against the good guys, Brevoort said they wanted something that would surprise readers:
It made something new and unexpected out of restoring Steve to youth and vigor. Nobody was especially surprised that Steve got restored, but hopefully readers will be surprised by this revelation—and by the stories that follow on from this point.
As for Spencer, he based it upon the fact that the previous Captain America writer was building Hydra's story:
Rick Remender, who was the previous writer on Captain America, had been building towards this story of Hydra having infiltrated various institutions of government and various super teams. I thought that sounded like too big of a story. I drilled it down and thought, what if there's just one very valuable Hydra plant? What if they're looking for 100 people, but there's just one? So I started asking, who's the worst person it could possibly be? It was really obvious straight away that there's nobody who could do more damage and nobody that could be a more valuable Hydra plant than Steve Rogers. That was really the genesis. It sprang pretty organically from story ideas that were already on the table.
It's hard to accept Steve turning into a villain, and considering Bucky had been brainwashed by Hydra, it might be the same case for Steve. Apparently not. As the comics' creators explained:
Brevoort: Well, No. 2 rolls back the clock a little bit to further illuminate where Steve's head is at and how he got this way. And from there, the story will get larger over the course of time than you probably imagine that it can.
Spencer: Issue 2 will lay a lot of our cards on the table in terms of what the new status quo is, but the one thing we can say unequivocally is: This is not a clone, not an imposter, not mind control, not someone else acting through Steve. This really is Steve Rogers, Captain America himself.
As for the impact of this turnabout on Marvel, Brevoort said it's to the readers' advantage, while Spencer said it highlights the evolution of Steve as a character as well as how powerful his symbol is.
Brevoort: Well, it puts the readers one step ahead of most of the characters in the Marvel Universe, so that, in Hitchcock tradition, they're aware that the most trusted and most respected superhero within the Marvel Universe is now a wolf among the flock, who could strike at any time.
Spencer: Captain America is not just one of the most recognizable faces in the Marvel Universe. He's an inspiring figure, somebody who brings people together. Everybody here obviously gets that. What you hope is that this story, in its own very different way, highlights those things and only continues to elevate the character in importance, and only serves to illustrate how powerful that symbol is.
Of course, this begs the question of how this would relate to the movie and if Brevoort and Spencer were thinking about the MCU while making this story. To this, Brevort said they weren't at all:
Not specifically. Honestly, while we love the films, we tend to chart our own course and not get too tangled up in where they happen to be in the curve of their own storytelling. By definition, we operate at a different pace—they produce one Captain America story every two years at maximum, whereas we'll release a number of different stories involving Cap every single month. So we look at what we do as being the trailblazers. This gives the studio's team a big swath of raw material to cherry-pick from when working out what next to do with the characters in their medium. Our stories of today are potentially theinspiration for the movies of tomorrow.
Well, if the MCU does decide to pick this storyline and create a villain out of Steve, he could very well be the Avengers' most formidable villain since he was able to infiltrate right to the very heart of Earth's Mightiest Heroes, gaining their trust in the process.
The Captain America: Steve Rogers#1 creators also discussed how this would affect Sam Wilson, a new generation of Hydra, and Cap's relationship with Hydra.
You can check out the full interview here.
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