Savior 28: One of Comics’ Great Patriots

The J.M. DeMatteis/Mike Cavallaro IDW miniseries The Life and Times of Savior 28, loosely derived from a 1980s Captain America story that Marvel wouldn’t let DeMatteis tell, is one of the great, under-read “super soldier” stories of all time.I talked to DeMatteis about the story some time ago, and thought that it was worth republishing some of those comments here as a companion to our Memorial Day piece on other great comic book soldiers.UPDATE: For clarity’s sake, let me say that back when I discussed the book with DeMatteis, it was a new miniseries; that was, I believe, late 2009 and the story is now available in trade paperback. It’s my opinion (stated repeatedly elsewhere, and quoted on the cover of the trade) that The Life and Times of Savior 28 is one of the greatest superhero stories of the last 20 years.Where did this story come from? You told me at the New York Comic Con that it was something you’d been mulling over since your days with Captain America, which means that it would predate things like The Golden Age and Watchmen and, if published back then, might have been truly unique among its peers.Back in those ancient days of the early 1980’s—I think it was ’83—I was finishing up a year-long storyline that culminated in the death of the Red Skull.  I began to question where Captain America would go from there.  What would this man, who’d been waging war, punching faces, dropping buildings on the bad guys’ heads, for (at that time) forty years, do once his primary opponent, a guy he’d been battling since l940, was gone.  Knowing Cap—well, my interpretation of Cap—it seemed logical to me that he would have reached a point where he said, “Enough!  I’ve been doing this for four decades and it hasn’t made the world a better place or me a better man.  Violence is a dead end and I have to chart a new course.”  This would also allow me, as a writer, to deal with my ambivalence about the role of violence in super-hero comics, something I’ve always been extremely uncomfortable with.  Don’t get me wrong, I love these characters—they resonate on so many wonderful, mythic levels—but most super-hero stories come down to two guys in costumes beating the crap out of each other.  Not exactly the most enlightened point-of-view there is.  In fact, it’s a fairly stupid and destructive one.I worked up a proposal for a pretty massive arc that would find Cap becoming a global peace activist.  (Which would freak out both the government and his fellow super-heroes.)  It all culminated in Cap’s assassination at the hands of Jack Monroe, the Bucky of the 1950’s.  Now this was a fairly radical idea for its day—but my editor, the late, great Mark Gruenwald, liked it and was willing to go out on a limb with me.  Jim Shooter, on the other hand, was totally against it.  (As editor-in-chief of the Marvel Universe, and custodian of those characters, he had every right to feel that way.  And, looking back, I can understand why a story that questions every super-hero’s reason for being wouldn’t work within the context of that shared universe.)  So the idea went down in flames…and I’ve been playing with it—peeling it apart, putting it back together—ever since.  Trying to find just the right vehicle for the idea.