As the first arc of the new Captain America series draws to a close, the fate of Steve Rogers’ modern successor highlights an unfortunate truth. This series introduced a new wrinkle to Marvel lore with the addition of David Colton, the Captain America who served in Iraq and Afghanistan in the wake of the 9/11 attacks. Just like Steve, Colton was a frail individual who wanted nothing more than to serve his country in its time of need. But unlike Steve, Colton’s journey as Captain America took him down a more complex and darker path.
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“Our Secret Wars”, the first arc of Chip Zdarsky and Valerio Schiti’s Captain America, told a dual narrative. While the main story focuses on Steve’s first mission after being unfrozen, flashbacks to Colton’s experience as Captain America. Sadly, where the original Captain America’s beliefs in his country and mission remained strong, the more modern Cap saw and experienced things that slowly eroded his faith in everything he held dear. As Colton’s story winds down, an unfortunate truth about Captain America and his legacy becomes painfully clear.
The United States is Incapable of Ever Recreating Captain America
Captain America #5 continues to follow Colton’s breakdown after discovering the United States government backed Doctor Doom’s rise to power and that he and his team were brought in to silence the people who could have exposed that. Colton has snapped, unable to cope with being played and is desperate to make some good out of the bad he’s helped bring to Latveria. So the modern Captain America heads to soldiers’ barracks and kills as many as possible to try and bring some sense of peace to Latveria’s people.
Steve arrives to pull Colton out, but the original Captain America is too late. Colton has slaughtered dozens of soldiers, desperate for all the betrayal and bloodshed he’s seen and been a part of to mean something. During the confrontation, Colton is seriously injured, and he reveals to Captain America that the United States government helped overthrow Latveria’s previous ruler to install Doom. The knowledge of what he’s been a part of fully disillusions Captain America, who decides to walk away from serving the United States government in favour of joining the Avengers.
To make things clear, David Colton isn’t intended to be a villain, at least not by design. He’s exactly like Steve, someone who believes in doing the right thing and who volunteered to serve his country and protect the world. But where Steve fought and served in a more idealistic era with more ‘defined’ good and bad guys, Colton joined up at possibly the most complicated time in American history. Unlike the past, the United States government didn’t want a symbol to put on the world stage; it wanted someone who would advance its agenda with absolutely no questions asked.
Being Captain America is More Than Blind Service to the United States
As most Captain America fans will tell you, Steve Rogers is loyal to nothing except the dream. He’s always been a more idealistic hero, and we see much of that in Colton. But Steve served during a more idealised period of American history. The original Captain America knew, or at least believed he knew, what his country was all about. His initial experiences during wartime forged him into the hero he is today. But Colton’s Captain America was shaped by the War on Terror, a far more disputed and controversial event that many, even soldiers who served, disagreed with.
The idea of the United States creating a stalwart hero to fight the good fight and save the world from bad guys is a nice idea. It’s the kind of image that can be sold to the world, much like the rhetoric that was used to justify America’s role invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan. But that’s why David ends up cracking in the end. He realised that everything he’s fought for was a lie and that what he was doing as Captain America was actually counter to what he believed in.
Now this isn’t to say that only Steve could be Captain America, of course. Both Sam Wilson and Bucky Barnes have also served as modern Caps who still embodied what Steve fought for. But the difference is that their particular iterations of Captain America aren’t products of the United States government. They chose the role themselves. Colton was selected by his government to be Captain America, but on its terms to help advance the country’s agenda. And, as we saw in this arc, it did not work out.
The Captain America legacy was born out of a particular time and place in American history. It’s always going to tie back to Steve fighting and serving his country. But what Captain America is now has grown too selfless and too empathetic to blindly serve American-only interests. There’s always going to be a Captain America, and there will be more in the future. But in this day and age, with what we know and have seen on the geopolitical stage, Captain America simply can’t be a product of the United States anymore.
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Image Courtesy of Shueisha
