Back in May, when the Thor movie was coming out, I posed the question, "Which Thor Will We Get?" and now that the highly anticipated release of Captain America: The First Avenger is upon us this week, I'm back pondering tha same question, but this time looking at good ol' Steve Rogers a.k.a Captain America and the various incarnations he's taken over the years.
As previously and often discussed, it's clear that the Marvel Studios films such as Iron Man and Thor have been looking to the Ultimate line of comics from Marvel Comics as the visual inspiration for the films, but are they also looking to the characterizations as well? With Iron Man and Thor it wasn't much of an issue as the characterizations of those characters in the Ultimate universe weren't that far off from those of the standard Marvel Universe. But with Captain America, we possibly have a situation where the characterization of Captain America as told in the Ultimate universe is, in my opinion, not really the type of guy we'd want to see up on the screen. When Mark Millar introduced Captain America in the pages of The Ultimates, he truly was a man out of time, finding it hard to adapt to today's society after being froze in ice since the 1940s. Overly conservative, strict and, to be honest, a bit of an asshole, behind the icon of the stars and stripes, Ultimate Captain America isn't exactly the guy you want millions of movie-goers to see.
Despite this difference in characterization, it's clear by looking at the character designs for Captain America in the movie, they clearly were inspired by Captain America in the pages of The Ultimates. In the various stills and clips we've seen from the movie, we see an evolution of Captain America, beginning with the helmet as used in World War II flashbacks in The Ultimates, until we get to the costume more reminiscent of Captain America as he appears in the comics today, but with a strong lean to the current day Captain America from The Ultimates. Now, I'm not criticizing this at all. The chain-mail/wings on the cowl costume of Captain America in the standard 616-Marvel Universe is great for comics, but I can't imagine how that would look on film. The Ultimates version of Captain America has always been a more realistic tag on what, to be honest, has always been a ridiculous costume, essentially a walking American flag.
Character wise, there's no way to tell what we'll get on screen until we see the film. Looking back on Captain America through the years, he's been an unwavering beacon of inspiration and doing the right thing as written by Stan Lee back in the 1960s, to the man out of time dealing with the harsh realities of the modern world as written by Mark Gruenwald in the 1980s and 1990s, to today's version of Captain America who's back to being a beacon of leadership for Marvel's heroes as depicted by mainly by Ed Brubaker. Since the movie is clearly placed in the 1940s, I imagine we'll see a Captain America defined by the classic origin of the character as done by Joe Simon and Jack Kirby, but with subtle character touches influenced by Brubaker's many flashback stories to the World War II period.
I do know one thing though, that while the Infinity Gauntlet didnt make it into the final cut of Thor as we speculated, the end credits of Thor hinted at the expansion of the Marvel movies to make the leap to cosmic stories and it looks like we're going get an even bigger taste of that in Captain America: The First Avenger:
Can you say, "Cosmic Cube"?
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I agree that Ultimate Cap is not what movie goers want or need to see. I hope it is like Kirby/Simon Cap. I sure dont want to have to explain why my favorite is a douche. I am super excited for this and hope it is very good. I hope they explain the cosmic cube really well because having to explain to friends after Thor what it was took patience.
Ultimate Cap gets such a bad rap. He was fine in the first two volumes of Ultimates barring a couple scenes. He’s just been never been able to live down the “France” line which even he later admitted he didn’t even understand why he blurted that out. Since then, it seems like most writers, even Millar, have based their take on the character on that one scene and decided he has some irrational hatred of the French.
I’d like to see the Mark Millar Cap in the movie. The Brubaker one is solid but the badass gravitas that Millar put into Cap in both Civil War and the first 2 volumes of the Ultimates is what made me love the character
Ultimate Cap thinks Peter Parker is was a spaz.
We won’t get any one version, we’ll get one that cherry picks from the best bits of several interpretations.
I’ll stand up for Ultimate Cap too, although I should point out I’ve only read Millar and Hitch’s original run. That said, I’d agree that they should go with regular Cap for the movie.
I also thought the “France” line was funny.
How were the Iron Man movies influenced visually by the ultimate line?
I don’t see that at all-
With Nick Fury.
If the Cap First Vengeance issues are based on the tone of the movie, then it will not be the Ultimate Cap.
I’m confident he’s going to be the unabashedly patriotic good-natured chum we all know and love. 616 baby!
the infinity guantlet was in Thor. The first scene with the Destroyer, it’s seen in the background in the vault>
I love Ultimate Cap. Moving between a hardass in the old school military mold; and scenes of a man desperately alone except for the few people he can find of his own era still living; I found incredibly moving and intense. But to enjoy that Captain America; I think you’d need at least a general familiarity with the character (having actively read or not) and his past portrayals in comics. Something the average movie-goer just won’t have.
I want a Steve Rogers I can look up to as a heroic figure. That’s the version of Captain America that I grew up with, the man who did the right thing no matter what anyone else thought or did. A real hero, willing to make the hard choices and lay his life on the line for a cause bigger than himself. Not just some vague idea of “America”, but freedom, liberty, brotherhood and justice. For all people, everywhere.
Also, he’d better throw that shield, with stunning accuracy and amazing results. A lot. A room-clearing punch or two wouldn’t hurt, either.
I also expect to see unwavering courage in the face of insurmountable odds, the ability to bring out that sense of bravery and duty in others, a protective nature as revealed by the fact that his chosen weapon is a defensive device which he uses offensively with great skill, and a surprisingly gentle and articulate side, seemingly at odds with his role as a one-man war machine.