Captain America twist makes #SayNoToHYDRACap trend on Twitter
By Nick Tylwalk
Marvel cannily unveils a huge twist for original Captain America Steve Rogers on the same day that DC releases its big Rebirth special.
Note: This article contains spoilers for Captain America: Steve Rogers #1, which went on sale today. Said spoilers are already all over the internet, but still …
Say this for Marvel, it knows that controversy sells.
Not the kind of controversy that involves graphic violence, sex or anything like that. No, simply making a huge apparent retcon to the history of one of its oldest and most iconic characters. No big deal.
You’ve probably had some hint of what was going on even if you didn’t pick up Captain America: Steve Rogers #1 at your LCS today, seeing as #SayNoToHYDRACap has been trending hard on Twitter all day. Yes, Nick Spencer and Jesus Saiz have revealed that Steve Rogers, the moral cornerstone of the Marvel Universe is secretly a Hydra agent — and has been his entire life.
Say what now?
This is where the “Not an imaginary story!” tag line would come in if we were talking about a Silver Age comic. Marvel is saying publicly that this is really happening, but i09 probably has the best reaction to it, essentially boiling down to “Keep Calm, Keep Reading”:
"To be fair, I’m certain Marvel will do something fun with it—this is hardly the first example of comics doing something inexplicably goofy for the sake of catchy headlines, and had a ball with the aftermath. Comics are built on gimmicks like this and playing with them. I’m looking forward to seeing where Nick Spencer and Jesus Saiz take this plot line. It’s always exciting to be at the start of something completely ludicrous, and just see where it goes—because this is definitely right up there in the “ludicrous comics nonsense” category. I look forward to Steve Rogers eventually being revealed as a quintuple agent or something.But please, let’s not pretend this is real, or permanent, or won’t be utterly undone in a storyarc or two. After all, Steve Rogers has got more movies to star in soon."
As for Twitter, well, no one there is waiting around with any patience …
You get the idea. The truly hilarious part is the tweets accusing Spencer of being some kind of Nazi sympathizer, as the writer is very active on Twitter and very open about his personal politics.
The other subtext to the reveal is that there’s almost a zero percent chance that Marvel didn’t plan this for the same day that DC Universe: Rebirth #1 (which is excellent, by the way) hit stores. Comics are a business after all, and Marvel managed to take a lot of the attention away from its chief competitor, with #SayNoToHydraCap trending and nothing about Rebirth following suit.
A tip of the hat to the company for that, anyway. Now all that’s left is to grab some popcorn and watch the continuing reactions to this Captain America twist.
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