Ruminations on a Captain America sequel

[seriousfic]

So my chief criticism would be that Captain America: The Winter Soldier, for all its apocalyptic scene-setting, really doesn’t have much in the way of stakes or consequences.

Yes, SHIELD is disbanded, but we really only have Marvel’s word that that will have long-term repercussions. For all we know, Age of Ultron will end with someone saying “This proves we need SHIELD.” Cut to Nick Fury on the bridge of a Helicarrier; “It’s good to be back!” Boom.

Otherwise, the narrative brings more people back to life than it kills and no one notable turns out to be a traitor. At the end of the way, what’s done that can’t be undone? A housekeeper and Robert Redford’s OC are dead. Big whoop. I would’ve preferred two things.

• Nick Fury stays dead. Maybe it’s just that I’m done with this character and Samuel L. Jackson’s boring performance, but once he came back to life, I deflated a little. “Yay! More SamJack playing SamJack and lame jokes about missing an eye!” I guess was supposed to be the reaction, but I think anyone else showing up at that point in the narrative would’ve been more interesting. Imagine if Maria Hill brought Cap and Widow to Hawkeye, or Phil Coulson, or Tony Stark. Wouldn’t any of those things been cooler than “oh, I guess Nick Fury isn’t dead after all, just like I assumed”? If we’re going to criticize Star Trek Into Darkness for killing Jim Kirk, complete with a teary farewell death scene, then immediately bringing him back to life with no consequences via magical bullshit, then I’ll criticize this movie for doing the same.


• Maria Hill should’ve been the big traitor, not Gorgeous Head McMurray (or whatever his name was) (It was Jasper Sitwell). Her being evil would’ve fit with her comics personality of being a heinous bitch; I’m sorry, but without that, what’s the point of her character being adapted? I understand Whedon wanting to work with Cobie Smulders and having another female character in the Avengers, but why call her Maria Hill? What, besides her haircut, would be different about the character if she were called Sharon Carter, or Melinda May for that matter? How many tough, no-nonsense female agents does SHIELD have on hand to scowl at wacky male heroes? I don’t think Maria Hill’s haircut is so spectacular that it’s worth having an entire character whose only point of commonality with her comic book origins is follicles.

Aside from that, and this is more an observation of the Marvel brand/modern blockbusters than a specific criticism to direct at Winter Soldier, I feel like the whole false-flag operation/”We’re the REAL terrorists” evil plot is getting repetitive. How many times have Marvel movies alone done it? It’s getting to the point that I’m surprised all these fake terror plots don’t trip over each other. When Obadiah Stane hired Aldritch Killian’s fake terrorists to kill Tony Stark, did either of them stumble across HYDRA breeding dissent? That’s the movie I want to see. Some supervillain who just wants to kill Thor, but damnit, he’s an American, and he’s not going to go along with some damn Nazi plot to also take over the world!

I feel like this very common plot point is an attempt at “remove the plank in your own eye” self-criticism instead of having an potentially uncomfortable or unprofitable movie where the hero fights The Other, but to me, it comes across as TPTB not judging themselves, but valorizing themselves as Captain America, Black Widow, et al and then just Othering people who disagree with them politically. I mean, have you ever seen a horror movie set in the South? Transplant the exact same story of endangered tourists to Saudi Arabia and you’d have an international incident (or Alice In Arabia).

Which again, isn’t to criticize WS too much, but just to say that I really wish people would stop calling this plot ‘subversive’ or criticizing ‘all those’ movies about evil Arabs when there are no movies about evil Arabs. Every movie has a villain that's either a good guy gone rogue, a space monster, or an evil corporation. James Bond’s whole deal is working for an intelligence agency and he’s fought more Hispanic guys with blond hair than he has Middle Easterners.

Of course, you could look at it the other way and see WS’s potshots as letting its real-world targets off too lightly—SHIELD/the NSA isn’t bad, Nick Fury and Maria Hill and Hawkeye and Black Widow and Phil Coulson are all good guys, it’s just they’ve been infiltrated by mean Nazis we’ve never seen before who are sabotaging all their efforts. I kinda wonder if the movie would be so forgiving if there were a Republican in the White House. Shades of the Thor series. Part 1: “Military intervention is for fools and assholes!” Obama gets elected. Part 2: “Look how great military intervention is! Everyone loves and respects Thor because of his military intervention!”

It also strikes me as a bit dishonest—in a The Crucible sort of way—to be doing all this post-9/11 storytelling in a universe where there seemingly are no real terrorists, just a bunch of false-flag operations meant to gain either power or profit (even Batroc ze Leaper turns out to be working for Nick Fury). I suppose you could argue that the Battle of New York in The Avengers is meant to be the MCU’s 9/11, but in that case, why doesn’t Nick Fury cite the need to defend themselves from another possible Chitauri invasion (or Dark Elf attack, or Destroyer, or robot swarm) when justifying Project Insight to Cap? Three Super Star Destroyers seems like an overreaction to Al Qaeda; not so much to actual-factual alien armadas.

All I’m saying is, there’d better be a scene in Age of Ultron where Black Widow turns to Cap and says “gee, sure would be nice if we had three Heli-Killiers around, Demolition Man.”

I do like the HYDRA plot itself, or at least the execution of it. It’s faithful to the comics in that there’ve been a lot of storylines where SHIELD and HYDRA were really X ALL ALONG, or the whole thing was a ploy by rogue LMDs or some such foolishness. I never really cared for those kind of retcons shitting on Jim Steranko’s good work, but in the MCU, there’s far less canon to contradict and I like the alt-history Operation Paperclip better than Mark Millar shit.

Although now this has me wondering about the Agent Carter series, since as it turns out Peggy will end up creating an intelligence agency that unknowingly serves as a tool of oppression and fear for the next fifty years. Bit of a downer. Though that could also give it some thematic weight. Imagine having Armin Zola and other “reformed” HYDRA members as gadgeteers or agents in the fledgling SHIELD, but instead of the usual redemption arc, that whole story gets deconstructed as exactly what HYDRA wants everyone to think. Like Once Upon A Time if it turned out Captain Hook were just a smelly jerk trying to seduce Emma all along. That could be cool.

Also a little interesting to me: I’d say the film presents Steve’s relationships with Bucky, Natasha, and Sam as being equal. He likes and respects them as good friends, but doesn’t have real sexual or romantic feelings for them. Yet I’ve seen a few instances of Steve/Natasha shipping seen as heterosexism (I think I’m getting that word right), while Steve/Sam is seen as “blatant flirting” and not overt sexualization of male friendship or whatever you’d call it if you were being mean.

That strikes me as weird. I don’t see Steve and Natasha as being lovey-dovey either—you could say the film dismisses that possibility by having them kiss (for the mission!) and then have a veiled conversation about the possibility of getting together, with both of them shutting the door on it. The closest thing to a canon relationship in the movie, if you don’t want to count Natasha playing matchmaker, is Natasha and Sam giving each other flirty looks. Where’s my Sam/Natasha fic, tumblr? Anthony Mackie ships it!