What Could Happen In A Captain America Sequel?

What Could Happen In A Captain America Sequel?: "
After all the months and years of speculation, the movie we thought
we'd never see is at last here. Needless to say, there are MAJOR SPOILERS below. If you read them after this warning and
complain about how your experience is diminished, then you absolutely deserved to be hauled away by nasty MP officers and thrown into a stockade.

It's alright if we're speculating about sequels. Cap's already looking ahead, himself.

VILLAINS?

Well, the AVENGERS movie is
basically a direct sequel to this flick, and I expect the arc of Cap’s
adjustment to modern times will be covered there. However, Marvel’s already got
screenplays for more solo movies being written and I don’t suspect they’re
going to be “gaidens” that’ll fill the gaps of Cap’s wartime adventures. The
playing field is thus almost totally open in respect to what villains could appear.
Might we see a revived HYDRA led by the Fenris twins, Viper, the Serpent
Society or perhaps a highly-revised version of Baron von Strucker? THE FIRST AVENGER drops Cap into a more
generalized fantasy scenario, so I can’t really see him facing any threats like the Hate-Monger, Dr. Faustus, Crossbones or Baron Zemo who're specifically meant to be Neo-Nazis. I
suspect that the Skull will return at some point because that energy trail in his apparent death scene bore a more-than-passing resembling to the wormhole that transported Asgardians to and fro in THOR.

Zemo's cool and all, but I just don't see him working here.

The notion of there being other
Captain Americas who served while Steve was on ice is actually a fairly big
part of the character’s mythos, so maybe we’ll see him confronting embittered
successors like the USAgent or Nuke (to borrow a cue from ULTIMATE CAPTAIN AMERICA?) Unless he were changed over as much as
Arnim Zola was, I can’t see M.O.D.O.K. (or AIM for that matter) fitting into this
more realistic milieu. I could see heavily-retooled versions of international
villains like Flag Smasher and Batroc coming in to harp on the messier state of
global politics today in comparison to what seemed so much simpler during World War II.
However, the most likely antagonist has already been introduced…

THE WINTER SOLDIER?

The best bet heel for the next movie. Put your money down on it.

Bucky falls, but we don’t see him land.
We don’t see the body. He disappears in enemy territory and Cap doesn’t ever
get much time to really mourn his best pal.
Those are some strong clues, there.
One of the more eyebrow-raising
details of all of this movie's casting announcements concerned the one for
Sebastian Stan getting locked as Bucky. The report said that he’d signed on for
five or six movies. Considering how Joe Johnston's already voiced his interest, it’s clear that Mr. Barnes is going
to come back. He might not be called the Winter Soldier and he not have a lot of time
logged in Soviet Russia (and I doubt he’ll have anything close to
a relationship with the movies' Black Widow,) but I’d put money down to say that
he’ll return as a semi-immortal, brainwashed antagonist who’ll force Steve to
fight his best friend.

THE HOWLING COMMANDOS?

I've got a hunch that these joes are going to show up again, in some form or another.

Why do I feel like these guys will be back? For one, Neil McDonough’s a fairly big actor for such a small part. It’s somewhat akin to Sam Jackson’s brief appearances as Mace Windu in THE PHANTOM MENACE. You just know his appearance is there just to square business for more. Also, Variety reported that Derek Luke is scheduled to reprise his role in THE AVENEGRS, so I could see these guys becoming the founding members of SHIELD and then staying young for decades thanks to the Infinity Formula. Maybe the idea seems maybe too “comic-booky” at first, but it might be something that could just as easily be played down to seem at least somewhat more realistic.

PEGGY & SHARON CARTER?

Back during the screen tests, I recall this part being described as something that would also entail a multi-picture deal. Maybe that was misinformation, but if it wasn’t, I don’t think Hayley Atwell would be returning for flashback cameos alone. My guess is that they might follow the conceit of having Sharon Carter be the spitting image of her aunt Peggy, and the actress would play a different-yet-still-the-same role. However, that kind of coincidence might be too hokey (or creepy, if you think too hard about the family connection) for this cinematic universe. The ending of THE FIRST AVENGER eludes to it somewhat by having Cap greeted by a SHIELD agent who resembles Peggy, so maybe the plan is just to hire another actress who looks like her. Or, considering how she’s part of a prototype of SHIELD, maybe she’ll also be staying young with the aforementioned Infinity Formula over all the decades and years.
Tom Pinchuk’s the writer of HYBRID BASTARDS! & UNIMAGINABLE. Order them on Amazon here & here. Follow him on Twitter: @tompinchuk
"

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‘Captain America’ writers: Cap would be on a watch list today

‘Captain America’ writers: Cap would be on a watch list today: "
“Captain America: The First Avenger” had a heroic opening weekend and overcame all the skepticism about period-piece patriotism in a contemporary movie marketplace. The film was directed by Joe Johnston, and Marvel Studios President Kevin Feige played a major role in stitching the film into the widening Marvel Universe on the silver screen, but the story began with a script by Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely, the duo who also wrote the “Chronicles of Narnia” screenplays. Our Geoff Boucher sat down with them to talk about the film’s success, the choices made and a bit about their daydreams for Cap’s film future (Peter Dinklage as MODOK? Sign us up now…)

Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely (ID PR)

GB: You have a character with a name, a costume and a sensibility that are very much of another time. This is a Roosevelt superhero. Going in with all of that, what choices needed to be made to make this a film that would appeal to — and connect with — moviegoers in summer 2011, both in America and beyond?

CM: It really makes you want to do it as a period story. A guy deciding to be Captain America in 1942 and a guy deciding to be Captain America in 2011 are two radically different guys and will be received in different ways. The context is everything. The lines were very clear. in 1942, it almost made sense to dress up in a flag and go fight Nazis. It was a metaphor for what everyone was doing. Today, if you go into your backyard shed and come out as Captain America, you’re on a watch list. Or holding up the federal budget.

GB: This is the 70th anniversary of the Captain America character, and his published adventures are into the thousands. How does the challenge of bringing him to the screen compare and contrast with adapting the “Narnia” bookshelf?

SM: The danger of both is you can lose the character in the spectacle. You can say to yourself, “I’m making X big movie and it’s about the amazing things that happen, and the person in the center of the movie isn’t as important.” We couldn’t lose sight of Steve Rogers, the man that becomes Captain America, nor could we lose sight of the Pevensie kids — and they had to be distinct kids and not a little football to move along the story.

CM: You never want to lose their reaction to the non-realistic stuff that is happening around them. In “Narnia,” you don’t want to have them freak out every time about the talking beaver, but you can’t let it pass by like it happens every day either. You want to keep reality around. And in “Captain America,” it’s a wartime film and a lot of people are dying. We didn’t want the movie to become too big and flag-waving or triumphant because there are a lot of people getting killed.

GB: How were they different from a process standpoint?

SM: “Narnia” was a 180-page book with a beginning, a middle and an end. So in some ways you’re trying to make a movie of your imagination but also you know the whole deal. With Cap, we had a general sense of beginning and a general sense of the ending because we knew where he had to be [to fit into the Marvel team-up plot of the 2012 film] ‘The Avengers.’ So Act 2 is the question — what is this story? It had to be baggy enough, too, to indicate that he had a lot of World War II adventures and this is not the only one he had. There’s a lot of invention there, pulling on a number of different sources.

"Captain America: The First Avenger." (Jay Maidment / Marvel Studios)

GB: In the comics, there were the early Captain America adventures by Joe Simon and the late Jack Kirby and the 1960s “man-out-of-time” stories by Kirby and Stan Lee. There’s also the memorable espionage art and design of Jim Steranko and, much more recently, the mythology-reshaping work by writer Ed Brubaker. Are those the places you started?



CM: There’s cool stuff to mine in the unappreciated eras, too, and going back to them you kind of get why they aren’t iconic. But even in wasteland issues, Cap was always dealing with some pretty heavy issues. Even while Batroc the Leaper is jumping around, there’s still this element to the story where the characters are questioning the United States government.

GB: One of the great elements in the film that never appeared in the comics was the awkward time that Steve Rogers spends as a USO performer, a new wrinkle to the mythology that explains why he’s wearing a costume and a clever bridge between isolated outsider and national symbol. Talk a bit about that sequence.

SM: We went toward “Flags of our Fathers.” So it was slightly mined territory and very realistic. The government took these [troubled U.S. servicemen who were involved in the iconic photograph of raising the flag atop Mt. Suribachi in Iwo Jima] and took them around to make public-relations heroes out of these guys and manufactured a persona and story to sell bonds…. There was a kerfuffle when word first got out that we were going to put him in the USO. “You’re going to make him sing and dance?” People weren’t in love with the idea. The thing that people didn’t know until they saw it is that we weren’t trying to take the piss out of him, we just trying to justify the reason someone would put that costume on. And, if I may say, this theme of Cap or his name or his image being used for the wrong reasons has been a theme in the comics for decades. This was our way of showing how he chafes we he is used as a superficial symbol or the misuse of his abilities. He wants to go save people, he doesn’t want to be a symbol.

"Captain America: The First Avenger" (Marvel Studios/Paramount)

GB: For six or seven years now, Brubaker has been writing Captain America comics. How valuable was his work to you, especially his retooling James “Bucky” Barnes and adding a layered, dark backstory that made him more than an old-school sidekick?

SM: Without Brubaker we don’t use Bucky. Our Bucky is different than his in some way but very much related to and informed by the work that Brubaker did.

CM: We never entertained the idea that teen Bucky might come up [as a viable character]. We made him older than he was in the comics but this whole idea that Bucky was the guy with no powers who the government sent in ahead of Cap to just murder people and handle the stuff that was too dirty for Cap — that was kind of great.

GB: The difference between a good superhero movie and a great superhero movie is often the villain, which is one of the reasons Spider-Man and Batman are so alluring to Hollywood. What did you think about when you sized up Cap’s enemies?

"Captain America" stars Chris Evans (Steve) and Sebastian Stan (Bucky). (Paramount Pictures / Marvel Entertainment)

CM: It’s very exciting when you look at his villains but it’s also daunting because some of the best ones do take you out of reality.

SM: There were a lot fights to get to that. There were a lot of versions. There were some that were too messed up and therefore I have sympathy for him.

GB: I want to ask you about the shield. After all the meetings about story and character and tone, you get down to the conversations about what would simply look great on a movie screen. Give us some insight into that conversation as far as the shield as an object of fascination.

SM: There were arguments. To his credit, Chris said that you have to throw the shield and you have to throw it often. The rest of us weren’t sure how it would translate.

"Captain America: The First Avenger" (Jay Maidment / Marvel)

CM: I came in with the idea that the shield is equivalent of Indiana Jones’ whip. You don’t know at the beginning of “Raiders of the Lost Ark” that you want Indy to use a whip but you damn sure know at the end that you loved it. It’s cool and you don’t know why. I can’t tell you why. You just feel it. In some way it’s the only “super” thing about Cap.

GB: It’s interesting you say that. In some of the comics through the years, Captain America was portrayed as the equivalent of Batman — a man who represents the best fighting machine a human be. In other versions he’s more than human, capable of feats of strength that go beyond real-world possibility. What are the limits of your Cap?

(Marvel)

SM: We basically approached it as an Olympian in every category. He would win every Olympic medal by a tenth of a second. He could beat Usain Bolt just at the line and he could beat Michael Phelps to the wall by a hand. Could he pick up a car? Maybe under stress. He can’t throw a car. He can’t survive a fall from the Empire State Building but he would have the presence of mind to save himself on the way down.

CM: This is not to say that continued exposure to super-soldier serum and being frozen for 70 years might not change some things. Eventually I think he might be better than he is at the start. Steve Rogers the man is the same, that’s his strength, but Captain America might just be getting started.

GB: This movie has the best romance of any Marvel Studios film, unless you count Tony Stark and Tony Stark. That must please you.

CM: A lot of that was the chemistry of Chris Evans and Hayley Atwell. We also get a surprising amount of mileage out of the final act in the movie when you think Cap is about the die or dead or whatever is happening there. You wouldn’t think it would be romantic, but it sort of seals the deal. “Oh my God they can never be together,” that sort of thing.

SM: The thing about Steve Rogers again and again is sacrifice. We didn’t come to any conclusion about what kind of life Steve would have if he came back home from the war because we didn’t have to. But if he did, what kind of life was waiting for him? If the war is over, what does this new Steve do? He didn’t have much of a life to go to. Before, he couldn’t have a relationship with woman because they wouldn’t look at him. Now he’s attractive to women but he’s 40 miles behind enemy lines. He’s a character about sacrifice. He sets aside his personal life again and again. He’s a hero.

– Geoff Boucher

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‘Captain America’: Ed Brubaker and the salvation of Bucky Barnes

‘Captain America’: Ed Brubaker and the salvation of Bucky Barnes: "

Ed Brubaker at the premiere of "Captain America: The First Avenger" (Geoff Boucher/Los Angeles Times)

There were plenty of famous faces and Hollywood heavy hitters at the red-carpet premiere of “Captain America: The First Avenger,” but director Joe Johnston’s face lighted up in a special way when he was introduced to one guest who had flown in from the Pacific Northwest for the glitzy event — Ed Brubaker, the writer whose award-winning, seven-year run on the Marvel Comics adventures of Captain America became a key template for the big-screen adaptation. “It’s a pleasure to finally meet you, ” Johnston said to Brubaker as Robert Downey Jr. passed by on his way to a seat inside the El Capitan Theatre.

Johnston and screenwriters Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely (who also met Brubaker at the movie palace on premiere night) have cited the comic book writer’s work as an influence on the mythology, tone and characters in the film that grossed $65 million domestically in its opening weekend, the best total among the superhero films released this year. Brubaker, for the record, loved the film.

“That scene with Bucky and the rifle? That was all me,” he said after the credits rolled. Earlier in the night, I had sat down with him for dinner and an in-depth chat about Steve Rogers, James “Bucky’ Barnes, the Winter Soldier and other matters of the red, white and blue chronicles, both on the page and on the screen. A central theme: the salvation of Bucky, Marvel’s most famous martyr, and the Winter Soldier who just might enjoy his own season in the sun in Hollywood.

Chris Evans and Sebastian Stan in "Captain America: The First Avenger." (Paramount / Marvel Studios)

GB: The creative team behind “Captain America: The First Avenger” not only used your take on Bucky, they made it clear that without the benefit of your mythology the character probably gets ejected from the adaptation. What goes through your head when you hear that?

(Marvel)

EB: To bring Bucky back as Winter Soldier and have him become the most popular Marvel character since Deadpool and Wolverine is insane. I mean, that’s insane. You remember in “Captain America” No. 6 when the bad guy was [revealed to be] Bucky? We were terrified. People were angry — “I’m never reading comics again” — and then somehow we won all those people over, to the point that recently when we brought Steve Rogers back we heard, “Well Steve better not become Captain America again because I like Bucky better.” These are the same people that got mad that we brought Bucky back. The whole thing is insane and great.

GB: Bucky died and Captain America survived. That was the shorthand history of the character for decades. He also wasn’t especially interesting for many years, he was more mascot than character. Would you disagree about any of that?

EB: I had always liked his character because I had read those “Tales of Suspense” issues — the ones that were Iron Man story and half Captain America wartime story — and Bucky was always running around with a machine gun. He didn’t look like a little kid like he did in the comics in the 1940s. The funny things is in the [pre-code era] comics of the 1940s he was actually more [of a bad guy] running around with a flamethrower and dropping atom bombs on people. [Marvel executive editor] Tom Brevoort told me that every third cover in the ’40s it was Cap and Bucky parachuting into enemy territory and Cap is holding his shield while Bucky is the one unloading with multiple machine guns on anybody below. Bucky was more of the [bad guy] of the two. I started looking at it that way as I built his character.

(Marvel)

GB: What did you like about Bucky when you were a young reader?

EB: He was my favorite character as a kid. The Captain America series [of the Silver Age] started with issue No. 100 and when I was 8 or 9 years old I went to my first comic-book convention [and] I looked [at] the ones that came . I had issue No. 100 [from 1968] all the way through whatever and I assumed that issue No. 99 must have been the one that came in 1945 where Bucky got blown up. I totally believed there was a comic book where Baron Zemo captured Captain America; I thought that this story that they were always referencing in Marvel stories was in an actual comic book. When I found out that wasn’t the case at all and that they had made Captain America and Bucky comics into the 1950s. The whole “Bucky died in 1945″ story that was so huge in the mind of fans was something that they came up with in the 1960s when Stan [Lee, the famed Marvel editor and writer,] said “New era, no sidekicks.” At age 9 or 10 I was saying, “If I ever write Captain America I’m un-doing this mistake.” It didn’t even happen in the comic and it made me mad.

GB: Um, that’s not the response most youngsters would articulate. Most would shrug.

EB: I also drew a distinction at age 10 between Uncle Ben and Gwen Stacy [who each were killed off in the pages of "The Amazing Spider-Man" in the 1970s] and Bucky Barnes. Most readers grouped them together because they were the three that always stayed dead but they weren’t the same to me. Uncle Ben actually dies in the comic and Gwen Stacy, I actually witnessed her death. You didn’t see Uncle Ben die but you saw Gwen die and you weren’t 100% sure that Spider-Man didn’t cause her death when he tried to save her. But Bucky was the first ret-conned death. My reaction was “It doesn’t count. I can fix it somehow.”

(Marvel)

GB: When you hatched a plan that would actually follow through with that youthful aspiration, what were the roadblocks?

EB: Tom and I argued about it a lot and in the end decided it would work as long we didn’t invalidate what Stan and Jack [Kirby, the co-creator of "Captain America" in the 1940s and Lee's collaborator on the 1960s revival]. That’s why we made it that he did blow up and he did die in that water but then he was brought back to life. And then it became this crazy sort of “Bourne Identity” thing. I did a bunch of research into things the Russians were actually trying to do in real life to create super-soldiers. I stumbled upon Department X and it’s funny because Marvel had done all this stuff with the Red Room and Black Widow and all the various Russian mutants but they had never used Department X as a reference point. I made Department X the thing that oversaw everything because in real life they were really trying to build cyber-men and all this crazy stuff.

GB: So Bucky lost an arm; was that a nod to the old story — a gesture of sacrifice? It also adds a bit “Six Million Dollar Man” to it.

EB: Yeah, you had to show he was really blown up. He had to lose an arm or something. And I was thinking of “Six Million Dollar Man” more than anything. I wasn’t thinking about Deathlok or Cable or Bishop or any of these Marvel characters that have that arm with the [metallic] ridges. We could make a team of all these guys someday.

(Marvel)

GB: Brothers in Arm…

EB: Brothers in Arm, that’s good actually. “They are the Metal Arm Force…”

GB: It’s got to be strange for you to consider that, in an hour or two, you’re going to see Bucky on the big screen for the first time.

EB: It’s amazing to think what Bucky has become and what he was. For years the only thing that was important about Bucky was the fact that he was the thing that Captain America lost. And that remains important — in fact it’s the reason the Winter Soldier story worked. Cap still lost. If I was going to take away the tragedy of Bucky being killed in action, I had to replace it with something worse. Cap couldn’t save Bucky and because he couldn’t, Bucky became his own worst nightmare. And then in trying to save Bucky again — by giving him his memories back — Cap tortures Bucky by making him realize everything he did as the Winter Soldier too. Bucky is such a great tragic character and that tragedy has different sides to it now.

(Marvel)

GB: This new film introduces the early beats of that tragedy to the screen and there’s a lot of talk in Marvel circles about a Winter Soldier standalone film. That would be a staggering concept for 9-year-old Ed Brubaker.

EB: For me, when I watch the movie tonight I’ll be judging the Bucky a lot more than the Cap. A lot of people asked me what I thought when Chris Evans got cast as Cap what I thought. “Is this the right guy?” I had seen him in things that were serious, like this movie called “London,” and he had serious chops…. Steve Rogers was a hard role cast. Everyone that I heard suggested he seemed too old, like Mark Valley, how was he going to play the young Steve who wants to enlist?

GB: The amazing accomplishment of this movie was the CG work that delivered the young Steve Rogers. It’s pretty great. I think the romance is the most successful one that Marvel Studios has put on a screen, unless you count Tony Stark and Tony Stark.

EB: I was so happy they cast [Hayley Atwell] as Sharon Carter. I read the script for the film and if you read the new Captain America No. 1 that’s just been released, I wrote it to be open to people who are coming off the movie. I mean, if you walked out of the movie and wanted to see what a Captain America comic book was like and you picked up this one it would make sense to you. Dum Dum Dugan is in it and we actually open at Peggy Carter’s funeral in Paris — she fought in the French resistance — and the set-up was a way to emotionally connect with people. Peggy Carter was like 98 years old the last time they showed her [in the comics] and she had Alzheimer’s. So the idea was let’s get rid of the Peggy Carter problem in the comics. You know the funny thing? I’m actually starting to get nervous. I’ve been to premieres before with Marvel and they were fine but now, talking about all this, I’m starting to get really excited to see this movie. And I just hope they don’t blow it with Bucky.

– Geoff Boucher

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– Geoff Boucher

READ MORE - ‘Captain America’: Ed Brubaker and the salvation of Bucky Barnes

Captain America: Super Soldier - SDCC 11: Game Development: Behind the Scenes

Tags: GameTrailers.com, Captain America: Super Soldier - SDCC 11: Game Development: Behind the Scenes, PC Games, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360

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Captain America: The First Avenger Packs Patriotic Punch

Captain America: The First Avenger Packs Patriotic Punch: "


There are very few comic book characters that come with a heavy dose of jingoism and bombast pre-installed for your enjoyment. Superman has been pictured in front of the stars and stripes so many times that we can give him an honorary Uncle Sam Jr. badge, and Iron Man has become a representation of the United States in many ways, buffered by his filmic message of peace through superior firepower. But it's Captain America who stands alone at the head of the line as a character from the funny pages meant to embody not just a hero, but the hopes and dreams of an entire nation as well.
His costume is based on the American flag, and even the shield he carries with that single star emblazoned on the front screams "AMERICA!" louder than Team America ever did. He even has a giant "A" smack dab in the middle of his forehead, just in case you forgot who he was representing. And who is that, really? Where Superman is a visitor from another planet who gains his powers from our yellow sun, and Captain Marvel summons the forces of Solomon, Hercules, Atlas, Zeus, Achilles, and Mercury by shouting SHAZAM!, Captain America represents only the pinnacle of human performance, something that could possibly be achieved by tons of hard work and a rigorous diet. Or by a steroid-level dose of the Super Soldier serum and a spectrum blast from Howard Stark's Vita-Ray.
At least, that's what happens in Captain America: The First Avenger. The character, who has been around since 1941, was actually the first Marvel hero to appear in film thanks to the Captain America film serial in 1944. So has the character changed much in the intervening 67 years? Although the film serial had Captain America with the alter ego of district attorney Grant Gardner who carried a gun instead of a shield, thankfully Cap has almost always been Steve Rogers, the scrawny soldier who couldn't pass muster in the draft, only to get bootstrapped in when he becomes the successful recipient of the Super Soldier serum.


That's where the movie starts off, granting surprisingly believable CGI-puny Chris Evans with a hunky physique endowed with bigger boobs than those of most Hollywood starlets. The film is shot tin a sepia-toned look the leans hard on the nostalgia button, but doesn't devolve into cartoonishness. Rogers because bulked-up in a manner of minutes, but a bulldog Army Colonel played by Tommy Lee Jones wants to lock him up for future study, especially since serum creator Dr. Abraham Erskine (Stanley Tucci) is bumped off shortly after the succesful experiment. But before he can go under the microscope, a Senator whisks him away for a "Buy War Bonds!" tour, and he becomes the faux face of the U.S. military overnight.
But despite his cushy new job and overnight fame, Roger still yearns to be a part of the fight. While he believes himself to be doing good work drumming up support on the homefront, when he travels overseas to visit actual soldiers, it is quickly revealed that they view him as a joke while they're doing the real work. It's a painful reminder of the mocking (and beatings) he took back when he was a 98-poind weakling. Even though he's now super-amped (seemingly well beyond the abilities of the comic book Cap), he's still powerless.
Shortly afterwards, Rogers goes on a secret mission of his own to rescue some POWs, aided by British military vixen Peggy Carter and Tony Stark's pop, Howard, he drops behind enemy lines and frees a large group of prisoners, including some that will become his "Howling Commandos" (including Neal McDonough, who might not have been a bad choice for Cap back in the day as enormous-mustachioed Timothy "Dum Dum" Dugan), and his best buddy James Buchanan "Bucky" Barnes. Along the way he has his first run-in with the film's villain, the Red Skull (Hugo Weaving), who has been using the Cosmic Cube to provide enormous power machinations brought to life by his scientific henchman, Dr. Arnim Zola (Toby Jones).



The Skull, formerly Johann Schmidt, was a scientist working with Erskine on the Super Soldier formula in Germany, but when he forcibly took the serum himself, it endowed him with strength, but also hideously burned away his skin in the process, leaving him with a red skull, provided by some spectacular makeup effects on actor Weaving. Formerly a part of the Nazi machine, Schmidt has broken off from the Reich and formed his own splinter army, Hydra. "Cut off one head, and two grow back in its place."
The rest of the film concerns itself with Cap's climactic confrontation with the Skull, and the subsequent lore of Captain America. Comic book readers will know very well what happens to Steve Rogers, which is no real stretch or spoiler due to the fact that everyone knows he'll be appearing in Joss Whedon's The Avengers. Although it might sound like the movie is painted with broad strokes, and it is, that doesn't mean that it isn't highly enjoyable. While I thoroughly enjoyed Thor at the theaters earlier this summer, Captain America: The First Avenger has provided a much more satisfying comic book adaptation with terrific performances all around. Especially from Chris Evans, who manages to nail the overgrown Boy Scout bravado and the gee whillikers innocence of Captain America.



Although it might not pack the explosive tech and next-gen punch of an Iron Man, it certainly feels looks like it came directly from the pages of a 1940s comic book. As far as adaptations of superheroes go, Cap manages to impress on nearly every level, and my only regret in the movie is that they had to rush his ending to dovetail with The Avengers. I could easily watch Cap battle Nazis, Hydra, Baron Zemo, and Doctor Doom for at least two more movies all on his own. This is one summer superhero flick that you'll enjoy seeing, or taking the whole family to. Also, if you're looking for a date flick, this is a good choice. Just expect your significant other to ask you to start working out afterwards.
"

READ MORE - Captain America: The First Avenger Packs Patriotic Punch

Comic-Con 2011: Captain America In His Avengers Suit

Comic-Con 2011: Captain America In His Avengers Suit: "

Marvel has released a new character poster exclusive to Comic-Con, displaying Chris Evans as Captain America in the updated costume he'll be sporting for 2012's The Avengers.

Taken from the World War II era into the present, Cap is seen confidently ready for battle as a leader, pointing towards whatever it is the newly-assembled Super Team is out to stop. The more militaristic, paratrooper look he sports in this week's release of Captain America: The First Avenger is tweaked in favor of a more traditional comic book design, complete with patriotic red stripes on the abdomen. The old costume is displayed in the background to contrast the differences.

Check out the full image below and bask in its star-spangled glory.

Although star, Chris Evans was said to have grown accustomed to the old costume, the new one will better fit the needs of the Stars and Striped Avenger. According to Co-Visual Development Supervisors for Marvel Studios, Ryan Meinerding:

“There’s a lot that goes in to it, because honestly the first version of the costume didn’t fit and didn’t make him look big or look like a super hero. And you start questioning, ‘Maybe it’s the design.’ You don’t know what it is and you just keep hammering away at it until you figure out what’s not working and what is working and tailor it to [the actor]."

Source: Marvel

READ MORE - Comic-Con 2011: Captain America In His Avengers Suit

The First Avenger: Captain America - 9 Min BTS Video

READ MORE - The First Avenger: Captain America - 9 Min BTS Video

The First Avenger: Captain America - 9 Min BTS Video

READ MORE - The First Avenger: Captain America - 9 Min BTS Video

Beginner's Guide to Captain America: Steve Rogers

Beginner's Guide to Captain America: Steve Rogers: "

A while back, I made the outrageous claim that Deadpool was actually a traditional Marvel anti-hero;
a modern embodiment of an archetype whose pedigree could be traced all the way
back to Namor, the Sub-Mariner. While thinking about this guide, I realized
that Captain America might be part of another such lineage; one in which
Spider-Man is successor. Sure, Cap’s wit isn’t a defining
characteristic, nor is he scorned as a menace by the public. But think about
the basic conceit. Steve Rogers is a middle-to-lower class orphan kid from a New York
borough (Brooklyn or Queens) who hustles a meager living from an artistic job
(cartooning or photography) when he isn’t getting picked on for his pitiful
scrawniness. After some fantastical scientific process that involves radiation
(irradiated spider-venom or vita-ray strengthened serum,) he instantaneously
receives an impressive physique that allows him to take a much larger role in
the fate of his world.
Do the similarities seem a little less tenuous, now?

Due in large part to the criminally-underrated mini-series
THE ADVENTURES OF CAPTAIN AMERICA: SENTINEL OF LIBERTY (of which I crow so
often about,) I’ve always felt that Cap had the strongest origin out of any
Marvel super-hero because he goes forth into a milieu that’s just as
larger-than-life as his persona is. A
proper hero needs a suitable context just as much as he needs a formidable
adversary and, to that end, World War II defines Cap even more than the Red Skull. In
his time, his shield makes him look like the policeman of the world that the US
more-or-less became during the war. Out of his time, he represents how the stated values of
his era don’t always gel with the great ambiguities of contemporary America.
But enough highfaluting analysis, you came here to get the
basics.
The son of lowly Irish immigrants, Steve Rogers was a 4F - -
a 98 lbs weakling deemed physically unfit for service in the Army. Young men
took such rejection with much greater shame in those days - - some even committed suicide for being deemed unworthy.
Steve took his disqualification with great frustration, too, and repeated his
application several times in different cities with the hope that he’d be
accepted. Much like Peter Parker, Steve believed he had a great responsibility,
even if he hadn’t anything close to great power.
Rogers’ fortunes changed when he caught the eye of Chester Phillips, a general who was looking for candidates for the top-secret
defense program, Project: Rebirth. After outlasting other candidates in a
rigorous selection process, he was administered the Super-Soldier Serum in a
chemical and radioactive operation that instantaneously granted him an optimum
human physique. He was intended to be the first in an entire army of
super-soldiers that would fight against the Axis powers, but the sabotage of an
undercover German assassin destroyed both the serum and the one man who knew its formula.

Being one-of-a-kind, Steve was deemed too costly a specimen
to be sent out into battle and was given a cover identity as a lowly, buffoonish
private at a Virginia base while the government figured out what to do with
him. Still compelled to contribute to the war effort, Rogers would sneak off
base to perform vigilante attacks against domestic saboteurs. It wasn’t long before his minders found about
what he was doing and then decided to give him the identity of Captain America,
a superhero who’d fight Axis threats both abroad and on the home front.
Considering how Steve was an artist, it was to be expected
that he asked to design his own costume.
Cap had many adventures during the war with his sidekick
Bucky Barnes and the proto-Avengers super team, the Invaders, before a fateful battle with the Nazi supervillain Baron Zemo
would leave him frozen in the artic. Cryogenically preserved for decades before the Avengers discovered him,
Cap would emerge into the modern world without having aged a single day. Quickly
becoming the leader of the Avengers, he would sporadically clash with the
contemporary government and even relinquish his identity several times in
ideological defiance. Currently, he’s given up the identity again to serve in
another role of leadership - - this time as the director of Homeland Defense.
Aside from some cosmetic differences with his costume, I
haven’t seen in anything in the trailers for CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE FIRST AVENGER that make it
seem like Cap’s been changed in any substantial way for the movie. So this
guide will be a good primer for any newbies. If any of your friends are
commenting on how this is the latest of so many Marvel movies, you can impress
with the following tidbit: Cap was actually the first ever Marvel superhero to
make it to a movie screen in the 40s. And, thus, the Marvel cinematic tradition comes swinging back to the source like Cap's shield.
"

READ MORE - Beginner's Guide to Captain America: Steve Rogers

Captain America: The First Avenger Red Carpet Premier

READ MORE - Captain America: The First Avenger Red Carpet Premier

Captain America The First Avenger: Joe Johnston Exclusive Interview

READ MORE - Captain America The First Avenger: Joe Johnston Exclusive Interview

Etsy Made Me Do It: Captain America

Etsy Made Me Do It: Captain America: "
Once a week I sift through the millions of Etsy listings to find the best in geek chic for Blog@ readers. Last week was a killer for me because I did a special extended edition in honor of the end of Harry Potter (Can you believe I didn’t buy ONE thing?!). Regardless, another big movie event is happening this week and therefore Captain America is getting his time in the spotlight. Here’s a few things you could sport to make you feel like the First Avenger.

If you were watching Captain America on television this week instead of a movie theater I’d suggest this Comic Slate Coaster. Made by user BlameItOnBadLuck, the coaster is waterproof and 4 inches by 4 inches. $6.

Most of the items I found for Cap surrounded around his shield. Go figure. Here’s an awesome set of Captain America Shield Cufflinks from user funkygiftshop for a frugal $1. Or, if you’d prefer to see Cap running out of your sleeve, try these cufflinks from user ivcreations55 for $25.

I know someone who’s going to go absolutely wild for this Captain America Shield Bag. User CreoNodo writes, “Please don’t throw this bag at people (unless absolutely necessary).” Sure, take ALL the fun out of it! A pretty sweet creation, albeit a bit pricey, at $95.

I see these fun voodoo doll type keychains at conventions all the time but I’ve never come across a Captain America String Doll. User Stringdollworld handcrafted this mini-Cap from a single piece of flax rope and says it can be used as a keychain, a mobile phone strap, added to jewelry or any other similar use. $6.99.

Heading to a Renaissance Fair this year? Going LARPing with friends soon? How can you pass up this Captain America Chainmail Shirt?? I may have one reason, user BladeAvenger is selling it for $1,000. But you cannot deny the craftsmanship here. The user says the shirt fits a man who can wear up to a large t-shirt size in the broadness of shoulders and about a 36″ waist and designed it down to a point to be reminiscent of Cap’s original shield.

As always, bear in mind, since Etsy is a craft website and not a commercial, mass-market dealer, items are almost always one-of-a-kind or in very limited availability. When you see something you like, buy it. It may not be there the next time you surf round. (Yes, it’s a very dangerous site for your wallet.) Also, since most items are created individually, many sellers are willing to customize something specifically to suit your needs. Just ask!
"

READ MORE - Etsy Made Me Do It: Captain America

‘Captain America’ Director Joe Johnston Talks ‘Cap 2′ & ‘The Winter Soldier’

‘Captain America’ Director Joe Johnston Talks ‘Cap 2′ & ‘The Winter Soldier’: "

Captain America: The First Avenger, one of the most highly anticipated comic-book movies of the summer, opens in theaters next weekend. There has already been rampant speculation about a sequel to the film as well as the role that supporting characters will play in additional Marvel movies. Fans have been particularly curious about the future of James Buchanan ‘Bucky’ Barnes, played by Sebastian Stan.

Earlier today we had the chance to speak with Captain America director Joe Johnston who provided some insight into a possible future storyline for Bucky and the direction they are thinking of taking the Captain America franchise.

Captain America (the film) is set in the 1940s when the comic began. As such, it is far easier to imbue the character with the traits and identifiers ...

Click to continue reading ‘Captain America’ Director Joe Johnston Talks ‘Cap 2′ & ‘The Winter Soldier’

READ MORE - ‘Captain America’ Director Joe Johnston Talks ‘Cap 2′ & ‘The Winter Soldier’

Captain America: Super Soldier Stage Demo (Multi)

READ MORE - Captain America: Super Soldier Stage Demo (Multi)