Captain America #10: Review

Sep 2005

Ed Brubaker, Lee Weeks

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Story Name:

House of M

Review & Comments

Rating:

Captain America #10 Review by Librarian (February 15, 2010)

Other inkers: Lee Weeks, Mike Perkins.

Captain America #10 Review by Peter Silvestro (February 9, 2011)

Review: This HOUSE OF M tie-in presents a different act of heroism on Cap’s part: it recasts the McCarthy anti-communist crusade of the 1950s as the hunt for mutants, leading Steve to protest the violation of civil right involved. And rightly so: the Constitution’s guarantees of protection for citizens from the bullying and oppression of their own government is a natural cause for Captain America, who embodies the nation’s ideals. Yet just as McCarthy’s odious tactics tend to overshadow the reality that Communists were a real threat to America, the tales f the X-Men, especially the first two movies tend to miss a major difference. This factor, pointed out by Cracked.com and many others can be summed up as “Senator Kelly was right.” The metaphor of anti-mutant prejudice to stand fro real-life forms of bigotry fails since no existing minority group poses such a clear danger: if there is a person out there who can kill scores of people with a wave of the hand (or a beam from his eyes) the government had better be keeping tabs on him. As the events of HOUSE OF M in general and this issue in particular recognize, make-believe minorities are not as passive and helpless as other oppressed masses. Sometimes idealism can be misguided when it doesn’t think its positions through carefully enough. It is a lesson that Steve Rogers comes to learn too late.

Comments: Tie-in to the HOUSE OF M company-wide crossover. The story features appearances by real-life figures President Harry Truman, newsman Edward R. Murrow, Adolf Hitler, and Senator Joe McCarthy. Nick Fury is seen in a cameo.

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Synopsis / Summary / Plot

Captain America #10 Synopsis by Peter Silvestro

As an elderly Steve Rogers is guest of honor at a testimonial dinner, he looks back on his earlier career as the hero Captain America. He recalls that day at then end of the War when he and his partner Bucky leapt aboard Baron Zemo’s drone plane as it took off from the Nazi villain’s island base. They were able to disarm the booby trap and send the craft back at Zemo, leaping to safety in the English Channel as the bomb destroyed the villain and his castle. Cap then led the Invaders to Berlin, where they defeated the Nazi menace and captured Hitler. After the War, Steve married his sweetheart Peggy Carter, while remaining on call for the government in view of a growing concern over mutants. Some time later, Captain America was summoned before Senator McCarthy’s committee and questioned about his friendships with known mutants such as Namor and Toro. Refusing to inform on his friends he resigns from his position. Steve became an astronaut and as the first man on the moon, paid tribute to both humans and mutants. This caused a rift with Peggy, now a SHIELD agent, who disapproved of her husband’s mutant sympathies. Meeting with Bucky, also a member of SHIELD, Steve learned that the issue was not black and white: the mutants were seen as a threat not merely out of prejudice but because their powers make them dangerous in ways that human criminals are not. Over the following decades, the mutants gained in power and influence and Steve continued to campaign for equal rights for mutants. But as Magneto rose to prominence, Steve also warned of the possibility he would become a dictator; as a result Steve was forced into retirement. After this he became more irrelevant, courted by antimutant groups, but he would have nothing to do with them….

Now after the dinner, as Steve goes home he is pushed aside by a gang of mutants and muses that this world where Magneto is in control and humans are second-class citizens is not the world he fought for….

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