Book Review: Captain America, Masculinity and Violence

Book: Captain America, Masculinity and Violence: The Evolution of a National Icon by J. Richard Stevens

Source: Borrowed from Publisher/NetGalley for an honest review

Publication: Available now

Publisher: Syracuse University Press

Description:

Since 1940, Captain America has battled his enemies in the name of American values, and as those values have evolved, so has Captain America's character. Author J. Richard Stevens reveals how the comic book hero has evolved to maintain relevance with America's fluctuating ideas of masculinity, patriotism, and violence. Stevens outlines the history of Captain America's adventures and places the evolving storyline in dialogue with the comic book industry as well as America's varying political culture. Using close readings, Stevens shows that Captain America's adventures encourage reexaminations of issues of masculinity, patriotism, and violence that are as practical as they are interesting to students and scholars of popular culture and the social sciences.


Rating: 5 stars

Review:

Since the start of the comic book industry, characters have undergone a multitude of changes. This book shows in an academic way how Captain America has changed from being a more violent character to his modern depiction. It also details how the characters popularity was at its highest then started to drop. What caused the change in readers? Why did they lose interest in the once mighty Captain America? This book also does a good job of giving readers an overview of the history of the comic book industry and some of the changes it went through.

This was a good read but the introduction was really cold and clinical. The introduction was similar to Death, Disability and the Superhero: The Silver Age and Beyond by Jose Alaniz, were it was so boring. However, once you get past the intro, the author does a fantastic job of analyzing Captain America as well as the Falcon and the comics they were featured in. I like that this study didn't skip over anything including writing about many of the social issues that Captain America encountered. The book also showed how horribly racist and sexist comics were in the past. And many of those earlier Captain America comics included quite a lot of it, which unfortunately went with the times.

I do wish this book had used images or scenes from the comic books that were being described if only to break up some of the text. But even with out the visual aids, it's a good read.

The more I read the more I enjoyed this, it was both informative and fun to read. There was a lot of depth to the research that was shown from Cap trying to adjust to being in a new world after being frozen in ice to becoming more idealist to his approach instead of the violence he welded in the past.

Marvel's history and it's financial difficulties with the change in comic book consumption and a drop in sales in the late 90's was also highlighted.

I like how you see Cap's views changing and even more so depending on who was writing him. The author also discussed September 11th and its subsequent effects on the hero and his stand in the Civil War against Iron Man on the decision of the government's control of superheroes by forcing them to register among other things.

The success of Marvel's movies would increase Captain America's name and image to the general audience. The movies also brought about changes to the comics adding in elements from the movie verse as a way for new readers to relate to the character. The author also wrote about Disney's involvement and how it may effect the way the characters and comic are translated into movies and TV shows. Will Disney's view help or hinder the content?

Overall, I think this is a good read because you get a comprehensive look at Captain America and the reader see the changes that the character has undergone. I also like that this book contains some of Captain America's most memorable speeches.