Does America Need a Hero?

Captain America: an all-American superhero. Clad in red, white, and blue, he carries only a shield. And he fights only when he must. When it's right. But what happens when what's right isn't so clear? And how does a comic book hero designed to represent America's values survive in a changing world? See pcm.adswizz.com https://pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences. NPR Privacy Policy https://www.npr.org/about-npr/179878450/privacy-policy

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

  This message comes from Livrite, publishers of John U. Bacon's New York Times bestseller, "The Gales of November", a chronicle of the S.S. Edmund Fitzgerald's 1975 shipwreck. "The Gales of November", in paperback wherever books are sold.

• 0:21Speaker 01

  While most of you were playing ball in the sandlots, this war started.

• 0:26Speaker 02

  Adolf Hitler's all-out attack on Poland makes the long-dreaded European war a certainty. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America.

• 0:38Speaker 03

  Steve Rogers was a scrawny kid growing up in New York.

• 0:43Speaker 02

  And to the republic for which it stands.

• 0:46Speaker 03

  World War II was going on. The United States had not yet been involved.

• 0:50Speaker 01

  Adolf Hitler's mechanized forces are racing toward Paris as French resistance collapses.

• 0:55Speaker 03

  There was a lot of unrest going on in America of what was happening over in Europe and across the globe.

• 1:02Speaker 01

  We heard that a thing called the Nazi Party had taken over.

• 1:06Speaker 03

  He wanted to do what he could.

• 1:08Speaker 04

  A chance to help the Army Air Forces throw a punch that'll knock Hitler and Tojo bow-legged.

• 1:13Speaker 03

  He tried to enlist, but was rejected for all types of purposes.

• 1:19Speaker 02

  One nation, indivisible.

• 1:22Speaker 03

  His size, to having asthma, flat feet.

• 1:25Speaker 02

  With liberty.

• 1:26Speaker 03

  He just couldn't be enlisted.

• 1:27Speaker 02

  And justice for all.

• 1:34Speaker 03

  But that wasn't going to deter him.

• 1:40Speaker 03

  Eventually, this caught the eye of the US military. And so they were going through their own experiments at the time to develop what is known as the super soldier.

• 1:58Speaker 03

  They approached Steve Rogers and said, "Listen, you have the heart. Would you be willing to try to do this experiment for your government?" And of course, he said, "Absolutely."

• 2:24Speaker 05

  Don't be afraid, son. You're about to become one of America's saviors.

• 2:29Speaker 06

  Calmly, the young man allows himself to be inoculated with strange, seething liquid.

• 2:42Rund Abdelfatah?

  There! It is done! He's changing.

• 2:50Speaker 05

  We shall call you Captain America.

• 2:55Speaker 02

  First issue of Captain America, it's a million seller.

• 2:57Speaker 06

  As the ruthless warmongers of Europe focus their eyes on a peace-loving America, the youth of our country heed the call to arm for defense.

• 3:08Speaker 02

  Lots and lots of people are reading comics.

• 3:12Speaker 06

  But great as the danger of foreign attack is the threat of invasion from within.

• 3:18Speaker 02

  Certainly, once you get into the war, tens of thousands of issues of comics are going out to GIs around the world. Death to the dogs of democracy! Come on out, you scum crew! East and west, our nation is miniced as never before.

• 3:40Rund Abdelfatah?

  And inside the Captain America comic books is this blond-haired, blue-eyed, white, all-American super-soldier. He wears a red, white, and blue costume that looks like a reimagined American flag. A big star on his chest, stripes tight against bulging muscles engineered by the US government. His power is his superhuman strength. He carries no weapon, only a shield. And he fights only when he must.

• 4:10Speaker 02

  He's not someone who has always known power. So he is someone who knows what it is like to be the one getting sand kicked in their face. He's on

• 4:21Rund Abdelfatah?

  The side of the little guy.

• 4:25Speaker 05

  Time for Captain America to go to work.

• 4:33Rund Abdelfatah?

  Many of us know Captain America from the many Marvel movies he's in. But let's face it, out of all the superheroes, he doesn't have the coolest superpower. He can't fly, or shoot webs, or turn invisible. But what he does have going for him, aside from his super strength, are his morals.

• 4:54Speaker 03

  He's a character that all the other characters in Marvel look up to when they don't know what's the right thing to do.

• 5:01Rund Abdelfatah?

  The right thing to do.

• 5:03Speaker 05

  I came here to save blood, not to shed it.

• 5:07Rund Abdelfatah?

  In some ways, Steve Rogers, aka Captain America, is someone many of us might want to be, or might want to believe in, kind of like America itself. We want to live in a place that stands up to bullies, that knows right from wrong, and calls out injustice. And because Steve Rogers is this scrawny kid behind the mask, maybe he's someone we all can be.

• 5:33Speaker 02

  You are never going to be Superman, unless you suddenly find a lot of money from somewhere. You are never going to be Batman. But, but there's always that chance, isn't there, that you could one day be Captain America?

• 5:51Speaker 05

  Justice will always triumph.

• 5:57Rund Abdelfatah?

  You, me, any one of us, we could be the good guy doing the right thing. But what happens when what's right isn't so clear? How does a comic book hero designed to represent America's values survive in a changing world? I'm Rande Abdelfattah. And I'm Ramtin Arablouei. Coming up, producer Devin Katayama brings us the story of Captain America's identity crisis and what happens next.

• 6:36Speaker 02

  I'm Abdul from Montreal, Canada. Captain America, he's a child of Irish immigrants, and that's really why I relate to him as a character, as an immigrant myself. Someone who's born from parents from Stargal taking on the American image, in a sense, connecting to my American culture. You're listening to Throughline from NPR.

• 6:56Speaker 00

  Stay tuned for the following announcements and messages from our sponsors.

• 7:01Speaker 06

  This message comes from NPR sponsor Shopify. No idea where to sell? Shopify puts you in control of every sales channel. It is the commerce platform revolutionizing millions of businesses worldwide. Whether you're a garage entrepreneur or IPO ready, Shopify is the only tool you need to start, run, and grow your business without the struggle. Once you've reached your audience, Shopify has the internet's best converting checkout to help you turn them from browsers to buyers. Go to Shopify.com/NPR to take your business to the next level today.

• 7:29Speaker 00

  This message comes from Live Right, publisher of John U. Bacon's New York Times bestseller, The Gales of November, a chronicle of the S.S. Edmund Fitzgerald's 1975 shipwreck. Never has it been told better than by Mr. Bacon in this colorful book, writes John J. Miller of The Wall Street Journal, while author Hampton Sides proclaims it's destined to be a classic. The Gales of November, now in paperback. Support for this podcast and the following message come from the Southern Environmental Law Center. No one voted for a dirty air. No one voted for polluted water. That's why S E L C is fighting back to defend the healthy environment everyone depends on, just as they've done for 40 years.

• 8:11Speaker 00

  Because clean air, clean water, and a healthy climate aren't political, they're fundamental. Learn more at S E L C dot org.

• 8:21Speaker 00

  Part one, punching Nazis.

• 8:26Speaker 00

  Here's the front cover, issue number one of Captain America. Cap gives Hitler a right cross. While Nazis shoot their p-

• 8:35Speaker 02

  There's atomic gun, too.

• 8:40Speaker 02

  A ricochet off Captain America's red, white, and blue shield as if he's untouchable.

• 8:48Speaker 02

  It's December 1940.

• 8:52Speaker 02

  So you can see very clearly, this front cover is making the case that we, Americans, can't stay out of this war. It is going to come to us eventually.

• 9:04Speaker 02

  This is Michael Goodrum. I am the author of Superheroes: An American Self-Image: From War to Watergate. He's also a cultural history professor at Canterbury Christ Church University in England. So the first issue of Captain America comics comes out a year before Pearl Harbor.

• 9:25Speaker 01

  For the first time in our history, we began mobilizing an army while still at peace.

• 9:31Speaker 02

  The US doesn't have troops on the ground, but Roosevelt runs in 1940 on the platform of being the arsenal of democracy.

• 9:39Speaker 01

  We must be the great arsenal of democracy. For us, this is an emergency as serious as war itself.

• 9:51Speaker 02

  Supplying and supporting, but not direct involvement.

• 9:58Speaker 02

  Many Americans, following the Depression and the brutality of World War I, don't want to go to war. The US military is kind of small, and the war hasn't reached U.S. shores yet. But that wasn't enough for some people. People like Joe Simon and Jack Kirby, the creators of Captain America. Both Simon and Kirby are Jewish. They know what is happening in Europe. They can't go over and fight, but they need to do something to try and get people involved.

• 10:34Speaker 02

  As Joe Simon says, that you were always on the lookout for the next great villain, and it was becoming hard to think of a worse villain than Adolf Hitler.

• 10:51Speaker 02

  That first issue of Captain America, the one where Cap's punching Adolf Hitler right in the face, sold around a million copies. And the audience was probably a lot bigger than that, since comic books would get passed around like a Netflix logon. It was mostly kids reading comics, but since they were sold on newsstands and in drugstores, a lot of people would have seen that front cover, including a group of Nazi sympathizers who terrorized Simon and Kirby. And it was in that moment, around the time the first issue came out, that a guy looking for work got a gig helping out.

• 11:32Speaker 02

  Stan Lee is probably the best-known figure in American comic books ever. Stan Lee went on to help create hundreds of superheroes, iconic ones, like Spider-Man, Black Panther, the Hulk, Iron Man, X-Men. Stan really is kind of a Walt Disney kind of figure. Strangely enough, Disney now owns Marvel. This is Danny Fingerroth. He worked with Stan Lee as a comic book writer and editor for years. He also wrote- A Marvelous Life: The Amazing Story of Stan Lee. So Stan got this job as an assistant to Simon and Kirby, running errands, proofreading, the background stuff. But then, in just the third issue, they ask him to write a short

• 12:16Speaker 02

  storyline for Captain America. It's only a couple of pages, but in it, you start to see iconic pieces of Cap's identity being born. Captain America throws his shield. He hurls the spinning disc across the room, knocking a knife out of a bad guy's hand. What an iconic thing that would go on to become. And all of a sudden, Cap's main prop, this tool for defense- You can hide behind the shield. Great. ...becomes a weapon. And Stan Lee would get more chances to write over the next year, as Captain America became this Nazi-fighting machine. And then, December 1941, the US enters the war.

• 13:01Speaker 02

  The following year, Stan enlists in the Army, working in military communications. But on the side-

• 13:07Speaker 04

  He keeps writing Captain America.

• 13:10Speaker 05

  Today, a terrible menace is closing in upon us from all sides. It is the menace of fascism.

• 13:16Speaker 02

  One of these two worlds must break the sun.

• 13:20Speaker 05

  Things are in turmoil in the East. A bold stroke would put power in the hands of anybody.

• 13:26Speaker 04

  Cap fights Nazi saboteurs and Japanese soldiers. And I'm not going to lie, the art didn't age well. There were a lot of racist stereotypes. But patriotism sold well during the war. Stan even included not so subtle messages for Americans to sacrifice for the greater good.

• 13:43Speaker 05

  You know that it's the duty of every American to buy war stamps and bonds?

• 13:49Speaker 04

  And then, as the allied powers start winning the war, something strange happens. The popularity of superheroes begins to fade.

• 13:59Speaker 02

  It's difficult to have superheroes fighting the war when, you know, you are fighting the war, your brother is fighting the war, your dad, your uncle, right? Real people are fighting and winning.

• 14:16Speaker 02

  1944, the tide is turning. We shall completely destroy Japan's power to make war.

• 14:24Speaker 04

  And then, in August of 1945, the US drops two atomic bombs on Japan. One on Hiroshima.

• 14:33Speaker 02

  If they do not now accept our terms, they may expect a rain of ruin from the air, the like of which has never been seen on this earth.

• 14:41Speaker 04

  And then, a few days later, on Nagasaki. Japan agrees to surrender, and the war ends.

• 14:52Speaker 04

  After the war, America emerges as a global superpower. There's relief, there's a little bit of optimism. But for Captain America, there are some big questions about what comes next. Because what does a superhero engineered by the US military do when the war is over? Who does he fight? What's his role in the country? And what is America? Captain America, without a big war that the country is involved in, almost becomes directionless.

• 15:22Speaker 05

  I've been getting restless, and I've got to go back to work.

• 15:26Speaker 04

  So in 1946, Stan tries to address the private life of Captain America.

• 15:32Speaker 05

  I'll take a run down to this school.

• 15:34Speaker 04

  Cap becomes a teacher, but he also goes on to fight criminals and monsters, and he doesn't have a clear enemy or purpose. The genres of comics were also expanding: romance, Western, crime. At one point in 1949, Captain America gets into horror and is brought down to hell by this satanic dude.

• 15:58Speaker 04

  Very weird. But to be relevant again, Captain America needs a worthy enemy, one that the entire country can rally behind. And then?

• 16:15Speaker 04

  The Cold War. We all know the atomic bomb is very dangerous. In recognizing a communist, physical appearance counts for nothing. Since it may be used against us, we must get ready for it. Freedom-loving peoples all over the world, stand alert to the menace of communism.

• 16:32Speaker 03

  Captain America was no longer needed to fight Nazis or to fight the Japanese army or saboteurs.

• 16:40Speaker 04

  This is Rick Verbanas, co-host of the Captain America Comic Book Fans Podcast.

• 16:46Speaker 03

  Now, there was a new villain. Now, there was a new threat, and that was communism.

• 16:55Speaker 04

  So in 1954, Cap's like, "All right, I got it."

• 17:00Speaker 06

  He comes back as Captain America Commie Smasher.

• 17:09Speaker 04

  And he's fighting shady-looking dudes, but he's also fighting guys like an all-American star athlete and scholar.

• 17:16Speaker 06

  The kind of boy that all good American boys should be looking up to.

• 17:22Speaker 05

  Reminds me of someone.

• 17:23Speaker 04

  Who's secretly a communist spy trying to influence the young minds of Americans.

• 17:29Speaker 02

  Comrade, you have done a fine job all these years. Are you ready? I am, comrade.

• 17:38Speaker 01

  He decides he's gonna blow up the UN building in New York.

• 17:41Speaker 05

  Give up the UN. Let each country have peace or war as wishes. He's a Red spy, and we've gotta prove it.

• 17:49Speaker 04

  Cap stops the bomb from exploding, takes down the spy, who admits...

• 17:54Speaker 02

  I work for the Reds. It's all a communist plot.

• 18:01Speaker 04

  And at the end of the story, Captain America says...

• 18:04Speaker 05

  Americans play not to win, necessarily, but for the sake of good sportsmanship and fair play, which Nazis and Reds know nothing about at all.

• 18:14Speaker 01

  So again, it's that kind of conflation of fascism and communism.

• 18:19Speaker 04

  But these ideologies are different. Fighting communism wasn't the same as fighting fascism and the Nazis. The enemy during the Cold War wasn't as clear and wasn't even necessarily over there. It could be within the country itself.

• 18:35Speaker 01

  Even if there are only one communist in the State Department, that could still be one communist to many.

• 18:41Speaker 04

  By the early 1950s, all kinds of people were being labeled communists. The Red Scare, the Lavender Scare, Hollywood had its blacklists. It was a witch hunt.

• 18:52Speaker 02

  Don't you think the American people are entitled to know whether you admit or deny that you're a member of the Communist Party?

• 19:06Speaker 04

  And pretty soon, in 1954, comic books would be put on trial too.

• 19:12Speaker 01

  Comic books are an important contributing factor in many cases of juvenile delinquency.

• 19:21Speaker 04

  At the same time the McCarthy hearings against communism were happening, the Senate also held hearings concerning the influence of comic books on kids.

• 19:30Speaker 01

  The star witness for the prosecution, as it were, is Frederick Vertum.

• 19:36Speaker 04

  A German-born psychiatrist who was generally considered a progressive thinker. He also wrote a book called Seduction of the Innocent.

• 19:46Speaker 01

  I think Hitler was a beginner compared to the comic book industry. He turns up with a whip that he's bought out of the back of one of the comics. And his message? That comic books are damaging the minds of children because of their gruesome images, their violence and sexual or racist depictions. Not very many people come to the defense of comics. And in the middle of these Senate hearings, Captain America fades away. And a lot of other comics do, too. The Senate hearings make comics toxic. No one wants to go near comics after this.

• 20:29Speaker 01

  Amidst these hearings, fearing federal regulation, the comic book industry established its own censorship system known as the Comics Code. It would limit what comics could do: no sex, drugs, or anything bad about authority. Good always has to be shown to win, and you know, good is defined as the law. Politicians, all the way up to the very elite of the American legal and political system. In other words, the establishment.

• 21:06Speaker 01

  It becomes very difficult for comics to do any social criticism.

• 21:17Speaker 06

  But the United States was going through its own identity crisis. And soon, the counterculture of the 1960s would start clashing with the establishment. And Captain America would return.

• 21:31Speaker 06

  That's coming up.

• 21:34Speaker 06

  Hi, this is Leah Hager, and I am calling from Fort Collins, Colorado, just to rave about Throughline. Every episode I listen to is, I don't know, it sounds extreme, but maybe a little life-changing, especially episodes that touch on the heart of issues that are going on in our world today. And you're listening to Throughline from NPR.

• 22:06Speaker 00

  Stay tuned for the following announcements and messages from our sponsors. This message comes from Prolon with their five-day fasting mimicking diet, a clinically developed nutrition program with the goal of promoting fat loss while protecting lean body mass. Learn more at prolonlife.com/NPR. This message comes from Live Right, publisher of John U. Bacon's New York Times bestseller, The Gales of November, a chronicle of the S.S. Edmund Fitzgerald's 1975 shipwreck. "Never has it been told better than by Mr. Bacon in this colorful book," writes John J. Miller of The Wall Street Journal, while author Hampton Sides proclaims it's destined to be a classic. The Gales of November, now in paperback.

• 22:49Speaker 00

  Support for this podcast and the following message come from the Southern Environmental Law Center. No one voted for a dirty air. No one voted for polluted water. That's why S E L C is fighting back to defend the healthy environment everyone depends on, just as they've done for 40 years. Because clean air, clean water, and a healthy climate aren't political, they're fundamental. Learn more at selc.org. Part two. A man out of time.

• 23:27Speaker 03

  So in this block of ice is just a dark silhouette of a figure. A shadow.

• 23:34Speaker 03

  But you don't know who it is.

• 23:38Speaker 03

  And it's starting to slowly dissolve.

• 23:44Speaker 03

  And then we see a bit of a hand poke out of the ice. A human bare hand. Slowly melting and floating away.

• 23:55Speaker 05

  In 1964, Iron Man, Giant Man, Wasp, and Thor, the Avengers, are cruising in their submarine.

• 24:03Speaker 04

  And they find this body suspended in animation, locked in an iceberg, dissolving in the ocean.

• 24:11Speaker 03

  They pull him out of the water into the submarine. Who can he be? And realize, Wait, it's the famous red, white, and blue garb of Captain America. He's breathing. His eyes, they're flickering. It's him.

• 24:27Speaker 04

  This is Rick Verbanas, co-host of the Captain America Comic Book Fans Podcast. He says after the comics code is established, DC Comics starts reimagining some of their legacy superheroes. And Marvel responds by creating new superheroes of their own. But this time, they make them more reflective, flawed, human. And superheroes start making a comeback. So Stan Lee over at Marvel says, "Which of our legacy characters should we bring back?"

• 25:01Speaker 03

  Stan Lee was the ultimate marketing guru.

• 25:05Speaker 04

  And when Captain America reappears in 1964, frozen in ice, Stan told fans on the inside cover of the comic book that Cap's comeback was because they demanded it.

• 25:17Speaker 03

  Maybe that's true. A tale destined to become a magnificent milestone in the Marvel age of comics, bringing you the great superhero which your wonderful avalanche of fan mail demanded. You're getting a heavy sales pitch here. Stan somehow made the appearance of Captain America the most important event of my life.

• 25:38Speaker 04

  Again, Danny Fingeroth, the author of A Marvelous Life: The Amazing Story of Stan Lee.

• 25:44Speaker 03

  I bought three copies. That's right, I invested 36 cents.

• 25:49Speaker 04

  In that issue, Avengers: Number Four. Captain America's been frozen in ice for about 20 years, since the end of World War II. And when he thaws out, the Avengers bring him to New York.

• 26:03Speaker 03

  He sees the differences in the styles.

• 26:06Speaker 05

  The fashions. The hairdos.

• 26:08Speaker 04

  He sees two women with their hairdos.

• 26:10Speaker 06

  Piled high in beehives.

• 26:12Speaker 05

  How different they are.

• 26:14Speaker 03

  The cars are different.

• 26:15Speaker 06

  He's looking at a small, green convertible.

• 26:17Speaker 03

  The New York skyline is different.

• 26:20Speaker 06

  And later, at a hotel, he's watching TV for the first time.

• 26:24Speaker 05

  What happens next?

• 26:26Speaker 03

  And he really is truly a man out of time.

• 26:31Speaker 05

  I don't belong in this age, in this year. No place for me.

• 26:38Speaker 06

  Tectonic generational shifts were happening in American society. The civil rights movement was going on, the women's rights movement. The president had been assassinated. The war in Vietnam was escalating. I mean, we were building rocket ships to the moon.

• 26:53Speaker 03

  Cap became this like Hamlet kind of character, just always with his, his hands stapled to his forehead in grief and anguish. Stan Lee is making Steve Rogers a human.

• 27:07Speaker 06

  Steve Rogers, that scrawny kid behind Captain America's heroic mask.

• 27:12Speaker 05

  All my life, I've tried to find a place for Steve Rogers, but he still lives under the more colorful shadow of Captain America.

• 27:21Speaker 03

  Steve questions his place in the world.

• 27:25Speaker 05

  Am I destined to go through life with no real identity of my own?

• 27:30Speaker 03

  His place in modern society.

• 27:34Speaker 05

  This is a new world, a new age, an age of atomic power, space exploration, social upheaval, and yet, an age over which the threat of war hangs heavy once again.

• 27:48Speaker 03

  And he questions whether or not he's a relic.

• 27:52Speaker 05

  And so long as danger beckons, there's still a need for an old relic like Captain America.

• 28:00Speaker 06

  And it wasn't just Stan and Cap who were thinking about the character's identity. Marvel was also printing letters from fans inside the comic books, where they

• 28:10Speaker 04

  would debate who Cap should be, what he should stand for, and really, what does it mean to be an American hero?

• 28:18Speaker 03

  His roots belong in the past, not now. There was a lot of different letters that came in that were basically saying the same thing.

• 28:27Speaker 06

  No one but a dreamer can think the world is safe and peaceful.

• 28:31Speaker 03

  You know, we need a Captain America in our world today. Comics are based on patriotism. And then others were like, ah, you know, he no longer serves a purpose in this world.

• 28:40Speaker 02

  The dear captain is far from a war lover. Cap is a war lover.

• 28:44Speaker 03

  We don't need a patriotic symbol.

• 28:48Speaker 06

  I see nothing wrong with Captain America being a conservative or a lover of America. You guys know that Cap is a defender of the establishment.

• 28:56Speaker 04

  Most Captain America comics in the late 1960s had at least one letter arguing about Captain America's identity. It became known as the patriotism-centered controversy.

• 29:08Rund Abdelfatah?

  Captain America is not a superhero. He's a super American.

• 29:20Rund Abdelfatah?

  Stan saw things were changing, and he also saw that his audience was changing. So it was a big problem for somebody in entertainment like that. You know, if you take a stand on an issue, you potentially lose half your audience.

• 29:34Speaker 04

  But it became harder for Stan to ignore his audience, especially since he'd been touring colleges and speaking with students who were talking to him about war and peace and civil rights just as much as they wanted to talk about his comics. So he tries to respond in different ways. He creates the Falcon, one of Marvel's first black superheroes. And the Falcon is introduced in a Captain America comic. But it's trickier than that, because what does an uber patriot from an older generation think about things like racism and segregation or the war in Vietnam?

• 30:10Speaker 04

  Which side does he fall on? Superheroes are good at a lot of things, but certainly in the 60s, they're not great at complex.

• 30:19Speaker 01

  ...interventions.

• 30:24Speaker 04

  Michael Goodrem wrote about this in his book, Superheroes and American Self-Image. And he says one place where it gets complex for Captain America is on college campuses.

• 30:35Speaker 01

  Captain America engages with two different student protests in two different ways.

• 30:41Speaker 04

  It's 1969, and by now, there have been a lot of high-profile protests on college campuses over civil rights, gay rights, women's rights, and of course, the war in Vietnam. And Captain America is still wondering what his role in society is.

• 30:57Speaker 05

  If I gave up this life, what would it really matter?

• 31:01Speaker 04

  But he's Cap, so...

• 31:03Speaker 01

  He's sent undercover as a gym teacher to investigate why a student leader has suddenly become a rabble-rouser.

• 31:15Speaker 03

  He sees that there's these protests that seem to be getting a little out of hand.

• 31:21Speaker 03

  A student is kind of roughing around a professor.

• 31:25Speaker 04

  The student is Mark Baker. Our most articulate, most respected student leader.

• 31:31Speaker 01

  It turns out that Mark Baker has been brainwashed.

• 31:38Speaker 04

  And another student, passing as a radical hippie, is doing the brainwashing on behalf of a supervillain.

• 31:47Speaker 03

  He's got the long hair and the beard and the sunglasses.

• 31:51Speaker 04

  His name is Grizzly.

• 31:53Speaker 03

  Of course it is.

• 31:56Speaker 03

  It really conveys a feeling of violence about to erupt.

• 32:02Speaker 04

  And so Cap gets in the middle of it.

• 32:04Speaker 05

  If they have to call the police, then anything may happen, but maybe Captain America can break them up before it's too late. But I've got to be careful. I'll be facing students, not supervillains.

• 32:15Speaker 04

  And it's subtle. You can see that Captain America has some empathy for the students who want more respect. But he's still fighting for the establishment. He takes down the radical students, saves a professor, and then the dean kind of lectures the student later at the end.

• 32:30Speaker 02

  You're still free to dissent, but let's try for a little education between riots, okay?

• 32:35Speaker 01

  The implicit line of that is student radicalism is...

• 32:41Speaker 04

  harming us. It could be a cover for

• 32:46Speaker 04

  bad things, right? But this younger generation wasn't being silenced. And in May of 1970, the opposition to the war in Vietnam would reach a turning point when the National Guard killed four students at Kent State who were protesting. Whether or not it was on Stan's mind when he was writing Captain America, it was definitely on the minds of people in the United States. The next time Stan Lee writes a student protest, it's quite different.

• 33:18Speaker 03

  He sees that there's a lot of armored policemen, helmets and batons, going up against civilians.

• 33:27Speaker 05

  Here's where I ought to step in and make like a swinging hero.

• 33:31Speaker 03

  And Cap thinks to himself.

• 33:33Speaker 05

  But how do I know whose side to take? What the heck? The cops don't need any help, but these kids do. So Captain America intervenes on the side of the students against the police.

• 33:50Speaker 04

  Cap still doesn't quite understand why some students feel like they have to resort to violence and can't be more like him, measured and reasonable. And this is where having strong morals gets tricky because applying those morals, doing the right thing in real life means that you're often taking sides, which Cap does. Later, he's asked to read a speech on television promoting law and order, and he breaks from the script.

• 34:17Speaker 05

  I've been asked to speak to you today to warn America about those who try to change our institutions. But in a pig's eye, I'll warn you. This nation was founded by dissidents, by people who wanted something better. There is nothing sacred about the status quo, and there never will be. I don't believe in using force or violence because they can be the weapons of those who would enslave us. But nor do I believe in an establishment that remains so aloof, so distant, that the people are driven to desperate measures.

• 35:02Speaker 04

  The audience both loved and hated this story, according to Stan Lee. And a few months later, Stan wrote an editorial in a Captain America comic responding to critics who didn't think Marvel should do stories about politics, or civil rights, or the environment, what Stan called "real issues." And he wrote that he was hearing it from all sides, saying, quote, "We're just trying to make some sense out of the nutty news items and ridiculous reports that assail our senses every minute. If we can make you think, if we can anger you, arouse you, stimulate and provoke you, then we've served our purpose." It's a dialogue with The Times.

• 35:42Speaker 04

  They're leading a discussion that is then helping people to work out how they fit in the country and how they conceive the country.

• 35:52Speaker 01

  Everybody has a different interpretation of what Captain America is and who he should be. In the 50s, the villains were the commies. And then you get to the 60s, and what does Captain America stand for? And that's really been an issue with Captain America ever since he was thought, you know, in 1964.

• 36:15Speaker 04

  Coming up, as the US sinks deeper into Vietnam, a conscientious objector becomes the voice of an American war hero.

• 36:28Speaker 02

  You're listening to Throughline from NPR. I'm Jack from New Jersey, and Captain America is my favorite character of all time. As he acts as a constant reminder of what the American dream should be.

• 36:39Speaker 00

  Stay tuned for the following announcements and messages from our sponsors.

• 36:43Speaker 06

  This message comes from ProLon. With their five-day fasting-mimicking diet, a clinically-developed nutrition program with the goal of promoting fat loss while protecting lean body mass. Learn more at prolonlife.com/NPR.

• 36:56Speaker 00

  This message comes from Live Right, publisher of John U. Bacon's New York Times bestseller, The Gales of November, a chronicle of the S.S. Edmund Fitzgerald's 1975 shipwreck. "Never has it been told better than by Mr. Bacon in this colorful book," writes John J. Miller of The Wall Street Journal, while author Hampton Sides proclaims it's destined to be a classic. The Gales of November, now in paperback. Support for this podcast and the following message come from the Southern Environmental Law Center. No one voted for a dirty air. No one voted for polluted water. That's why SELC is fighting back to defend the healthy environment everyone depends on, just as they've done for 40 years.

• 37:38Speaker 00

  Because clean air, clean water, and a healthy climate aren't political, they're fundamental. Learn more at SELC.org. Part Three: The Secret Empire.

• 37:52Speaker 04

  Checking, checking, testing, testing.

• 38:02Speaker 04

  Hello?

• 38:02Speaker 01

  Hello. You've come to the right place.

• 38:04Speaker 04

  Good to meet you. I'm Devin.

• 38:05Speaker 01

  Yeah, hi, Devin.

• 38:07Speaker 04

  This is comic book writer Steve Inglehart. I met up with him at his home in Oakland, California.

• 38:13Speaker 04

  Should I take my shoes off?

• 38:14Speaker 01

  No, I don't care.

• 38:15Speaker 04

  Steve has worked on everything from X-Men to The Avengers to Batman and Captain America, which he took over writing in the 1970s. We'll get to how that happened in just a bit.

• 38:26Speaker 01

  I always wanted a secret room like Batman had, you know, where you'd go through the grandfather clock and go into the cave or whatever.

• 38:33Speaker 04

  At this point, Steve walks me into his den.

• 38:36Speaker 01

  And so, we built this.

• 38:40Speaker 04

  It's a bookcase that's a secret door.

• 38:43Speaker 01

  Unfortunately drags on the floor, so I'd have to, like, mess with it.

• 38:47Speaker 04

  We walked through the bookcase and were immediately met with sunlight streaming through the windows. Not exactly Batcave vibes, but pretty cool. And the room is lined with shelves, full of cases of comic books.

• 39:00Speaker 01

  This is the fifth... Captain America. And then in the next box, I guess.

• 39:07Speaker 04

  And are these organized by issue? Or are they just?

• 39:10Speaker 01

  Yeah, by issue. Well, by title, All My Captain Americas. And then we go to Doc Savage.

• 39:15Speaker 04

  Ten-year-old Steve would have been in awe of this secret comic book layer. Comics were one of his first passions in life. Although by the time he got to college, he wasn't exactly planning a future in comic writing.

• 39:29Speaker 01

  I graduated from college with my degree. And I got accepted at law school at University of Michigan, actually.

• 39:36Speaker 04

  But it was 1969. The Vietnam War was raging. And he was expecting his draft orders to come down any day.

• 39:47Speaker 02

  I do not find it easy to send the flower of our youth, our finest young men into battle. We did not choose to be the guardians at the gate. But there is no one else.

• 40:07Speaker 01

  I had no interest in fighting a war. But you know, you're a young American male. At the time period, you can either flee to Canada or you can just say, this is the way it is. So I enlisted and chose journalism. I was in basic training at Fort Knox. And there was another guy from Indianapolis, where I was living by that time. I didn't know him. But because we were both from Indianapolis, we kind of bonded during the basic training. He went to Vietnam and was there about three days and stepped on a landmine and blew his legs off and took a week to die, from what I heard.

• 40:50Speaker 04

  Steve was hearing a lot of stories like that on the base. People coming back from Vietnam disillusioned and broken, including his sergeant in the journalism office.

• 41:00Speaker 01

  The sergeant had made himself an ashtray. And he put the American Flag to Cal on the bottom of the ashtray so he could grind his cigarettes out on it.

• 41:09Speaker 04

  In other words, like, this is what the American flag deserves.

• 41:13Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. And so eventually, I decided that I was gonna get out of all of this.

• 41:22Speaker 04

  Steve asked to leave the Army on the grounds that he was a conscientious objector.

• 41:26Speaker 01

  If I had lost the case, I would have been in Saigon the next day.

• 41:31Speaker 01

  And then the orders came down that I was allowed to get out, and I left.

• 41:41Speaker 01

  I hopped on a train, went up to New York, and started trying to get into comics.

• 41:47Speaker 04

  It was 1970, and New York was the place to be if you had dreams of writing for the two big comic publishers, DC or Marvel.

• 41:58Speaker 01

  I ended up living in a six-floor walk-up in the Bronx with three other guys and one of the guys' mothers. You know, it was like your whole starving artist, come to New York, get started kind of thing.

• 42:11Speaker 04

  He took whatever work he could find.

• 42:13Speaker 01

  One-page fillers, mysteries, or romances, or, you know, backgrounds for other, better artists.

• 42:19Speaker 04

  And eventually, in 1971, he lucked into a position at Marvel.

• 42:25Speaker 01

  One of the people I knew was the writer on Nick Fury, Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. And he called me up and he said, "I'm gonna be gone six weeks. Can you, you know, take over my job at Marvel?" At the end of six weeks, decided not to come back.

• 42:40Speaker 04

  Which meant Steve could keep the job at Marvel.

• 42:44Speaker 01

  Eventually, I got The Beast from the X-Men, and they liked the way I was doing The Beast. So then, like, two months later, they came to me and said, "Okay, Captain America, this book is not doing well."

• 42:59Speaker 04

  It was Marvel's least successful superhero book. And so they tell Steve, hey, we'd love it if you could take one last stab at reviving this defunct superhero. We're not really necessarily expecting you to figure something out, but you know, maybe you can. So Steve goes home and rereads every issue of Captain America he had, and he begins to wonder if maybe where the writers before him went wrong was trying to equate Captain America with the American government or military, with institutions, instead, Steve thought. What if he stood for American ideals, the stuff that transcends whatever America's doing at this particular time?

• 43:43Speaker 04

  So I wrote my first story with that in mind.

• 43:47Speaker 04

  Captain America: Hero or Hoax? In this new storyline, there are two Captain Americas, a fake one.

• 43:56Speaker 05

  I am Captain America, your friend is some pinko who has duped the American public, who's trying to sell out this great nation to the Reds.

• 44:05Speaker 04

  This cap is a racist cap who beats up black people in Harlem and is still obsessed with fighting communists.

• 44:12Speaker 05

  We found that most people who weren't pure-blooded Americans were commies.

• 44:16Speaker 04

  And then there's the real cap, who's become more progressive.

• 44:20Speaker 05

  You think I'm a traitor? Grow up, fella. Times have changed. America is in danger from within as well as without.

• 44:29Speaker 04

  The two of them fight.

• 44:32Speaker 04

  And the real cap wins.

• 44:37Speaker 04

  And so does Marvel. This storyline made Captain America comics bestsellers again. And just as Steve gets going. They caught the Watergate burglars breaking into the Watergate Hotel to burgle

• 44:50Speaker 06

  the Democrats. The incident raises a number of serious questions about the credibility of politicians and political groups.

• 44:58Speaker 04

  By 1973, it was becoming clear that the Nixon administration might have had a hand in the break-in.

• 45:05Speaker 02

  I welcome this kind of examination because people have got to know whether or not their president's a crook. Well, I'm not a crook.

• 45:13Speaker 04

  Steve was hooked on this story, as was most of America, and he tuned into updates as he packed up his apartment into a U-Haul, preparing to cross the country for a big move out west. Meanwhile, he was working on something new for Captain America, and when he finally hit the road, the radio was a constant companion.

• 45:33Speaker 04

  Once again, on all things considered, we're going to sample some opinions concerning

• 45:36Speaker 06

  Watergate.

• 45:36Speaker 01

  So I'm driving all day long, listening to Watergate.

• 45:40Speaker 06

  Otherwise referred to as the caper of the bungled bugging.

• 45:43Speaker 01

  Thinking about America.

• 45:44Speaker 06

  There's a feeling of frustration and bitterness and cynicism all over the country about...

• 45:50Speaker 01

  Seeing the country change from the East Coast into the Midwest flatlands and the rolling hills. ...of the more likely political analysts, a group of second and third graders in

• 45:59Speaker 06

  Maryville, Missouri.

• 46:00Speaker 01

  The Rockies, deserts, and mountains.

• 46:02Speaker 06

  What is Watergate?

• 46:04Rund Abdelfatah?

  Uh, might be something like a water bed, only it's a water gate.

• 46:11Speaker 04

  All the while, Steve is asking himself...

• 46:14Speaker 01

  If I were Captain America, what would I do?

• 46:20Speaker 04

  And by the time he got to California, his new storyline for Captain America was complete.

• 46:29Speaker 04

  The Secret Empire.

• 46:35Speaker 01

  I wasn't writing a crime documentary, I was writing a Captain America comic book. So I recast stuff. Nixon's right-hand man was Haldeman, who had been an advertising guy, and I came up with a character called Harderman, who was an advertising guy. And Nixon's reelection committee was the... Committee to reelect the president, which was known as Creep. And I came up with the Committee to Regain America's Principles, which is known as Crap. Captain America one day discovered that there were ads being run by the Committee to Regain America's Principles, saying that Captain America was a vigilante, not to be trusted.

• 47:19Speaker 01

  Then Captain America got thrown in jail. Suddenly, the jailhouse wall bursts into bits. And eventually, he broke out of jail. Ultimately, they work out that the secret empire is behind all this.

• 47:38Speaker 04

  Michael Goodrem is the author of Superheroes: An American Self-Image.

• 47:43Speaker 01

  The secret empire is a secret organization that is aiming for greater power than democracy would allow them. And the head of the secret empire, Captain America, has a showdown with him.

• 48:00Speaker 05

  Do not force my hand.

• 48:02Speaker 01

  Captain America chased him into the White House, into the Oval Office.

• 48:14Speaker 05

  All right, mister, into the line. I gambled on a coup to gain me the power I craved, and it appears that my gamble

• 48:22Speaker 04

  has finally failed. And he proves to be no match for Captain America. Crap. Defeated.

• 48:34Speaker 01

  He blows his brains out in front of Captain America. You never see his face, but... Nobody is in doubt, really, who that's supposed to be. I couldn't kill Richard Nixon in the comic book.

• 48:51Speaker 04

  Why couldn't you make him Nixon? Was that too far?

• 48:56Speaker 01

  I thought so. I mean, that was my decision, right? It was all up to me. There was no editorial pushback at all from Marvel. I always thought he was like a New Deal liberal, that, you know, he was a Roosevelt guy. He'd grown up with Roosevelt as the president.

• 49:13Speaker 04

  And so he would have believed in the government's power to fix society's problems.

• 49:17Speaker 01

  So to have that guy find out that the president was a crook...

• 49:25Speaker 01

  I saw the possibilities of that guy being disillusioned. Once Captain America has had this showdown, he loses his faith in America.

• 49:36Speaker 05

  I'm the one who's seen everything Captain America fought for become a cynical sham.

• 49:47Speaker 01

  So he stops being Captain America. Because he doesn't want to give the ideological support of him dressing up in the American flag to the government. He thinks that they're all corrupt. I can't defend them.

• 50:09Speaker 01

  So he becomes Nomad, the man without a country. And carries on trying to fight crime.

• 50:21Speaker 04

  Did you feel like it was a big risk to change his identity, to basically, you know, be anti-establishment? I mean, Captain America for so long was pro-establishment, and now all of a sudden you flip the script.

• 50:34Speaker 01

  Well, the world was anti-establishment in those days. The energy was with young people. He doesn't want to stand for the America that he just saw. It turned out, you know, that he could stand for ideals even if the president was a crook.

• 50:59Speaker 04

  Less than a year later, Nomad went back to being Captain America, and Steve Inglehart eventually passed the baton to new writers. But Steve had forever changed the idea of what kind of patriot Captain America could be, that he could love his country and also not love what his government was doing. But that wouldn't mean Captain America would always stay the same. And the iterations that followed have often been a response to the moment they're born in. Cap's been more militant. He fought terrorism after 9/11. Then he was critical of Guantanamo Bay. There have been black Captain Americas, a native Captain America. In the latest Captain America movie, Cap teams up with a superhero originally named Sabra,

• 51:43Speaker 04

  an agent for Israel's national intelligence agency, Mossad. After getting backlash, the studio decided to call her Ruth and had her work instead for the United States. These debates about what Captain America should stand for, who he should fight for, and what is right or wrong, they're all part of a conversation we continue to have about who we are and who we want to be.

• 52:15Speaker 04

  We're doing episodes on amendments, and one of our guests talked about amendments to US Constitution as these majestic generalities, like intentionally vague morals and ethics that speak to something greater. And I kind of see Captain America as one of these majestic generalities.

• 52:37Speaker 01

  It's a good phrase. It kind of sums up Captain America.

• 52:42Speaker 01

  You can make of him what you will, but it is supposed to be majestic.

• 52:50Speaker 01

  It's beautifully crafted in terms of setting up the critique of the systems in America and then working it back around so that you follow Captain America through the journey of resoliciting your ideological belief in the idea of America.

• 53:13Speaker 01

  You want to believe the best of people and that there's always someone out there who's going to do the right thing.

• 53:33Rund Abdelfatah?

  That's it for this week's show. I'm Ramtin Arablouei. I'm Randa Abdel Fattah, and you've been listening to Throughline from NPR. This episode was produced by me. And me, and.

• 53:44Speaker 04

  Lawrence Wu. Julie Kane.

• 53:46Speaker 06

  Anya Steinberg.

• 53:48Speaker 04

  Casey Minor. Christina Kim. Devon Katayama.

• 53:51Speaker 05

  Irene Noguchi. This is Christopher Beal, and I played Captain America.

• 53:56Rund Abdelfatah?

  Thanks to Neil Vanderheij, Chad Bryan, Don Moore, Sandhya Dirks, J.C. Howard, Cameron Fraser, Dustin Brumley, Ryan Dorgun, and Ali Katayama for their voiceover work. Also, thanks to Amber C., Tony Cabin, Johannes Derge, Edith Chapin, and Colin Campbell. Fact checking for this episode was done by Kevin Vogel. The episode was mixed and mastered by Robert Rodriguez. Music for this episode was composed by Ramtin and his band, Drop Electric, which includes.

• 54:29Speaker 06

  Anya Mizani.

• 54:30Speaker 04

  Navid Marvi.

• 54:31Speaker 05

  Sho Fujiwara.

• 54:33Rund Abdelfatah?

  And finally, if you have an idea or like something you heard on the show, please write us at [email protected]. And make sure you follow us on Apple, Spotify, or the NPR app. That way, you'll never miss an episode. Thanks for listening.

• 55:00Rund Abdelfatah?

  Stay tuned for the following announcements and messages from our sponsors.