Von Doom Fest - Captain America

When Captain America rows it by the sid all its hose to oppose it. You welcome back midnight viewers to Von Doomfest? Did I just welcome the back? HB? What kind of a fucking maniac?

Am I? This is, Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the first, the inaugural Von Doomfest with me as always, mister h B. Who this is? It's come to this father alone. I think all of our passions, all of our part everything we've grown up around, all the comic books we read, it's all leading up to this Father Blone, all the movies.

Now, the premise of this particular fest is a little more amorphous than the others, in that we are headed on a path to doomsday. So what we've decided is we took a look at the entirety of the MCU, and it's pretty vast. There's thirty eight films, untold number of television series and animated fair there's just so much of it. And HP and I decided that we're gonna buckle down and we're going to get into minute detail about every single piece of it, and you're coming with us. Actually, that would be completely fucking insane because it is way too big a topic to tackle in sixteen weeks, which is all we've got.

So instead, like I said, we're gonna do it a little bit more categorized, a little more specified in that we're gonna take the entirety of each of the characters ouvra. We're not just gonna look at the movies. That's gonna be a big part of this because we're working our way up to doomsday. But we also thought it would be a good idea to look at the character at large, how they fit into the comic books, their place in pop culture, and use that as a means of looking at the character as a whole instead of just locked into the movie iteration of that character, and. You might learn something along the way.

Hey hey, hey, listen, I'm going to throw out a very important data in American history. Are you ready, HP, I'm ready. July fourth, nineteen twenty two. That would be the day that Sarah and Joseph Rodgers, Irish immigrants, I would like to point out, gave birth to their one and only child, young Steven. Now Stephen would eventually grow up to become a cartoonist.

Steve Rogers went to art school everybody. His dad actually died when he was a child. His mom died when he was a teenager, leaving him pretty much an orphan, and a thin and ready orphan at that. But he did have a dream to be a cartoonist, and he became it. In fact, he became a graphic designer.

One of his most incredible designs has stuck with us all these years because Steven Rogers eventually would be Captain America and also designed Captain America's uniform. HB. That's the history of a young CAP. What's your history? What is your history with CAP in general?

It's interesting. I've given that a lot of thought over the past few weeks as we're preparing for this, and I've come to the conclusion, first of all, that Captain America's suit maybe one of the top three most iconic comic book outfits of all time. There's really no I mean, you could look at Superman, obviously, he's probably the gold standard. Is Batman? Spider Man has got to be in the discussion.

But Captain America, with whose suit really hasn't changed a great deal over the suing one hundred years, eighty years, however long it's been so my history. Now to tie it back to my history, I can't say that I was a devoted reader of Captain America. I did. I'll preface it by saying I did collect comics as a kid. I still read graphic novels.

That's what adults call comics, so they don't feel like they're they that make themselves feel good about the idea. But anyway, I didn't read a lot of Captain America in and of himself. But that didn't matter because the character has been a part of the fabric of American pop culture for so long you really didn't have to. It's like Spider Man. Everybody knows about Aunt May and Uncle Ben and great Power, great responsibility.

Who doesn't know about Captain America fighting Nazis Bucky his sort of sidekick who gets killed, and he goes into the drink and he becomes an iceberg. He gets frozen, He's unfrozen. I didn't matter that I wasn't an avid reader of Captain America. I feel like I already knew the character from birth. Frankly, father alone.

It did seem pervasive without being overbearing. There are some characters and some symbols that we sort of have been inundated with the bat symbol has always been hanging over everything as that Superman's symbol, like even more than the uniforms. I think we're talking the symbols here and Spider Man's up there too, but Captain America's shield, that very simple design of the circular red and white and the star in the middle, has to be as iconic as anything I've ever seen. And now I remember when we were growing up, you in order to experience anything like visually, you had to sort of hope that some rinky dink local station was going to be rerunning those nineteen sixties cartoons, the Marvel Superhero's Hour.

I love those, oh Man, me too, when Captain America throws his mind, so he was always kind of around. That was my first taste of CAP was were those cartoons. I ended up reading as many of his older issues as I could get my hands on in my youth when I was a plucky young comic book reader. And once from the forties, you mean like the original original Okay. I mean, look they were trash then, remember you could get you could buy at my local five and dime because we still had those everybody there.

You could buy a plastic bag just filled with back issues of comics. They were it was beyond cheap paper that nobody wanted anymore at that point, and those were actually easy to find cap of most of them. I'm not talking about the punching Hitler in the face famous cover from March nineteen forty or anything. But the thing is, as I grew in taste and grew into adolescence, of course, adolescence brings with it the pull towards detective comics and Batman in particular, and by the time we were teenagers, Batman hit really hard. And I'm not talking about the Tim Burton movie in eighty nine.

I'm talking about the Dark Knight returns with Frank Miller's reintroduction to the character. So I think during the entirety of like my high school years and stuff, I was all about DC, and I was all about the darkness and all the dark characters, and of course I was a cynical youth, so at the time I kind of felt a little bit not ashamed, I don't know if that's the right word. I felt a little bit odd about loving Captain America so much when it was coming to light that you can watch Schoolhouse Rock all you want, but America did some fucked up shit over the years, and was continuing to do so in our midst. So it became kind of a weird thing to love this symbol of America in the midst of political and or other turmoil.

But years later, when I started rereading the nineteen seventies version of Cap, when he hooked up with Falcon and they became Private Eyes in Harlem, right, well, I suddenly had a new window into Stephen Rogers and that he was the ideal. It was never the country at all. It was all about decency and all the decency within him. And then from then on I've pretty much been goddamn devoted to Captain America. So I'm so glad we're starting with him because I love him the most.

But it so happens that he does happen to be the first of them. So what's interesting is the when I think of Cap, aside from the movies, when I think of the character, the comic character, the thing that I keep returning to, and the thing that I went back and reread was, among other books, one book that I was really fond of when I was a kid. I loved. It was the original run of What If? Do you remember What If?

There was a obviously they made a cartoon of it on the Disney Channel or Disney Plus, Sorry Disney Channel. It makes me sound really old, because I am. But towards the end of the run of what and What If I loved because they were always darker than what the traditional Marvel book was, because you'd have things like there was an issue where Sue Storm died in childbirth because Annihila it was this battle with a nihilist that in the actual book it was no big deal. She was in labor. Read Richards took care of a nihilist and got back in time for the birth.

But in this case, the what if was what if she died in childbirth? And what ended up happening was Read became consumed with depression and this thirst for vengeance. This is Fantastic four, which is usually considered a very milk toast book, and in fact he embarks on a suicide mission as it turns out, to kill a nihilist. These are the kinds of stories that I was absorbed with in What If. So towards the end of that original run there was I think it was issue forty four.

I believe I say that, but I have it right here. That's me trying to be clever, fatherm alone. The issue was called what if Captain America were not revived until today? Now, this would have been nineteen eighty two, eighty three, okay. And in the original retelling, Captain America was frozen, and he went into the water.

He was frozen. He was worshiped by a tribe of Eskimos for decades until nay More as at the end of some sort of evil plot, flung him. He happened upon these Eskimos in a fit of rage, he threw Steve Rogers, frozen Steve Rogers into the water. He was later picked up by thin giant man and that was the start of the Avengers. They pulled him into the submarine and they thought him out and they said, my god, this is Captain America.

But in this retelling and this what if the Eskimos migrated sonay More never found them, so he was never unfrozen at that time. Meanwhile, there had been an attempt in the fifties to have basically doppelgangers of Captain America and Bucky but The problem was they grew into sort of psychopaths. They had this streak of psychopathy, so they were put in suspended animation. They are un they were taken out of suspended animation in the seventies and eighties. They're okay for a while, but then they aligned themselves with this far right candidate.

Is this starting to sound familiar? Fa them alone, who basically co opts Captain America's message of freedom liberty to unfairly target minorities and people who really can't defend themselves. And Captain America, this fake Captain America, being kind of a nutcase on his own, endorses the candidate. The candidate wins by a landslide. There's all this racial turmoil.

Harlem is walled off because of the all of the strife and everything that's going on, and eventually Captain America is discovered by an American submarine. They pull him in that half the people want to kill him because of what Captain America has done to the country. He's basically torn the country apart. But there's freedom fighters led by Spider Man. He's like a freedom fighter who's trying to upend the government because of all this evil stuff that's happening.

This is still sounding familiar to you, father alone. I'm not trying to get too political here. But it's all he can think is what. If then this is nineteen eighty two, eighty three. Eventually, Captain America, the real Captain Americas, the real Steve Rogers, sees what's happened.

He is understandably agast at this development, and he leads the charge into Harlem to because the fake Captain America is giving a press conference. He fights the fake Cap. He triumphs. This is being broadcast all over the world. He gives this.

Impassioned plea for freedom and liberty and the pursuit of justice and what they've done to the country and why the country can still be good. And it concludes with Steve Rogers singing the Pledge of Elle or doing the Pledge of Allegiance. I was gonna say, maybe he was doing my country, tis of they or something. I think it's the Pledge of Allegiance, and the whole country basically says, this is the real Cap. We've gone too far into the right.

We need to pull it back. They say he's our guy, that one, he's our God, and he says, no, you're misunderstanding me, and then they lionize Captain America. Amazing thing to me rereading this now is like I said, I don't want to get too political in this and too sort of into this sort of vibe, but it is so prescient, and what it says to me is that this character, for as black and white as the character might seem in terms of his ideals and maybe old fashioned, I think what this tells me is that he is a man for all seasons, truly will always there will be, and always should be a place for Captain America in good times and especially the bad times. I think we all could use a bit of that sort of rallying cry for truth and freedom and liberty.

Father Blone, you just struck at the fundamental principle of Captain America that I love most, which is he was just a ninety pound weekling who was given this serum. And now the serum itself, yes, is the source of all of his power, but the serum itself actually just amplifies your own personality and gives you its traits. So this young, skinny kid was given the serum and became the strongest, most noble human being to ever walk the planet. Something pretty fucking great about that as your hero, as opposed to some guy who fell from a star are and now the sun makes him real strong. Or my parents got shot in an alley and I've never gone to therapy.

Yeah, I mean it's it's he's so beautifully decent. And I think doctor Erskine in the movie says exactly what you said is all the serum does is make somebody better. It'll take a good person and make him great. It can take a bad person and make them the red skull, and that's where we get the red skull. And yeah, I think I I again old fashioned, I guess from some perspectives, but I think anybody who doesn't get behind that sort of decency and that love, that unbridled love for his country and the desire to see the country live up to these ideals in which with which it was founded upon, that's Captain America.

I mean, he's so iconic, and there's a reason why he's been around for what almost eighty ninety years. He's still going strong. We still need him. HP. Would you like a grab bag of cap facts?

Absolutely hit Joe Simon back in nineteen forty working for Time Lee Comics. Remember when they were Time Lee Comics. Neither do I. He devised a new character named Super American, and they said that's a bit much because there were too many super characters at that point, and he said, well, what's next? Captain Captain America.

He enlisted Al Amazon and Al Gabriel to hit his deadline, and of course Jack Kirby was fully involved. We had Al Liederman on inks and it was lettered by Simon and Howard. That produced our first issue March nineteen forty one. That is Cap, of course, punching out Adolf Hitler on the on the famed cover. Before we got into the war, Cap was already fighting there.

And the triangular shield, which is my preferred Captain America shield, I gotta say, I just love the design of that diamond was a big bone of contention with a competing comic known as The Shield. So as of issue number two of Captain America, his Shield became around and the postwar Cap did in fact lead a team of superheroes before the Avengers. He led the All Winners Squad for two issues in nineteen forty eight, Bucky's Getting Bucky Got shot and killed, and he was replaced by Betsy Ross, who eventually became the Golden Girl, and Captain America's end would come exactly one decade later in nineteen fifty with the final two issues Marvel Comics is really feeling the ec comics vibe. Here they shunt the last appearances of Captain America to Captain America's Weird Tales lasted two issues and that was it.

They're actually great and you should go read them if you can, and they are available online. Captain America's Weird Tales now Cap basically, I think he made a cameo maybe in fifty three fifty four as Captain America COMMI Smasher, but nobody was taking that seriously. He didn't make his real reappearance until November of nineteen sixty three, and that was a strange tales comic that they want. Marvel wanted to throw up a little test balloon and see if people actually would respond to Captain America. Some thirteen years later, in a one off story called Captain America and spider Man, Yes was the answer, because by March sixty four, in Avengers number four, Cap is cap is unfrozen in from the Ice and he becomes the man out of Time and the de facto leader of the Avengers.

Cap facts. I mean, look, if you want some latter day ones. In two thousand and seven, that was that's when Cap was killed. Don't forget that happened during the run of the comics. He was shot by Sharon Carter, his former paramore after the events of Civil War where Cap took to Capitol Hill to litigate the rest of the Registration Act and whatever.

But he came back in two thousand and nine after Bucky had taken up the manuntil he insisted Bucky keep the Shield and he became the leader of the Secret Avengers. And that's pretty much where Cap is nowadays. Although there's look, there's all crazy one off stories. I've read that story where Cap is on Mars for forty years, like growing up, like he's John Carter of Mars. Ever read that one.

That's bonkers, So it's crazy. I'm obviously not being definitive in my description of his life in the comics, but overall that's a pretty broad view. That is a pretty broad view. Can I talk about my favorite takeoff of the character of Captain America brought them alone, just I just this just came to mind. Are you familiar with the comic The American, Yes, you are familiar with it.

I know of it. I've probably read it. You know what I'm gonna say. No, I know of it only so I came across. This randomly one day, just in the comic book story.

There was our graphic novel that collected all of these, and so that's interesting. It was written by a guy named Mark Rhyden, who I think went on to co produce Battlestar Galactica. He had a life outside of comic books. Let's say, I don't know the full extent, but The American at least starts off. The first few issues are about this character, the American, who is sort of like this government superhero who is supposed to be a symbol of hope and liberty and strength for the American people.

This reporter is covering one of his press conferences where I think he's like congratulating a boy for making Eagle Scout or something silly like this, and somebody breaks in and I think throws a hand grenade and basically kills the boy and seemingly the American. But then a few days later, the American re emerges and he's relatively unscathed, and there's this idea that the reporter goes, I saw this guy die, and yet here he is, and he uncovers this. It's basically a conspiracy within the United States to have this character and quotes called the American. And when one dies, they have a whole basically battalion of these guys that have been given plastic surgery to look like the American. So the Mantle just goes on and on and on and on, unbeknownst to the American people.

And this reporter is trying to now uncover the conspiracy, and now he's under under attack by all these government goons who want to silence him. It's a really the stories kind of go off the rails in the later issues of the series. It's not a very long series, but it had that kind of skepticism and cynicism that I think became proliferate in comics in the This was eighty seven. This actually might have even predated The Watchmen or Watchman to a degree, which means to me it makes a bit of a landmark as far as deconstructing the myth of the superhero. Everyone thinks that Watchmen did it first or Dark Knight did it first.

It may be very possible that the American was there before both of them. So it's a good book. Quick word on Mark Verheiden. Back when they put that Concert and teen television series out, he was a writer producer on that, and I thought those shows were really smart. I hated that fucking guy they cast as Constantine, that that fucking bottom barrel of the bargain basement fucking version of constantin Yeah, okay, great, you can do a fucking cock me accent.

Congratulations. But ver Heiden also did that one season of swamp Thing, And if you haven't seen that one season of swamp Thing, everyone listening to my voice, go watch it, because they got the fucking tone exactly right. Guess what swamp Thing is. It's a horror comic, everybody anyway. So yeah, anyway, that's Mark Verhuiden, and they had some He worked on Cap for a little bit.

I think you're in the early nineties, but. It's an it's a nice take on the character, I thought, and I was delighted. Like I said, I came across it so randomly and it was like Wow, this is really cool. Why don't more people know about this book? Okay, let's talk other media, shall we know?

We already mentioned those the cartoons. There was a cereal a during the nineteen forties itself. They're terrible. Don't watch them. You're not gonna get anything out of them.

They're the same level as the Batman things. They're a good curiosity for what people thought superheroes were supposed to be, but having no real IDEA. Very ill fitting suit I would imagine, indeed, aggy, yeah, exactly, lots of gunplay. Sudden the cap is just shooting everyone in the face. Now, after that, the next appearance we were going to get of Captain America was during the nineteen seventies when they were made for television.

Movies. Now, at the time, there were a successful couple of Spider Man movies. I'm saying they were successful because I watched them and I loved them me too, But I don't know if they were ratings giants, because we didn't really get a weekly Spider Man series, unlike The Hulk, which we did. So this is the period where Marvel is really trying to get a foothold in television. We had a Doctor Strange movie that was an attempted pilot for a series we had.

Obviously, The Hulk went to series, but then they also tempted to give us a Captain America, and boy did they? Is that the Red Brown serious? The movies you're talking about. Yes, Captain America and Captain America too, Death Too Soon, Death Too Soon features Christopher Lee as the villain. And they didn't make him the Red Skull, this German speaking, fucking gigantic, this towering giant of the horror field.

They didn't say, let's make him the Red Skull. Those are terrible. Captain America's helmet is a motorcycle helmet. He rides a motorcycle with this awful like domed canopy. The shield itself is clear.

It was so. I can't express how profoundly disappointing those Captain America TV movies work, because I, like you, I watched them, and I was so young that I don't think I really caught plot. I mean, when you're that little, you just want to watch the superheroes in their costumes doing superhero things and bad and fighting and doing all that stuff. There was so little of that I remember from those TV movies and the fact that he didn't even have the real like the costume was like a stab at Captain America, but he had a motorcycle helmet that was painted like the Captain America helmet with the wings on the side. It looked so silly, and so it's important for people.

This is going to be a thread I think that's going to run through all of these episodes of this podcast, is that someone of a certain age only knows the MCU only knows the Marvel movies from the last fifteen years or more at this point. But it's important to remember that there were a lot of attempts by Marvel to break into TV and the movies, to wildly varying degrees of success, mostly failures up until obviously the MCU really got it right. There's some isolated wins, but mostly not close, but no Cigar. Basically, this is a profound failure. Double the profound failure because they made two of them for some goddamnies.

Somebody watched that first one and went, we need more. No, you didn't, you needed less. We never should have. We never should have seen this. Now Camp would if you wanted to get any visual Camp from then on.

As far as television or movies or whatever. It was basically sporadic appearances on cartoons from then on. And I don't know how heavy you were into the animated series that we had. We didn't really have a ton as far as Marvel series. I remember in the I remember from eighty one eighty three we had Spider Man and his amazing friends.

I loved her on that, Yeah, I did too. Man like a fire Star, Firestar and what was her name? Well, that was her name? What was his name? That was her name?

Yeah, it was Iceman, fire Star and Spidey. Oh man, what and just Iceman with those bridges he's making everywhere. Absolutely, it was cool. I mean, I'm sure if I went back now and watched it, I'd be like groaning at how silly it all was. Ye, But it was a very fallow time for someone like Captain America because no one wants he's strong and fast and smart.

Those aren't really qualities that necessarily translate to his Saturday morning audience. I think. I mean Spidey, it's easy because he has the webs, and he swings around and he crawls like a spider Captain America is a harder. Cell and so that was his basically holy appearance. Then then he pomped up in the nineties.

He showed up like basically every Marvel character on the X Men series that if that series ran long enough, they would have had literally everyone, hey, everybody, although they're back now, so they just might get there. And that really brings us straight up to the MCU itself and the casting of Chris Evans as Captain America perfection. Yeah. Sorry, I don't need to co opt to what you're about to say for them alone, but that's I mean, it begins and ends with Chris Evans. If they got one thing right in the entirety of the MCU in perfect casting, it's this guy.

He just radiates that fucking decency as that character. Look, I've seen him play scumbags and I've seen him play goofy motherfuckers. Okay, he is an actor, after all. He had a history of comic book movies before this. He was in Fantastic four as the Human Torch.

He was in The Losers, he was was that movie with Kim Basinger. Wasn't a comic movie, was like Cellular, Cellular, and he was very good in that I thought that was going to be his type, the sort of surfer dude who you know is sort of in over his head. I was as surprised as anybody when I saw him as Captain America and I went, holy crap, this guy is amazing. My first introduction to Chris Evans was not another teen movie as this jockey heart Throb, and I thought, Wow, this guy's really funny, and then seeing him st to do dramatic work, I was like, oh fuck, he's also that. But when they announced him as Captain America, I went, okay, perfect.

I can't I don't know what the movie's gonna do. I don't know where they're gonna take that character, but I know we're at least in good hands as far as the performance goes. And that has stayed true to this day. I've never seen a false note from Chris Evans as CAP, no matter some of the bullshit they might make him do. Yeah.

I rewatched the three Captain America movies. Now, granted, Civil War is really an Avengers movie and all but name, but nevertheless, I rewatched all of these main movies, and I again it was brought back home to me just how perfect. He was in the role from the first frame to the last frame. Like you said, no false move, no misstep. You believe him.

I mean you have to. You got to believe that in this guy's inherent decency, and he remade. I mean just looks wise, body wise. Everything works with this guy. I can't think.

I can't think of anything i'd point to and say, yeah, that didn't really work for me. Now, that first movie Captain America, the first Avenger, which they tacked on at the last second just to have a bit of connective tissue to the Avengers itself. Hey, everyone, come see this one because it leads to the next one. That was their first bit of MCU bullshittery. That movie, to me, maybe I'm an apologist.

I love that flick and have watched it I don't know how many times, and I know people don't really vibe with it because it's not the same level of action or intrigue as you're gonna get with some of the later movies. I do have my problems with it, but I think it's wildly underrated, and I think it's perfectly evokes that first stage of Captain America for all of us comic book fucking junkies. That was cap. That was the CAP I needed to see. I needed to see him fighting in World War Two a whole lot more than just a brief montage.

That's my problem with that movie. They could have had twenty extra minutes of fighting and I would have been all right. I agree. The smart thing they did there was they got Joe Johnston to direct it. Obviously, you and I were huge fans of The Rocketeer in high school, and they this movie, this introduction to Captain America that takes place predominantly during World War Two.

He needs that old school serial vibe of the daring do. That's what Joe Johnson. I think that's what he brought to it. Obviously, the next couple of movies with the Russo Brothers were very different, and they kind of had to be, because him in modern day is not the same as him in his day fighting against the Red Skull and Hydra and all that. But I think I'm of two minds.

I think I enjoy it. I do think I do have issues with it here and there. For some reason, it doesn't it looks cheap to me in parts, which I don't. I don't really I can't. It's just I don't know what it is, but it just doesn't look like the big budget extravaganza at times that I want it to be.

But then again, there's stuff like the montage of the Star Spangled Man with the Plan, which is one of the most brilliant musical sequences I think I've seen in the last twenty years. So let me spell. But let me speak to the chintziness for a second, because when he's in Brooklyn still, it's clearly soundstages and sense redecorated to look like nineteen forties America, when they're shooting in England, and even just something a's like driving Out. First of all, that level of remov alone is a level of stylization. Let me say that first film not only feels old fashioned in its storytelling, I think it has sort of a Halsey and glaze to it.

It's supposed to feel unreal, and I do think it accomplishes that. I think of all of the movies from we were going to get from the MCU, this one needed to be its own little corner of the universe and be a comic book because so far we had gotten Hulk and thor and Iron Man all real world, here's what it would be like nowadays. And Kap was the only one we could do a flight of fancy. So I don't I rankle it sort of cheap as a description, and more like I think that was a little more intentional. And that's I mean, that's possible.

I mean, this is just the feel I got rewatching it. And again it's what is it now like an almost fifteen year old movie. It's not exactly. I will say this also about it if we're if I'm nitpicking. It's a second year old movie.

By the way, I came out in twenty seven. Wow, that's crazy that it's the other thing I will nitpick about it. One other thing on nitpick for the time being is I think the pre super serum Steve Rodgers special effects are what varying degrees of success, Let's say some there are moments where I'm like, actually kind of buy Chris Evans is it's a little weakling, ninety pound guy who's got asthma and who's whatever. Sometimes I look and it's like a bad CG job of his face onto someone else's body, and it just doesn't Sometimes that takes me out of the movie. Yeah, sometimes it turns into my little animated ads for this show, just like a little just jabb in somebody's head on another body.

Basically, yeah, it is wonky. I agree with that. I will say that in that case, yes, the movie does look a bit cheap. Yeah, exactly, And I kind of wanted more. I guess this goes back to your point about wanting more fighting during World War Two, but I wanted more of the Howling Commandos, and I don't feel like we really delved into I could have.

I would have loved it if they had they broke that off as its own TV series or something, how Nick Fury and the Howling Commandos. I would have loved to seen something like that. They get a little bit of short shrift in. This, I think. Yeah.

I mean they did take pains to at least introduce them all and give them their own characters and such. But yeah, I do agree that was a huge missed opportunity. Like they gave us Agents of Shield. Who gives a shit? Because Commandos man.

Like a fourth ten from Navarone type story, But with the Howling Commandos, we really dig into that. Because we've got superheroes out the wazoo. This is we have yet to get a good adaptation of a war comic. They've been trying to make like Sergeant Rock for decades, right, But I don't hear the same zeal for a Howling Commando's type of movie or show. That's because Sergeant Rock's got a more well known name, and it has and it had.

I don't know that are people like really jockeying to still give us a Sergeant Rock movie. I remember during the entirety of the eighties and nineties you kept hearing Sergeant Rock because Arnold Schwarzenegger was attached to it, so of course it was just perpetually in the air. But since Schwarzenegger aged out of that role, I haven't heard a peep about that guy again. Nevertheless, man, the commandos are still available. What are you doing, Marvel?

Could have you know that what Neil McDonough was, and he one of the Howling Commandos, Derek Luke, you mean. Lieutenant Walk. That's where those of you who followed us through trek Fest Neil McDonough, who was in first contact of course. Lieutenant Hawk. The other thing we should talk about in the first film, really, other than Tommy Lee Jones putting in an out of the blue excellent performance as that general who has one of my favorite lines ever, and the delivery of it, which is later on you and I are going to have a conversation you will not enjoy.

That's the vintage Tommy Lee Jones right there. I forgot, Actually, I just I forgot how delighted I was to have him in that because he kind of grounds the movie to a certain degree, because it's mostly at that time actors that maybe people weren't that familiar with. Right, Chris Evans, people knew him, he was a semi known quantity, But Tommy Lee Jones had that old, vintage actor vibe, and I think he adds wonderful dimension to those wartime scenes. Adding another level of gravitas. Is our main man playing a Johann Schmidt.

The Red Skull himself, of course, is played by Hugo Weaving. When we talk perfect casting, excellent, I think they kind of did it across the board in the Captain America film Red Skull. Look, he's not a Nazi. He wants to kill them too, but then again, he wants to kill you too, and he wants to kill everyone, and he just wants world domination. He's a fucked up, crazy individual, and you can't have CAP without him, which is weird because as they have continued to have CAP without him ever since.

Letting go of Hugo Weaving for any reason is a fucking terrible idea. I know, he didn't have a good time making the movie. Yeah read, I mean he was contracted. They could have brought him back, and they and you keep hearing in all of the developments of all the Captain American movies and in some of the other movies where they keep trying to reintroduce the Red Skull as a threat and they keep not doing it. And then what they eventually fucking did to him, man, I oh an endgame, Yeah, where he becomes this like Guardian of the Galaxy kind of thing, becomes this like celestial Guardian of the whatever stone, the soul Stone, the fucking it's.

It was weird. It was, I mean, to be honest, like the thing they did a good job of is but because it's all accent and makeup work. So initially when I saw him in I guess he was in Infinity War first. I actually didn't even realize that it wasn't Hugo weaving to. If I'm being really honest, maybe that's just my inattentiveness.

But because the actor is so heavily made up and he's using that thick German accent. I don't think there's an actor there at all. That's just a vocal performance. That's a CG. Red Skull when we see him again, Oh they really?

Yeah, but someone must have Okay, I thought it was just somebody else that they put in the making. I'm sure they filmed that fellow Ross. I believe his name is like motion capturing it, but I believe it is one hundred percent CGI, right. I mean, then hesult a fucking injury for the Red Skull. The Red Skull should have they he got beamed up into the cosmos at the end of the first film.

How did he not try and take over Thanos's gig? Think as we talk about these characters, I'm sure we're going to bring up a lot quite a few of these missteps over time. Now listen to me, Captain America. Since I have been in space, I've become quite a zen. I just wanted to apologize for all the murdering I was doing.

All of a sudden, he's become Deeter from Sprockets basically. I mean, isn't that what we get at the end, except a little less weird. But I don't want to sell Hugo Weaving's accent work shorteness. I'm no expert on linguistics or the German language, but his accented English in The First Avenger is damn near flawless. I don't know who his models for his accent work were who he looked to for inspiration, but he's really good.

If you didn't know, I mean, if you only saw him as the red skull and not with the creepy mask what turns out to be a mask of thing, you wouldn't even know that it was Hugo Weaving. He's so he disappears in it, and that's probably part of the reason why he hated it. Because of the makeup work. Yeah, I mean, I thought that they were giving him a little too much Schmidt and not enough Skull. Only they were waiting for some big dramatic reveal and I'm just like, just have him be the skull who cares like.

That. The problem is that movie felt like it it was crying out for further sequels and further adventures in that timeline that we were just denied because they wanted to wrap everything up. The other problem with the movie, honestly is Cap could not have just jammed his shield into the control stick and jumped out of the plane. Yet. I don't know how I feel about that that ending.

To be honest, I will say the ending of the movie itself, the actual ending where Cap realizes that he's in Times Square, that whole sequence where they've they're piping in the baseball game from the forties to make him believe that he's still that he to gradually assimilate him into the modern day. I think that's wonderful and so sad like it's a really sad ending. I mean, we're used to these Marvel movies now ending with a big battle or something. Really, the First Avenger kind of ends with a whimper. And I don't mean that to say that it's like a limp ending.

I mean it ends with Cap basically realizing that this woman that he had a date with she's probably gone. He doesn't know where she is. He's seventy years at a time. That's a really sad bummer of an ending, and I'm really proud that they did that. I'm proud of them for giving us that downer of an ending.

I am too. I gotta say, if there's one thing I admire about the MCU is they pushed the man out of time storyline in the most subtle way possible, which is look, they make plenty of jokes about he doesn't understand this and that and the other thing. However, it's the lost love portion of this particular Captain America that rips my heart out and makes it my favorite sort of overall of the MCU. I mean, I was gonna lean that way anyway, just because I'm a Captain America fan from the get go, but that through line is such a master stroke for this guy. And we haven't mentioned Haley at well, the shame on me.

One of the most one of the brightest lights in the MCU is Peggy Carter and her series Asian Carter. I thought that was fucking great. That one shot she did was fucking great with what's his name Dominic Cooper as young Tony Stark. All right, well he was Howard Stark. Does young Howard Stark?

Yeah, yeah, no, she's I mean, what hasn't been said about Haley at Well. I mean, she's I kind of feel like she was kind of done dirty at the end of it all though, I mean, the show ended up getting canceled and she really didn't have a lot to do in those latter day Marvel movies, but I feel like she had a lot more to give with the character. One can only assume when the day turns do me, we're gonna get Captain Carter fucking shit up for a while. We got to see something because now we not to get ahead of ourselves, but we know by the end of the endgame the cap has basically when he's trying to restore the Time Heist, he goes back to the forties and he decides to live his life out with Agent Carter, which gives him the happy ending that we all wanted for him.

My guess is, my hope is that in Doomsday we'll see that part of his life, and hopefully a lot of stuff with Haley at Well, because I think she's very underused later on in the MCU. I'm assuming that he's the crux of the entire thing, right like that, like his staying in that timeline fucked everything up for everybody. That would make sense and that would actually give the story a real reason for give him a reason for being central to the story, right, Because I think once it became clear that they were going to use Robert Downey as Victor von Doom and that Chris Evans was coming back as Captain America, I think a lot of us. I know for me, I kind of groaned at the idea that, like, what are you doing?

We just wrapped up this monument mental storyline that was like a decade in the making, and now you're just gonna go back to the well with these actors that thought they were done. I just I really hope that they make it worth our while. I know they made it worth their while because they're probably getting paid obscene amounts of money to be in these movies, but hopefully they don't hurt their legacy in the process. I don't think you can hurt caps legacy. I think if there's a problem here, it's bringing Robert Downey Jue in your back, but as one of the greatest villains of the Marvel universe, Like, why would you double dip like that.

I know they'll plot it out and it's a variant and this has happened because of this, and I imagine by the end of Secret Wars we will meet the actual Victor von Doom. That's my hope. Anyway. Nevertheless, we are way out of We are way out of our Captain my God. So let me bring it back to my personal favorite of the solo Captain America movies, which too when Her Soldier.

I think it's a lot of people's. It's I'll go you one further. It's my favorite Marvel film. See, I don't are none. Here's the thing like Marvel movie.

Yes, but that I guess it depends on whether you consider the Spider Man movies part of the MCU or if they're a sony thing. If it's if we're talking one hundred percent MCU, then for me, Winter Soldiers in the top three. I don't know that it's number one because. I you know so clearly Spider Man is up here. What are you talking about?

Which Spider Man are we talking about? Here? Two of them? For me with my favorite Spider Man movie. No, no, no, no, I want to know whats ahead of Captain America.

Oh, I see what you're saying. I'm gonna say Endgame is one of the most singular movie going experiences that I've ever had. Remember, it was right around COVID, right, and people were it was just one of those things where the people are getting out the movies. It was a hardship. It was the world was fucked up at that time, and to be in a theater full of people and to witness the conclusion of like I said, all that led up to it, and the rousing battles and everything and the surprises.

Can't I can't in good conscience rank that any lower than number one. I'm not suggesting that it's like the best crafted movie or the movie that had the best story. I'm just saying as an experience, it was my favorite of all of them. So I maybe I'm not grading them on the same scale, but that I think would be my favorite. And then I'll say this about that film.

I understand what you're saying. The spectacle and the emotion and the culmination of everything was an overwhelming event. And yes, it was a hugely rousing time in the theater, like beginning to end with that flick. Yeah, I will say though, the best part of that entire movie is of course realizing how pure Captain America really is when just flies right to him. Yeah, I'm sure I came at that moment because it was so joyous.

The biggest chill moment for me, though, is after it looks like he's the only one that's left and all the forces of Thanos are amassing, and then he's just sitting there. He straps his shield on one last time, and then he hears on your left And as a movie going public at myself, we've forgotten about We know that the snap was undone, but we didn't really in the battle that ensued. We forgot about the fact that all these other heroes are coming back. And to see all of those doctor Strange portals opening up and Captain America's face said realizing, oh my god, this isn't hopeless, like now we've got something. It's just even now, it sends chills.

I think it's so perfect that movie. I avoided spoilers like the Plague. However, I had the dread feeling for the entire flick that movie would end with Captain America losing his life. So when he pulled the shield on his broken shield and stood on that field on his own against that massive army, I thought well, this is it, so thank god they went the other way. It was amazing.

But in terms of I mean, I think Winter Soldier to me was a real surprise of a movie because what they gave you, and this was a time when I think Marvel felt a little more comfortable taking some chances and maybe doing something out of the box. What you what you really got is a paranoid conspiracy thriller, the Parallax View or was it the Condor? Is it three? Three Days of the Condor? And that I thought was just a brilliant move because of the check.

It underscores this idea that he's a man at a time. But what you realize is that the things that he's fighting for, the very organization that he's working for or may not aspire to the same ideals that he does. And he, instead of becoming horribly disillusioned and giving up all hope, Cap does what he does. He fights, and he brings I'll be damned if he doesn't bring down Shield at the end of that movie. It's fabulous.

He brings down Hydra. He finishes the job, which is armand Zola in that fucking endless computer loop. And they're terrible early eighties graphics. Look, I adore that film. That opening scene is just incredible as a demonstration of what Captain America is capable of as an actual soldier and.

Assault on the hijack ship. Yes the Lumerian star that Watching Cap fight Batrock the Leaper. By the way, if you're a fan of Captain America comics, you probably lost your mind that they threw Batrock in there for no good reason. It was so fun. I thought he'd have more to do though he basically is kind of It's almost like an easter egg for fans.

But I thought he'd be more prominent. I thought he would be coming back in like television series and stuff like some of this the other street level type things. But alas, but watching Cap fight him and realize that in the interim from the Avengers movie, Cap has now retrained himself as a soldier, so now his fighting styles are all very modern, like he's he just can't stop being the best. The sequence where he's running along the deck and he's just taking out guys without even missing, like even not even changing his stride, and he's got the cool stealth suit also, which I thought was really cool for the time, like of course, if Cap is going to be a government operative, he's gonna need something that's less flashy than the stars and stripes bright as hell along his midriff.

So that darker suit suited the vibe of the movie. This sort of like trust Nobody kind of thing. I thought that was so brilliant. Yeah, the man out of Time thing doesn't really work for Cap other than and sort of culturally at this point because all of the jokey he don't know what's going on. They got out of their system with the Avengers movie.

That movie is just like choc a block with I'm an old man, I don't get these things. It seems to run on some sort of electricity. But here's where Steve Rogers would be in modern America. But they make a nice joke of it, though, because when he's talking to Sam and he says he tells him, oh yeah, trouble man, Marvin Gaye. That's another thing.

He pulls up that book and you can freeze from it and see all the other things. These are all the cultural like milestones that he has to catch up on, like he's still They don't hit you over the head with it, but it's funny to look at that list and see, oh, yeah, that's what someone would do. There's so much to catch up on. Here are the finer points. And by the way, Troubleman is one of my favorite movie soundtracks of all time.

So I was so delighted that that was what he picked out, because that is are you familiar with the sound Troubleman? Of course, brilliant and almost single handedly written in well, not performed necessarily, but that was all Marvin Gay. He composed that whole soundtrack. It's amazing. But anyway, do you know what they've.

Never really touched on in all of these movies? Since what's that? What piece of culture Cap actually enjoys? They kind of keep making him think, they keep they keep sort of showing him like listening to forties type music and like sort of leaning that or he's still like the family guy from that age. But what piece of music turned him on?

What he has sixty years? Does he like the Beatles? Does he think they're overrated? I don't know. I guess I don't know.

They really never touched on that except with this list and to show him at the end listening to trouble Man, So I guess we're to infer. That's one piece of culture that he got his hands. Into, thank god. Now okay, so look, Hydra took over. That was the plan along that they killed some people.

That's the threat here. Like obviously they murdered Howard Stark and his bride in their quest for domination, and it was oh so easy for Hydra to take over just through surveillance and other means. Boy, you mentioned the political climate these days. This is where I was worried we would be at the end of no Captain America to stop the Hella carriers from targeting civilians everywhere. So I got to say, at least in the current situation, it's being run by incompetence because if serious people like Arminzola actually wanted to do something like this, we would be fucked Without Captain America.

Yeah, there'd be no stopping it because could in a world without superheroes, who is going to take the stand? Politicians appear to be ineffective. So where are we left with? Not to get too heavy on this, but anyway, but that is And I love the interplay between Cap and Black Widow. I thought they had great chemistry.

Yeah, whoever decided these two need to be together were a spot on the fucking money, And we did get the plot line that sort of ties Cap directly to his past, which is the return of his greatest friend. And in this case for the MCU, they've made Sebastian Stan like an older brother type character, whereas in the comics, Bucky was always the teenage mascot. He was basically Captain America's Robin back then. So to have him come back in that plot line, which I know came straight from the comics, we all read it. To have Bucky back as the Winter Soldier himself.

What a fucking stroke of genius to take us here in this movie when Cap can trust nothing anymore. Yeah, and credit to I guess it would be Kevin Feige for plotting out the framework of where they were going to go from let's say, Winter Soldier all the way through all those CAP movies into even into Endgame. I mean some of these things, some of these things continue on, and they had a real long view about where the story was gonna go. I'm talking specifically about Bucky, the fact that we don't know what's going to happen to him at the end of Winter Soldier. We didn't know that he was eventually going to become a hero in his own right.

Maybe we hoped that would be the case, but I wasn't overly familiar with the Winter Soldier's story in the comics. So credit on that Sebastian Stan is fantastic. I mean, he's physical. I don't know that the. Brooklyn stuff from the First Avenger with Sebastian Stan and watching it back, it's a little shaky.

I don't know that I really bought him as a Brooklyn born and bred dough boy who's off to war or whatever. But he pulls off the Winter Soldier like nobody's business. He's taken all the stupid with him. Well, you just touched on about the MCU taking chances. Still at this point.

The fact is, by then we had maybe five Marvel films. Two of them were Iron Man movies. We had The Avengers. It was all like, it felt like it was building, and then the next movie they're like, hey, everything we just told you about to trust shield As a matter of fact, even though we have a television series currently on the air about the Agents of Shields, they were a bunch of fucking Nazi scumbags. Underneath that, and we've broken them apart, and now we're going to have to have a whole new world that these characters to run it.

They've never shied away from making changes if it felt good dramatically with the MCU, and I've always admired them with that. Yeah, at least, like I said, at least at that point. Obviously, I think some of the latter day movies maybe played it a little safe in terms of formula but I can't call The Winter Soldier formulaic. It's anything but formulaic because they've taken this institution that we were told to trust through a TV show, like you said, in all these movies, and to realize that no, it actually is really predicated on these fascists and it's basically just horribly seeded with people. So don't trust them.

That's the whole message of Winter Soldier. Don't trust anybody. The other thing that was crazy for me watching Winter Soldier was Robert Redford. Yeah, what the fuck he is like filling the Tommy Lee Jones bit where he really brings that old school flare, like he really grounds the movie in a lot of ways. It's Robert fucking Redford.

The man is iconic. They don't get anywhere iconic than him in terms of just who he is. And in the early draft of the screenplay, in the final sequence, Pierce was supposed to peel off his human mask and reveal that it has been the Red Skull all along. Should have done that. They should have done that.

I mean, I'm glad they didn't in a way because I like seeing him come back when they when we got to endgame and those in the time sequences. But at the same time, like anyway, Red Skull moving on. And also Winter Soldier has maybe the my most rewatched sequence of all of the MC movies. And I'm speaking of course, of the elevator fight with Cap versus Everybody Rumlow. Rumlow, Rumlow, Rock Rumlow the Crossbones.

And you know that that sequence, to me is just perfection, just the fact that he's on the elevator, a few guys get on, more and more he to see Cap realize what's happening and what he's up against, and then he asks them, if anyone wants to get off, here's your chance. And it is, like you said, he has boned up on his fighting skills and they're put to the test. He's in a what four x six box fighting for his life against eight other guys. Yeah, it's insane, I guess if you watched it so many times, but it just never gets old for me. It's such a well produced sequence.

I'll say again, I know I already said this is my favorite MCU movie. But the opening sequence on the Lumerian Star, then the sequence where Bucky assassinates Nick Fury and that shape that's great. The sequence where the elevator through cap getting escaping from Shield headquarters, where he takes out the Quinn jet. Yeah, that's great. Elevator and he lands on his shield like he falls what like twelve stories or something.

It's insane. And then we get the whole sequence on the street with the machine guns and the fucking the highway thing where they kill what's his name the fucking sit well. And not to mention just the Nick Fury sequence alone, that Nick Fury sequence where they try and take him out and we meet the Winter Soldier for the first time. If that had been the end of any regular eighties movie, I would be telling you you have to go see this movie for the end scene. And this is literally before the halfway mark of the movie.

This is what's happening. So this is what gives me hope that the Russo brothers will pull out some magic for Doomsday, because they knocked it out of the park with all of their Captain Americas Slash Avengers movies. For whatever faults you can nitpick out of all of those things, I think they are clearly the like the directors to beat in the MCU. They the less set about Joss Whedon, the better. I guess.

The thing you could say about him is he at least got the ball rolling with the Avengers, and he brought a wit to the proceedings. But the Russo brothers just their confidence in the action and it's everything. The direction is solid and the action is solid. So that's all we really need from a Marvel movie. Do you know my niece Tony had a chance to work for the Rousseau brothers, Yeah, chose not to.

But now she's an imagineer, so I think she made the right choice. Yeah, well I don't. It seems like their record is spotty outside of the MCU. Terribly terribly awfully spotty. Everything they've done outside of the MCU has been garbage.

But look, like I said, I just rewatched all these movies, so I am very reacquainted with the quality that they brought. Can I just speak to that for a second, because I too was like, these guys are the fucking shit. They can do no wrong. The more and more I hear about the previs process at Marvel Studios, the less I put sort of stock in those filmmakers themselves. And you can tell why some filmmakers have shied away from the MCU because it's and here's your action sequence, here's the lens you're gonna use, here's where the camera needs to go.

It's what am I doing here? But the problem is going to be Like I was just reading an article the other day about there was a team within it the Marvel films that were responsible for like continuity or what's the word continuity of look throughout all the movies. Like Ryan Menerding, he was the visual guy. Yeah, like the and the they were like inegral to the consistency of these movies from the very first movies. That team was essentially liquidated.

I suspect they're leaning more and more into things like AI, which we all know can do no wrong. Right, So good, so great? I would not be surprised if we start to see a dip in the overall quality of these movies going forward, because. Or may or maybe they'll actually start trusting directors to come up with action sequences on their own. I don't think that.

I think that truth pastes out of the tube, Fatherland. I don't think you can get that back. I want an old charge of the light Brigade screenplay description that allows the director to do what they want. The original charge of the Lath screenplay reads, they charge. So anyway, just to put a bow on it.

Obviously. Winter Soldier is really a landmark MCU movie for me, it sounds like for you, just because it took the character of Captain America and really put him in some very uncomfortable situations ideologically for him. And I think that was just so brilliant. And it reintroduced Peggy Carter the most heartbreaking scene to me of the entire MCU, where they're so happy to be with one another, even with the age difference, even with all the time spent apart, and then she does not remember him moments later. It's fucking horrific, sad, very sad, which leads us happily to the Silverware, as Lenny and Squigget used to call it, the Civil War?

Is that from Lavernon Shirley? That the silverware? Great? Anyway? Sorry, oh, I don't know.

You can take us there, man, where we're going? No, So, like I love Civil War and in a lot of ways, I mean, it's it. Let's call it what it is, which is it's an Avengers movie because we have all the Avengers. Iron Man is prominently involved in the proceedings everybody. I mean, we get that great action scene in Berlin at the airport there, that is an Avengers type battle scene.

So I think it's a little disingenuous for them to call it Captain America Civil War. It's just an Avengers movie. I mean, let's be honest. So it's a little hard to judge this as a Captain America movie because there's so much going on. Having said that, he does not get short shrift in.

The movie, I will say the central plot of this movie is the relationship between Bucky and Captain America honest right, and their civil war, and then that sort of reflects out on the rest of the Avengers. There are i think officially two movies in the mcu where the villain wins, one of those victories becomes undone. By the end of the series, however, one villain still remains supreme. That's Baron's Zemozo, who wanted to break up the Avengers and then he fucking did it. Yeah, And I look, I grew up reading the books with Baron Zimo.

He had the purple hood. It was not the character that you see here another at all. But it's another change for the better, because you can't have this cackling superhero with the funny mask and the crown on his head. This is a very sad villain. This is a villain who's motivated by revenge, by the loss of his family from.

A situation that we were introduced to as a powerful moment of the hero's overcoming the villain in the previous Avengers movie, which is Sekovia. Right, And that's but that's the crux of everything, right, the introductory operation of the movie that kicks off the events, because in trying to contain this explosion Scarlet, which unfortunately like blows up a building, there's all these civilian casualties and then. Fantastic sequence by the way I mean it is if it's the Russo Brothers or the previous guys, I don't care. It's a fucking phenomenal action sequence. Is and again they're giving us something that we haven't seen yet, which is the heroes are essentially failing their mission.

I mean, they take care of Crossbones and they contain the threat, but at a cost, and then that's what eventually comes. We then see the Cecovia Accord, which, by the way, I cannot comment on the differences between the Civil War comic and the Civil War movie because I did read the actual series. But the challenge with these books is every there's the main series, but then Spider Man has eight books that have to do with Civil War that tie into it. Captain America probably has a bunch that our Civil War adjacent, The Hulk has a bunch. I don't have the time or the patients to go through all of that, so I can't necessarily compare and contrast, but you're lighting up.

Like you can. The one change that I really admired was in the comics. The the inciting action is a bunch of wanna be superheroes fucking around outside of a school and it ends up blowing up the school, And it makes sense when they wrote that book that you could say this little thing leads to this greater thing. But tying it directly to our characters and making them responsible. Having Captain America running that team that ended up destroying that building and killing all of those people is way heavier and way more immediate than just like a bunch of let's make fun of reality shows and whatever else Mark Millar wanted to make fun of at that moment.

I agree with you, but for my money, by the way, as a side note, I much prefer the Kingdom Come series on the DC side of things, which is ostensibly a very similar plot line where there's this cataclysm the superheroes, the modern superheroes are careless, and their carelessness leads to basically a nuclear explosive essentially going off in the middle of Kansas, and now they have to figure out a way. Superman basically leads a charge to either have the heroes register themselves or be put into a Supermax prison. And there's a lot of obviously that goes on aside from that, but I prefer that's a much more streamlined and black and white version of the tail than we get with Civil War but that's neither here nor there.

But I love the idea that we're seeing heroes face consequences for their actions, because, like you said, we had just seen Age of Ultron where this is their triumphant finale where they take care of Ultron in Sekovia. But now we're seeing the after effect of that and the very real consequences of all of this mass destruction. Who are you with, Cap or iron Man? I probably Cap, I would say, because it's a slippery slope. At what point does it go from registering these heroes just to monitor their actions to like categorizing mutants, let's say, and imprisoning them, keeping them away from the general populace.

At what point do these heroes then become government puppets that are sent just on the whim of a government to fight wars that maybe they don't agree with. I'm on cap side. Iron Man is on the wrong side of history. He eventually revolts against his own regime there by the end, although. They may be I will say this, they maybe don't.

I mean, I guess it's an action movie at its heart, so, but they don't necessarily delve into the implications of either side doing what they're doing. They pay a little bit of lip service, but there's a lot more at stake than what they convey in the movie. They don't go deep enough, I don't think in the tough choice they have to make on this. Yeah, because they wanted to make everything more personal. So what they really made instead of the Registration Act being at the forefront, they made this a revenge thing about Tony Stark discovering the murder of his parents and that whole thing, which, by the way, super duper powerful.

I am watching fucking Bucky Barnes choke out his mom. It's brutal, it is. I mean, he runs them, he basically runs them off the road. They're all, I mean, they're already dying. But then he goes over.

It's just it's so incredibly brutal that you can really buy why why Tony can completely loses his shit at the end. Because Captain America Cap knew about this. He protected Tony by not getting him the gory details. But there it is. Yeah.

The worst part is that Howard Stark says the sennant Barnes because he recognizes him. He recognizes him from the war. Oh yeah, yea, but way, what did you think of they In the interim, they changed Howard Stark he was originally played by We talked about a Dominic Cooper who later became a Slattery John Slattery from a Madman perfect. I couldn't imagine if John, if they had made Iron Man in nineteen eighty five, then he would be Tony Stark. Yeah, he is that guy.

He is just that charming. And I'm sure everyone who's a fan of mad Men already knew this. He played Roger Sterling for the run of that series, and he had all the best lines. But it's one thing to have a best line, it's another thing to be able to deliver it. And this guy always delivers slattery of Boston boy by the way.

Yeah, yeah, he was really good in the Fletch movie. Did you see the Fletch Movie with. I certainly did, and I had the exact same reaction. I really enjoyed it. Yeah, really good.

But yeah, no, It's Civil War is definitely more spectacular than Wintersis is a very different movie, but I think equally successful. I mean yeah overall. Yes, I'm I'm ranking it against my favorite like a dummy. Yes, it is a I agree, I can watch Civil War beginning to end without any quibbling at all. Really at the end of well, like you said, baron Zimo is a success at the end of Civil War, even though he's taken into custody.

By the way, we didn't even mention the fact that Civil War brought us two of the most iconic heroes in the MCU, Spider Man. It's the first appearance of Spider Man, and it's the first appearance of Black Panther, who became his own phenomenon with his own movie. That's pretty cool. Yeah, it's jam packed. You said it.

It's Avengers two point five. And it always was. The the fact that they managed to balance all of these plot lines together and give all the fans service and give all the rousing action because it really is and horrific action at times, like the bombing of the un Sequence is just fucking horrible. Man. But we also get Cap holding a helicopter in place.

The muscles bulging you. I have muscles. I'm the super soldier. That's great, and you get to see it's nice. You finally get to see Cap and Bucky reunite and become friends again, learn to become friends again because they're they're adversaries in Winter Soldier.

Obviously they have to be. But it's I just I love the warmth that they bring to their interactions together. I love the flight down the stairs sequence where Bucky just keeps almost killing people and Cap has to keep stopping him. Come on, yeah, good stuff. I just there's so much the whole fucking that chase under the bridge with the cars and everyone's like Cap like leaping out of the cars.

It's flipping around it too, I know. I'm just like, it's crazy. Yeah, I mean there and that gets a little bit away from Cap maybe, But which is it's hard to do because, like you said, the movie is so filled to the brim with characters and events and things happening, and it's hard not to get into that. I mean, don Cheatle's really good in it. It's what else can you say.

It's It's like I said, it's a very different movie. It may not be I may not like it more than Winter Soldier. I don't think I do, but it's not that much further down the list. It's a great movie, and it ends with Cap dropping that shield. He is no longer Captain America.

At the end of this movie, he becomes no mad and we never get to see him. It is no mad shit. I can't believe it. Yeah, we get the briefest. That's maybe the thing that I was that's kind of the short shrift that we get in Infinity War is we I thought we were going to get something like Nomad because you see Cap and he's got the beard and the uniform is all dirty and kind of gross, and you really feel the fact that he's been on the run because now he's he's an enemy of the state basically at the end of it.

But we don't really get I'd love to see some of the adventures Cap had that we don't see between Civil War and Infinity War. This little cadre of superheroes under the radar, fucking doing good. Sign me up, seriously. And that's my favorite scene in Infinity War is when Cap re emerges that in the fight in the train station or the train station. Yeah, when they throw the fucking the spirit him and he just catches it, like what are you doing.

It's a great look because this is Cap at his most downtrodden. Basically, he's disillusioned. He comes out of the shadows to rescue Vision. I mean, think about that. Vision is one of the most powerful heroes in the MCU, and he's up against these sort of cohorts of Thanos that are amazingly powerful beings and capp is.

I don't care. I'll stack myself up against all of you guys. I don't give a ship. Remember at the end of this movie, Cap fucking goes Mono Amano with Vanos himself, and then we see does a pretty good job until he gets sucker punched. He does, and then and obviously that all leads into the finale of Endgame, where I mean the me all near moment is again we overuse the word iconic, but that is I mean the roar that went in went out in the movie theater when you see him cock back and grab Melnir out of the air.

Oh my god, Like I said, chills, you can people can still go to YouTube. I think there's still clips that people recorded in the theater. If you don't believe me, like you watch these clips. This isn't this isn't fantasy. People were out of their seats going crazy for this moment.

Yeah, and if you check that YouTube video, check the one for Infinity War too, when Thor arrives and the battle scene, it's the same reaction people like lost their goddamn shit. Yeah, and these moments, these moments have meaning to me, Like maybe these like I said, maybe these movies aren't the best made, or maybe this or that, but there's something to be said for a movie that moves you as a moviegoer in the theater. I don't think we have enough of those moments these days. Father alone, that arousing thing that gets the theater cheering at one as one. It's there's no feeling like that.

I think we're losing that. Yeah, I hadn't before Endgame. I can't remember the last time I was in a theater where everyone was just jazzed, other than another Marvel movie. You know what, maybe Star Wars, just because the hype on that was so huge. Even though I would say fan out, Yeah, I would say maybe the Force awakens when the Millennium Falcon flies for the first time, or when you see Han Solo with Chewbacca.

That but that's to me, that feels more like fan service than something that grows organically out of the plot. Look, big old slice of nostalgia was what that was. As far as a rousing moment goes it was unearned, honestly, because the movie didn't earn that. Han Solo earned that right. But I would say the all near moment, all those moments in Endgame were earned because we had lived and died with these characters for years.

I mean that the whole thing with Endgame, and I know what, this is a cap thing. We're not talking about it, but just the cap on it is cap. The point I'm trying to make is that that was a saga. We we were in all the ups and downs of these characters for years. That was completely unprecedented to that degree.

We had trilogies, we had serieses, but nothing to this extent. No, not like that. Yeah, it hadn't been done, the shared character universes. It's yeah, let's talk about the end however, because sure it sounds like you and I are of a mind when it comes to Steve Rogers' decision to not return to our timeline but stay in his own timeline and live out his life with Peggy Carter. However, there is a contingent that feels that was not in line with the character of Stephen Rogers that he would continue to fight no matter what for what's good and decent?

And to those people, I would say, you have no fucking heart. Let the man have something. He has been fighting for you for one hundred years. He went to space. Captain Steve Rogers, stayed with the woman that he loved into her basically she had dementia.

He saw her her die, he buried her. This is a guy who he lost out on so much of his life. Give a man his chance to rest and be a person, be a man, not this hero. That I mean. At the end of Endgame, this was like the single greatest superhero accomplishment.

They all managed to gather these Infinity Stones by Hooker Crook with a few hiccups. It doesn't there's nowhere to go from there. Just let the man live out his dream in his time. He's not gonna he's not hurting anybody. Maybe in doomsday will find out that there's a ripple effect there.

See that way, That's what bothers me about that. It makes sense as a plot device for getting us to the next section of what the Avengers need to be, But it just sort of it reinforces the idea that that was the wrong thing to do. And I don't if that's the direction they're going, and then I'm gonna be very ambivalent about it. But what I was about to say is another little side note. The old age makeup of Steve Rogers after he comes back and see him on the park bench, completely believable.

By the way, a lot of times this old age makeup just doesn't work. It's just slathered on. I don't know what they did. If they did a combination of practical and CG makeup. Yeah, it's the same they did with Haley Atwell in the previous or rather in Winter Soldier, where they mapped textures of an elderly woman onto her face.

Yeah, I bought it. With Chris Evans, he looked like a man in his like eighties, let's say, sitting on a park bench like kind of doing his thing. I thought it was we knew those World War Two veterans. It was very accurate, very accurate. So yeah, it'll be interesting to see how he integrates into the whole doomsday storyline.

But I just hope that they do right by the character's intent and don't make him don't and don't villainize him for wanting to live his life. Yeah, yeah, all right, that's going to bring it to the end of our very first on Doomfest. Thank you all so much for joining us. Look, if you want more Star Trek, that still over on the Patreon channel. HP and I are still toiling away in the di Lithium minds to give you more Star Trek.

But this is our newest fest and we're so glad you're joining us, and it's gonna be quite a journey. HP. Until we come back and talk about who'll be talking about next, I think. We're gonna Oh, are you is this rhetorical or you're asking me? No, I'm asking you because we're trying to do major minor, aren't we sure?

And not to say that this character I think is a minor character. But in terms of the movies that have been given to him, he's only had one solo movie. I'm talking about The Incredible Hulk. We want to do Hulk next. I do want to do Hulk next because I think there's an impetus, there's a strong urge to do someone like Iron Man.

But I think we need to balance The cap is huge, iron Man is huge. We can't just throw all the big heavy hitters. Out at once, you know, what I'm willing to to the listeners, Oh you want it, Okay, I want to try that. We could do that too. I my vote is for the Hulk because I think he fits.

He's major, but he's also been given a little bit of short shrift and maybe he's not quite a level tier as Cap is. Everyone go to the show notes under my father Malone name. You're going to see links to my Instagram account and my email address and my Patreon account. I am available at any of those places to message let me know your favorite superhero and maybe we'll do that unless it's really terrible, and then we're gonna do Hulk. So yeah, don't ask for ant Man because we're not doing it.

We are officially not doing ant Man, anyone any other MCU character you want to throw up there, we're willing to do, including street Level. So until then HP, until they've decided. Where can people find you if they're looking for you? Well? I co host The Night Mister Walters, a taxi podcast with Father Malone.

Here. I also host the Noise Junkies music podcast, and I have a band camp site which is hpmusicplace dot bandcamp dot com. As for me, I already told you. Go to the show notes everybody. Thank you all so much for joining us.

I believe this Friday I will be back with the brand new Father Malone's weekly Roundup. I've been a little lax, but you know, what are you gonna do. I've been doing those video ones and they're really tough. From HB and myself and from Doctor Doom, we're gonna be talking about him eventually. Try to enjoy the daylight.

No, no,