Avengers Disassembled: Idea Versus Implementation

[Doctor Bong]

Doctor Doom: I think you make some excellent points in your last posts, while at the same time I can't help to think, nay, rather FEEL that to bring back Bucky kinda cheapens Cap's history, due to all the emotional weight of his angst over his death, way back then... just as I feel uncle Ben's return would cheapen Spidey's history, more precisely his emotional history (or, for that matter, if they would ever decide to bring back the original Gwen, not a clone...).
What do the rest of you guys feel (think)...? Should a good -or great- story always be the first consideration on such cases...? Are we, the ol' guard fans, entertaining unrealistic expectations when it comes to the respect for our heroes' continuities...? Comments...?

[redstatecap]

RSC, while that was an excellent post it seemed very much like you just launched into an attack on me which, as far as I can see, was pretty much unprovoked.

Re-read your own reply to my points. Your tone was highly confrontational. I therefore responded in kind.

It should also be noted that I do happen to know a consideable amount about the Second World War, though not as much as you. I note how so many American accounts love to make it seem as though you single-handedly won a war which, quite frankly, the Germans would have lost without American intervention. Oh there would have been much more loss of life, it would have been far worse for everyone concerned, but the fact remains that with America and without Russia, the Allies were doomed. Without America and with Russia, they had at the very least a fighting chance. Now, to comics...

First, I'm not sure how the presence or absence of the US in WWII has anything to do with the topic. But be that as it may, I think you underestimate the effect of the US. The US kept England in the war with Lend Lease and the undeclared naval war the US fought in the Atlantic for nearly a year prior to Pearl Harbor. You may not know this, but the US assumed the responsibility for convoying ships halfway across the Atlantic (including orders to attack German ships on sight without a declaration of War) at a time the Brits were absolutely desparate from losses. The upshot of this is that the British Empire continued to be a threat that Hitler could not ignore. He was forced to keep large forces in France and North Africa to oppose the Brits, which he could otherwise have thrown against Russia at a critical juncture. For example, it is believed by many historians that Rommel's campaign in North Africa alone may have siphoned off enough resources to have been decisive against Russia had they been committed there instead. Furthermore, Russia was also received a significant portion of their air power and an even larger proportion of their motive power (meaning cargo trucks) from the US Lend Lease. This has never been acknowledged by Russia, until recently.
The manpower committment of Russia cannot be overemphasized, but early in the war this was not nearly as important and had the Germans had a little more in the way of resources to throw against Russia at a critical juncture (due to the UK not being around) then things could very easily have gone the other way. History lesson over.

Okay, firstly I just want to make one point very, extremely, amazingly clear. World War II in OUR world and World War II in the MARVEL world, were extremely different. Yes, many things were the same. But the fact remains that in Marvel, Hitler was incinerated by a flying robot who can burst into flame, World War II was won largely because of a team called the Invaders, Captain America existed AT ALL, and there was a leading German whose face was a red skull. Therefore, it is completely baseless to speak about things like how much water Germany controlled in 1945, etc, etc, because there is absoloutely no way of establishing that this was true in the Marvel Universe. For all we know, the Axis controlled Spain for goodness sake.

Actually Roy Thomas went to some pains in the Invaders to show that the Invaders themselves were really just a drop in the bucket so to speak. Of course, they had to be made to look all-important, because it was a superhero comic book and that's what sells. But the Invaders always admitted themselves that the regular forces were winning the war.
And outside the obvious exceptions of superhero battles, WWII has always been shown to progress just as it did in the real world.

Alright, that is fine. I congratulate you on your research, it is rare to see someone take such care.

I've read the books. Everyone who is more than a casual Cap fan has read those books. They're canon. Which is what kind of galls me because Mr. Brubaker with 5 minutes of research online or asking around a fan message board, could have discovered for himself that there were serious problems with the story he was writing.

That might be a tad inaccurate. I think there's a lot more than two. And I'm fairly sure someone has probably retconned the Eskimos out of Cap's origin by now Nevertheless I'm willing to bet parts of Avengers '4 are already in retconville. In any case, the issue shouldn't be IF it was retconned, it should be IF it was retconned WELL.

Changing a detail here or there isn't a huge deal even to me. Throwing the whole thing into the trash can, is.

See, it's these 'and you' things that sound like personal attacks. I'm sorry, but I didn't think I had to do a large amount of research to answer a question on a forum. The problem is, this entire point is destroyed by my earlier statement that WWII in Marvelville was very different to the real world war II.

As I said before, read your own prior post (and this one) and tell me you aren't taking a tone of personal attack.

Well firstly there wouldn't be likely to be as much American traffic in the isles as there would be British. Secondly, I am and was fully aware of how difficult it is to find something in an area that size. I think all that is required is that you suspend your disbelief a little and remember that this is a story which is frankly rather obscenely hard to believe in the first place, considering the foundation was a man being frozen in ice for what- 40-50 years? and emerging like it was yesterday. I don't find it that difficult to believe that they got extremely lucky and found the body fairly close to their location, or that they did it before any Allied traffic could.

The "drone plane story" isn't perfect. Not by a long shot. But Mr. Brubaker comes along, and in order to get things where he wants them, introduces a ridiculous deus ex machina (the Russian sub, etc) to carry it out, and people call it brilliant writing. Having to use deus ex machina is NOT brilliant writing; in fact it's clear evidence that the writer didn't do a good job of writing the story. Nowhere is this more obvious than when the Russians, having recovered the body and returned to port, simply "resurrect" him as written by Mr. Brubaker. Hello, could you possibly have a more bald-faced deus ex machina? One wonders why they didn't resurrect more people! This isn't great writing -- far from it.

Against the odds certainly, but not impossible. I don't believe Mr Brubaker (or I) overlooked that fact at all. Please don't respond with some "you are asking me to accept that a lone russian sub found..." etc, because to be frank if you can't swallow this then I genuinely don't understand how you can read comics- need I pick out the enormous plot holes and INSANE suspension of disbelief in the Kree/Skrull war? A story as a whole rises to overcome all plot holes.

First, the Kree-Skrull war did not in any way, shape, or form, overturn 42 years of comics history and precedent. Mr. Brubaker did. Therefore he should be held to a higher standard than your run-of-the-mill comic fare. Overturning a story of this magnitude had better make sense.
Second, his own style of stories is that of "gritty realism." You are supposed to believe that this is the kind of Cap that might really exist. To justapose that idea, with something so ridiculous that it's beyond suspension of disbelief, IMO just doesn't work.
Why not just give the Soviets a Klingon Bird of Prey with a cloaking device? That would neatly cut through all the problems with accomplishing what he wanted to accomplish. That's in the writer's power, isn't it?

Indeed they do have favourable -position, which is why the aforementioned suspension of disbelief was mentioned. I don't understand why you can refuse to suspend disbelief even a little in this case and accept stories like the Kree/Skrull War, the Korvac Saga, Ultron Unlimited, etc. What about Spider-Man,- have you any idea how incredibly unlikely it is that a college student will come up with an organic compound that allowed him to swing through the city- which means it is extremely strong- and also to use as a fluid to attack others with, and that after maybe 12 years no-one else has fully cracked the secret of this? And the kid did it on his own? Also, since this is indeed a Spy Submarine, I'm going to assume they have more advanced methods than sticking up a periscope besides sonar.

All this again goes back to deus ex machina. It didn't work becuase Mr. Brubaker wrote an intelligent story that made sense, it worked because he couldn't think of another way to pull off his gimmick, so he simply decreed that it worked.
I talked to him quite a bit about it on other boards, and while he would certainly never admit that it was a gimmick or that he didn't really do the research it took to make it make sense, that is the upshot of what I learned from him. He didn't bother to find out beforehand if it was even remotely possible. This would have taken maybe half an hour to do.

Well I am 100% certain that I do in fact know what I am talking about. Firstly, let's establish that all these allied craft... the majority were either on missions or unarmed. It's not like they are going to all be actively monitoring these german transmissions etc, the number who would respond to it is considerably smaller. Firstly, you do help to confound your own point. It is a massive area to search, the difference is that we can assume the Russian sub was much closer to the site, which isn't anywhere near as hard to believe as you make it out to be. I also genuinely do not believe that many of the planes would be able to sight a particular body etc, but I can easily be wrong about this so I will concede to you there. Hell, for all we know there was a fog that day.

I thought about doing a point-by-point refutation---but I'm getting tired of typing. Suffice it to say, sincerely in the most non-offensive manner possible, that you simply don't know what you're talking about. Every single point here is dead wrong. And you could even find this out for yourself with a modicum of online research or book reading.
Let me say with complete honesty, as someone who has done a lot of WWII reading/research and has a large library of material, that the situation presented by Mr. Brubaker to retcon Bucky's death amounts to an absolute farce. In fact anyone even passingly familiar with the historical facts (let alone the more in-depth stuff) would find this story hard to swallow.
Amusingly enough, back when it was still being speculated if the WS was or wasn't Bucky, I was convinced that it wasn't because the situation presented by Mr. Brubaker made it so obviously impossible for the Russians to get hold of him, that I was certain that it was a red herring. Whoops, I guess I gave him a little too much credit.

On the other hand, Bucky was a better operative than any of the Soviet's commandos or spies, and in the marvel universe there was SHIELD etc so we can't say that the soviet netowkr was, in the marvel universe, unmatched. Bucky was, by his very nature, better than ANY of those Soviet special forces.

Bucky was by his nature simply a human being. If the Sovs had captured Cap or the Torch, say, it would be a different story. But as it was they got a human commando, with no powers, no memory to exploit for intelligence value, and no skills significantly beyond those of their own reliable operatives. That equals bullet in the head and a shallow grave.

Why would they want to put a bullet in his head when they have turned him into a massively effective spy and operative who would take another decade to train if they wanted to make one of their own? He's the best by far at what he does, and if he gets caught they KNOW he's not going to talk, courtesy of amnesia.

OK, how can someone be turned into a massively effective spy, when he is a brain-damaged amnesiac? Being a successful infiltrator primarily requires the ability to interact with the population without arousing any suspicion; to blend in and be totally non-descript.
A guy who has to a)wear long-sleeves and gloves at all times to hide a shiny robot-arm and b)avoid interaction because he's amnesiac and proven to be unstable hardly fits the bill.
And, by the way, the Sovs already had a massive (and highly successful) program to infiltrate operatives -- reliable operatives -- into the West. Using a brain-damaged zombie with a metal arm is just, well, silly.

Are you saying that in 40 years, when Winter Soldier has been built into Marvel history, it will automatically be acceptable?

That's a legitimate question. It may be; I don't know. I do know that as a lifetime (25+years) exclusive fan of Captain America, that I can no longer conscion buying the title. And that's big for me, since I only read comics for Captain America (and the Avengers w/Cap). Yes, it's possible that in 20 years some proportion of people will look on it as canon. And again, if it turns out that way fine. "Let the market decide," as they say. My opinion of it will not change regardless. All I can control is what I do with my money, and Marvel cost themselves my business on a permanent basis.

Do I want to see Uncle Ben come back? Of course not- not in any way, shape or form. Because his death isn't like Bucky's though I know you disagree with me here intensely, Bucky's death does leave a vague possibility of survival. Uncle Ben's doesn't. And even IF, even IF in some way he did come back- if it was an astonishingly AMAZING story... I'd accept it. I might not like the concept, like I don't with Bucky, but I could forgive it.

Well, I'd have to argue that being blown to smithereens and feeding the fishes is pretty hard to come back from, but Mr. Brubaker's fiat says otherwise.
And about Uncle Ben coming back -- if a writer was allowed to take liberties of precisely the same type with the established story, as Mr. Brubaker took with the Bucky story, then it is equally possible to resurrect Uncle Ben.
Heck, I want to see that happen. Let's throw the rest of longstanding Marvel history in the trash can while we're at it.

Alright, and that's your choice. To be quite honest, I don't think the story will be expunged and I think your 'statement' is quite pointless. I think it is fantastic, you don't. And that's okay, because that's what comics are all about. Everyone has different pinions, and I fully respect yours.

I don't think it will be expunged for some time either, and I'm cool with that. I can survive without comic books. If this story proved anything to me, however, it's that everything is negotiable.

The final thing I want to say; if we were reading a story set in our world, where some guy had survived what Bucky had, I'd ridicule the very idea and agree with everything you said. But we are dealing with Marvel Comics, and so I can't agree with you.

These are the main reasons I'm so pissed:
The Bucky story was one of the only two un-touched deaths in all of comicdom. That distinction has now been eradicated, and I don't appreciate that.
This is quite frankly a gimmick to rejuvenate an historically underperfoming Cap title. I for one do not believe that this title needs gimmicks to survive. I sincerely believe that Mr. Brubaker could have done just as well for himself and the title on his own merits, without resorting to a slickly packaged gimmick.
Ask yourself these questions: based on your own opinion of Mr. Brubaker's skills as a writer (and Mr. Epting's as artist), would you be deriving just as much enjoyment from this title right now, had Mr. Brubaker not decided to resurrect Bucky? Could he have succeeded on his own merits? And if your answer is yes, then why was it necessary to take that step?

RSC