Captain America's Weird Tales

Hey, do you remember where you were with Captain America came back from the dead? Sure you do. Just like everybody remembers exactly what happened when he got shot, right? Everybody remember that? Uh uh, Miss Sharon Carter...you can put your hand down.

So we all agree that we saw

Cap fighting a fifty-foot tall Red Skull in Arnim Zola's body who was destroying Washington DC?



Panels from Captain America: Reborn #6 (March 2010), script by Ed Brubaker, pencils by Bryan Hitch, inks by Butch Guice, colors by Paul Mounts, letters by Joe Caramagna

Yep, you remember that. There was also some M.O.D.O.K.*s there. It was a pretty freaky scene, man. I took one look at it and figured I should lay off the brown M&Ms for a while.

But, y'know, Cap's modern day adventures...even the ones drawn by Kirby...can't hold a star-spangled flame-sputtering fourth-of-July firework to the weirdness and bizarrativity that is Captain America's Golden Age adventures. You think he was just hitting Hitler, manhandling Mussolini and tackling Tojo? Also, occasionally tho' gently noodling Nero Wolfe. (Know your history!)? Well, sure, he was doin' that. According to recently released now-public documents from the United States Department of Good Wars, approximately 67% of Captain America's official operations involved him posing for photo opportunities socking an Axis leader in the jaw.

But in between those times...and when Namor was busy tearing about tiny, tiny Japanese battleships...Captain America and Robin Bucky would get involved in what we like to call...



F'r instance: there's the time that Steve found dozens of severed heads dipped in wax!


from Captain America Comics #2 (April 1941) script and art by Joe Simon and Jack Kirby

Either that, or it's backstage at the studio where they're filming Futurama.



And then, of course we all remember that the original Cap and Bucky were sadly mistakenly lynched by a murderous mob who mistook them for arsonists. Boy, were their faces red! Well, justice is served, or whatever.


from Captain America Comics #6 (September 1941) script and art by Joe Simon and Jack Kirby

With Steve and Bucky out of service, of course the Red Skull was free to pull his old wacky tricks, forcing his victims to look at death, to look at Lady Gaga, and then, cruelest of all, to look at his Nightwing/Starfire fan fiction.


from Captain America Comics #1 (March 1941), script by Ed Herron, art by Joe Simon and Jack Kirby

But don't worry! Like he does every year and a half like clockwork, Captain America returned from the dead, just in time to serve us all a hot, delicious, nutritious breakfast!


from Captain America Comics #2 (April 1941), script and art by Joe Simon and Jack Kirby

Yep, you can't keep the Red, White, and Blue Avengers down, not with bullets, or sticks, or stones, or insulting sissy nicknames! (And more panels ought to have a gutter breaking them in two that's made of pure primal lightning!)


from Captain America Comics #6 (September 1941), script and art by Joe Simon and Jack Kirby

Heh heh heh! The noive of them calling Cap "Lacy Pants!" What an insulting and yet amazingly inaccurate catcall! Why, Cap is all man, and nobody's gonna say otherwise. You won't find Steve Rogers pressing wild flowers, putting on women's clothing and hanging around in bars...


from Captain America Comics #2 (April 1941), script and art by Joe Simon and Jack Kirby

(facehoof)

Pausing only for a lengthy misadventure featuring the disguised Cap being the dance partner of an unwitting Sergeant Mike Duffy during a 24-hour dance marathon (which was a plot to take over Fort Dix by that villainous Golden Age baddie The Jitterbug, Steve and Bucky board a plane and zip to Europe, the theme to Raiders of the Lost Ark playing all the while on their headphones as the aircraft moves over the vintage mid-century map. Yes, Steve is knitting. And yet he is still a he-man. Decades ahead of 284-pound defensive tackle Rosey Grier, Steve Rogers proved that real men do needlecrafts. Right there in that panel he's knitting himself a lovely pink shield cozy.



After all, no one would suspect a little old lady with the jaw of a muscle man and the forearms of a prize-fighter to be America's most efficient fighting soldier! Thus this deceit is very useful when you see somebody who looks like, or possibly smells like, a fifth columnist. Seems a little brutal just because the guy is such a green journalist that he's only had a quartet of stories published in the paper, but hey, Cap always knows right.



Of course, such a dramatic disguise is only necessary when you're out and about in enemy territory. In the privacy of a locked hotel room, there's certainly no need for Cap to keep wearing



D'oh!

Heh! We kid Cap. The one thing you can say about America's Favorite Star-Spangled Crossdresser (seriously, you thought the superheroine Miss America was a different character?) is that Cap wouldn't mind us having a bit of fun at his expense. If nothing else, Captain America has a really good sense of humor....


from Captain America Comics #9 (December 1941), script and art by Joe Simon and Jack Kirby

...a sense of humor that will kill you.

So there ya go. Some of Captain America's weirdest escapades. I'm not even gonna mention the time Cap wound up on Lilliput.


from Captain America Comics #69 (November 1948), art by Ken Bald

Well...maybe some other time.


*Miniature Ophthalmologists Drooling On the Karpet