Captain America #24 + Captain America #25

Wednesday evening is a big night out for me. I go to a taqueria off Pine Street and get a takeout bean burrito. I visit for a bit with the young Mexican guy who runs the taco shop; he is friendly without being obsequious and extremely efficient; a solid citizen who enriches the community where I live. Another warm acquaintance of mine is also an immigrant from Mexico. My Latina friend with whom I ride the bus in SeaTac and who cleans rooms at the airport motel next to the building where I work is a paragon of decency; she works six days a week and never fails to be warm and polite.

I consider these two people -- immigrants, I'm not sure of their legal status -- the finest individuals I come in contact with in public. To make political hay by stirring up hard-shell nativism and bigotry is not only suicidal, given the obvious demographic trends, but it is morally wrong as well. Mexicans are just as American as Captain America if you ask me.

From the taqueria I walk north on Broadway past the community college. A few blocks after the college I arrive at the neighborhood comic shop where I pick up the week's new releases.

As I enter, the proprietor greets me by name. This week he suggests that I read the latest Daredevil issue.

A big, bearded, barrel-chested guy with a earring and a puka-shell necklace wearing a yellow t-shirt (I'm wrapped in several layers; it's cold) standing in front of the wall where the new releases are displayed chirps, "I can't stand Mark Waid."

Mark Waid writes Daredevil.

"It's always the same precious, 'Oh, look at me! Aren't I witty?' crap," says Big Yellow.

Big Yellow then proceeds to recapitulate the history of the Daredevil title the last five years. I engage in dialogue with him; tell him I wasn't a big fan of Shadowland. Then I shift gears, pointing to the cover of the comic book he holds in his hands. "There's the guy I like."

The name on the cover I was pointing to was Remender. The comic Big Yellow was holding? All-New Captain America #1.

"I'm excited that Sam Wilson is finally getting his due," says Big Yellow.

"What I could never figure out is how Sam Wilson could go from being an island kid to a Harlem badass," I say, proceeding to confuse Big Yellow by imparting to him my own confusion.

I remember reading the Stan Lee-Gene Colan Falcon origin, Captain America #117, as a kid. Falcon is Sam Wilson's superhero alter ego. Sam Wilson is a fresh-faced youth with a trained hawk, Red Wing, on a tropical island (I thought it was Trinidad and Tobago; turns out it was an island off Haiti) who comes to the assistance of Red Skull. The Red Skull is getting shit-kicked by a bunch of Nazis. Turns out the Red Skull is actually Steve Rogers, a.k.a., Captain America. The real Red Skull, using the Cosmic Cube, has traded identities with Captain America. So while the Red Skull is parading around Manhattan sucking up adulation as the star-spangled Avenger, Captain America is fighting for his life against a group of war criminals that the Red Skull double-crossed one time too many.

Confusing.

Anyway, it turns out I was confused. Sam Wilson is not an islander but a Harlem native who answered a newspaper ad soliciting workers to come to the tropics. Steve Rogers/Red Skull trains Sam up to superhero status, gets him a costume and an alter ego, the Falcon -- and away they go.

In Captain American and the Falcon #144, Sam Wilson loses his pretty green outfit and gets the red-and-white costume (not unlike the Atlanta Falcons white jersey) and the gold nose-guard that we have come to associate with the character. A year or two later, during the Watergate era, is when I became a regular reader of Captain America and the Falcon. By this time Sal Buscema had taken over the penciling duties and Steve Englehart was the writer. Sam Wilson was no longer the ingenue sidekick; he was one tough brother, pure Black Power muscle. These comic books are a treasure trove of early '70s Americana.

Anyway, Big Yellow just stared back at me as if I were unhinged, babbling as I was about Sam Wilson's origins.

The scans you will find below are from the final two issues of the Captain America devoted to the Dimension Z storyline. The Iron Nail, the loser in a fight to the death with Captain America, managed to strip the Super-Soldier serum from Cap's DNA, leaving Steve Rogers a frail old man.

As the Avengers battle Arnim Zola's Dimension Z hoards in downtown Manhattan, the Falcon flies a ticking super-bomb to the stratosphere, sacrificing his life so the inhabitants of the megalopolis might live.

Remender is not afraid to embrace the hoariest, clunkiest conventions of the genre.

Fear not though, Sam Wilson is not dead. In the end, his Stark-designed vibranium wings shield him from the lethal blast. Only the Falcon character shuffles off, while Sam Wilson is reborn as the "All-New" Captain America.

Remender, whose writing is always to be read with an eye to the present political age, is making a statement here, I believe, about the failure of our first black president. Sam Wilson, the son of community organizers, Marvel's first African-American superhero, is taking his shot as leader of the Free World. Will he fail like Obama? Or will Remender, a true radical, render this black Captain America, albeit if only as a counterfactual, a triumph?

New Avengers Annual #1

The important Marvel character of Doctor Strange is today relegated to a supporting role in the pages of The New Avengers. But New Avengers Annual #1 is all Dr. Strange. The art by Marco Rudy is so good I think it proves my point that the art in today's comic books is as fine as that found anywhere.

For many years I lived with a woman who was a fine artist, a painter, a holder of a prestigious degree from a respected art school. I lived with her while she practiced her craft, lived through her struggles getting her work displayed. We went to a lot of gallery openings and museum shows together. Prior to my relationship with Mary, I had figured out how to look at art by hanging out with my father-in-law, who was an artist and art professor. You sort of open yourself up and let it in, and then, being honest, you tell yourself what just happened.

When my father was going through a difficult spell with my mother, and probably with life in general -- this was during the Watergate era -- he read Doctor Strange: Master of the Mystic Arts. I think it had an impact on him, particularly Doctor Strange #4, "Dr. Strange Meets . . . DEATH!"  In that issue, Dr. Strange travels inside his powerful amulet, the Eye of Agamotto, to rescue his girlfriend Clea, who has been kidnapped and taken there by the evil villain Silver Dagger, who looks like an aging blue-collar Hippie.

Dr. Strange confronts death, actually dies, but, if my memory serves me, he triumphs in the end, in a later issue, not #4, by realizing that death is just his own ego. Very true. I think he smashes a mirror or the Eye of Agamotto itself and frees himself. I could be wrong. I am recollecting all this from grade-school boyhood memories.

The run of Doctor Strange issues that Steve Englehart and Frank Brunner produced together in 1973 and 1974 are definitive of the era, a high point culturally, up there with Bruce Lee movies and Neil Young's Ditch Trilogy.

Below you will find six scans from New Avengers Annual #1 (August 2014), the cover and first five interior pages minus the introductory title page with credits. All the art is Marco Rudy's. Frank Barbiere is the writer. The story flashes back and forth between time present and time past. Time past is Stephen Strange as a cocky young neurosurgeon. Time present is Doctor Strange on a trip back to the Tibet mountain hideaway where he learned the mystic arts from the Ancient One.