Marvel Comics Exec Editor Reflects On Captain America Hydra Reveal: “We Were Perhaps Under-Concerned About The Impact That This Moment Was Going To Have”
While has as no regrets regarding the controversial storyline itself and genuinely feels like it wrapped up in a “mostly-satisfying way”, Marvel Comics Executive Editor Tom Brevoort has admitted that those involved in the controversial decision to reveal the original Captain America, Steve Rogers, as a long-time Hydra sleeper agent were “perhaps under-concerned about the impact that this moment was going to have when it hit.”
For those who may appreciate a quick refresher, the path to said ‘Hydra Cap’ reveal began in 2014’s Captain America Vol. 7 #21 when a battle between Steve and the villain known as the Iron Nail ended not only with the villain’s defeat, but also the complete neutralization of the Super-Soldier Serum coursing through the Star-Spangled Avenger’s body courtesy of his opponent’s supernatural powers.
No longer benefiting from the serum’s age-slowing effects, the ravages of time near-immediately caught up to Steve, resulting in both his body catching up to his true age of 90+ (although the ice preserved him after World War 2, he still would have aged while encased therein if not for the serum) and the loss of his super-athleticism.
Unable to serve in any sort of field capacity, Steve proceeded to retire from the role of Captain America, in doing so personally passing the mantle to his former side-kick and long-time friend Sam Wilson.
However, rather than give up the superhero game completely, Rogers instead opted to take a more strategic role with the Avengers and serve as the team’s overall ‘man in the chair’.
After two years real time in this role – during which he would notably be erased and brought back into reality thanks to the events of Secret Wars – Steve would eventually find himself embroiled in the breakout at Pleasant Hill, a S.H.I.E.L.D. operated super-prison whose inmates had their minds forcibly manipulated by Kobik, a version of the Cosmic Cube which had birthed itself into sentience as a young girl, into abandoning their villainous ways.
Entering the prison to find Kobik and help her restore order, Steve is ambushed by his long-time enemy Crossbones, who proceeds to savagely beat him within an inch of his life.
But right before Crossbones delivers the final blow, Kobik, who has since grown attached to Steve, steps in to give him a fighting chance, warping reality itself to restore him to proper, Super-Soldier Serum-powered self.
In the aftermath of Pleasant Hill, the Marvel Universe seemed to gently settle back into its status quo, with Steve even once again donning the Captain America identity.
Yet unbeknownst to even the hero himself was the fact that thanks to Kobik having been indoctrinated into the ways of Hydra by the Red Skull during his internment in Pleasant Hill, the young Cosmic Cube had used the opportunity of Steve’s revival to also rewrite his actual history and re-establish him as having been both a Nazi supporter and a Hydra sleeper agent since the earliest days of the war.
These developments eventually culminated in the infamous moment in 2016’s Captain America: Steve Rogers Vol. 1 #1 when, after finding his plan to ‘fake’ the saving of Dr. Erik Selvig from Baron Zemo as a cover to assassinate him on behalf of the Red Skull suddenly interrupted by the on-scene arrival of fellow America-themed super hero Jack Flag, Steve proceeds to throw him out of an airplane’s cargo hold before assuring said scientist of his allegiances with a confident declaration of, “Hail Hydra.”
Though it would eventually be revealed, in true comic book form, that this ‘Hydra Cap’ was actually a fake version of Steve and that the real one had been hidden away inside Kobik’s mind, this moment still remains one of Marvel Comics’ most controversial, with many to this day still believing it to have been a politically-charged commentary on the then-upcoming 2016 U.S. Presidential election, in particular the candidacy of Republican nominee Donald Trump.
Given that said debut issue of Captain America: Steve Rogers Vol. 1 hit comic book store shelves on May 25th, 2016, Brevoort took the time to reflect on its publication as part of his regular ‘A Comic I Worked On That Came Out On This Date’ feature, as featured in every entry of his Sunday-published Man With A Hat Substack blog.
“Here comes trouble!” began the Marvel Comics editor. “[This issue] came out on May 25, 2016, marking the first time that Rogers picked up the identity of the Living Legend of World War II in a couple of years. But of course, all anybody remembers about this first issue is its final pages, in which the rejuvenated Rogers reveals that something is very wrong with him, as he reveals that he’s an operative working for Hydra.”
“If we were over-concerned about bringing back Bucky, we were perhaps under-concerned about the impact that this moment was going to have when it hit,” wrote Brevoort. “We knew it was going to cause controversy, that was pretty much the whole point. But fans went crazy, and not even just fans—this moment became the center of that culture wars, with any number of bad actors pointing at it as evidence of some manner of moral decay that had infected the entire industry.”
“Thing were serious enough that I received death threats for allowing this to happen—I had to cancel an appearance at that year’s Baltimore Comic Con due to a threat that was sent from the Baltimore area and that the police we consulted considered a legitimate threat and not just some blowhard spouting off,” he continued. “Fun times! The person who got hit the hardest was probably writer Nick Spencer, and most of those who were angry didn’t want to hear that this was the first move in a carefully-constructed storyline that was going to play out over the next 18 months or so.”
Bringing his thoughts on the issue to a close, Brevoort asserted, “It was a big, brassy story—maybe too big at certain points—and one that Nick almost lost control of at one point or another. But ultimately, we were able to keep the whole thing together long enough to land the plane in a mostly-satisfying way in the Secret Empire crossover that came the following year. Lost in the crowd a little bit, but probably thankful for it in this instance, was artist Jesus Saiz, who turned in some seriously great artwork on this issue and those that followed.”
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