Steve Rogers in 1944: I know I’ve never seen combat and have actually never won any kind of physical fight, ever but I’m going to go alone 30 miles behind enemy lines and defeat an entire factory full of squid Nazis by myself in order to save Bucky because I refuse to believe he’s dead
People in 2016: We sent a SWAT team after Barnes and we know Rogers will be upset but we told him to chill out so we’re sure it will all end well without any grown men crying on the floor in Siberia
ok a followup from my irony post: one of the things i love most about steve rogers as seen in the mcu is that he doesn’t do the thing that ‘feels right’ or looks most virtuous or american or whatever, he’s not sentimental, he knows what hell is like because he has been there and it’s called the western front. he grew up sick and poor and irish catholic when there was no kindness for those things in the american narrative, he is not the kind of guy who thinks everything will turn out okay if you just believe in yourself.
he doesn’t do what he feels is the right thing, he does what he decides is the right thing. and sometimes it feels terrible, and has terrible consequences. at no point in ‘civil war’, for instance, does he seem to think his decision is The Right Choice and tony’s is Wrong. he knows there was no right answer, only two wrong ones, and he picked the one he could live with. and people bled for it.
i wouldn’t say he’s a ‘logic’ character, he’s not that trope, but he is secretly, subtly, ruthlessly thoughtful.
so when he does something like, say, become a fugitive from the entire world within minutes of hearing there’s a shoot-first order out on bucky, it’s not that blind emotional panic that drives so many heroes. it’s as cold and unstoppable as a glacier.
an emotionally driven hero has, inherently, a sense of entitlement about the outcome of their choices. if you believe in your friends, if you tell the truth when you ought to lie, if you refuse to take the kill shot because heroes don’t kill, things will definitely turn out okay in the end somehow. and of course the narrative always supports this, because that’s the genre, that’s the trope set. there’s no room for a counterpoint in their universe.
and then there’s captain fucking america.
look, i’m sleep-deprived and haven’t planned this post out at all so it’s probably kind of a mess, but what i’m getting at here is that the ‘golden boy’ of superheroes, the star spangled man with a plan, this corny, schmaltzy, old-timey character, isn’t light because the darkness hasn’t touched him. he’s light because he set his jaw and marched into the darkness and he set it the fuck on fire.
aren’t we all glad that steve rogers didn’t become the hulk instead of captain america? that boy is always angry and ready for a fight even without the gamma rays
Okay, but imagine this. None of Steve’s friends are in jail or getting shot at. Tony hasn’t blown up anything important in a while. Bucky and Steve go off to see the Grand Canyon. Steve has a moment of perfect bliss … and suddenly he’s tiny again.
“Holy cow, you are like the Hulk, you’re just never not angry!”
Aaand, Steve is big again.
Next time, Bucky keeps his mouth shut and gets almost five minutes of cuddling before Steve remembers about anti-vaxxers.
One of my ALL TIME favorite Captain America comics is “Man Out of Time” – a fantastically written miniseries by Mark Waid and GORGEOUSLY illustrated by Jorge Molina ( @jorgemolinam ) that retells the story of Cap coming out of the ice. It deals with the weight of loss of his removal from his own time, greiving over Bucky’s loss (and remembering him after the Brubaker soft retcon of being about 20 when he “died”).
One of the most striking moments to me is at one point in a flashback, Cap is talking to Bucky about what they want to do after the war is over. Bucky says that he always wanted to visit the Grand Canyon – he never saw it – and it is a part/represents of what they’re fighting the war for.
At the end of the comic, as Cap has some time to himself, he travels to the Grand Canyon for Bucky, as a way to deal with his loss, and this moment happens:
And, well, this moment always gets me. Steve going there, drawing Bucky, and “showing him” the Grand Canyon in the only way he can. It’s his way to try to start to move forward.
It was always a dream of mine to see an epilogue, of Steve being actually able to take him there in person after he finds out he’s still alive. This weekend, I was able to make that a reality.
I had the distinct privilege to be able to commission Jorge Molina himself (the original artist of Man out of Time), at Wizard World New Orleans for just that scene, and here it is:
I am BLOWN AWAY by the work he did – this is a traditional media piece, done in inks and copic markers, and the values he worked in, the expressions, the dynamic pose that conveys the awe of the location, and yet still have it be a tender, quiet moment between the two of them. in the Grand Canyon, Steve with the sketchbook, hand squeezing Bucky’s shoulder, both masks off and taking in the natural majesty of the canyon.
And God, to see Bucky looking honest-to-god /HAPPY/.
;__________;
Thank you SO much, Jorge, this is everything I could have wanted and more.
Maybe I’ll be able to (ditigally) color this some day 🙂
This is incredibly beautiful and so damn uplifting that I could cry. The amount of detail for a con commission is stunning. It’s like he always had that picture in his head, and was just waiting for an opportunity to create it.
Bucky Barnes discovers sugar, demands coffee, makes a variety of
involuntary noises, cuddles up to Steve Rogers, regrows a limb, and
fakes it ‘til he makes it at being a person.
Hey, I’ve been recced! Thank you to @hurtcomfortbucky
knitting in the dark 