What Does a Hydra Captain America Really Mean?

Spoilers ahead if you have not read the Captain America HYDRA issue #1.

Steve Rogers: “A HYDRA Double Agent”

Steve Rogers with HYDRA? What has the world come to? Steve Rogers, also known as Captain America, has recently been outed and not in a good way. Not in the way the fandoms wanted, anyway. He is not in love with Bucky Barnes… YET… but, it was written into stone that he was a member of HYDRA. The entire time and the Captain America we see as Cap is no longer the good guy who wants to save the world. He is a part of the opposing team. Now, could one of Marvel’s most beloved heroes really have been a Nazi all along or is this a huge one-shot comic to mess with everyone who loves Steve Rogers? It could be the result of bad writing coming from the Marvel team. Or, it could be the result of good writing coming from the Marvel team. Alas, we will never really know, either way. But, what we do know is about who Captain America is. How he has come to where he is now. Was Captain America a Nazi working for HYDRA something we saw all along and did not really pay attention to it? Was he whispering ‘Hail HYDRA’ when we weren’t looking closely? Or are we trying to justify these terrible writers use for gasp’s and awe’s as they buy the new issue because he’s now with HYDRA?

Let’s look back on a few moments that Captain America has done that have been questionable to his heroism. Not only moments that he has done but moments in his life that have proved this theory – or not proved at the same time.

Captain America: Through the Years

We all know the Captain America we know and love. The hero of all heroes. The good guy. The one we all root for in every Avengers and Captain America film.

BUT, to know that he is now with HYDRA proves readers to now question who they looked up to. How did Captain America become HYDRA? How did we not see this all along? Well, according to the issue Steve’s mother was saved from abuse by a HYDRA agent and she somehow convinced Sarah and Steve to go to a HYDRA meeting in Brooklyn. Ever since that meeting, Steve has been obsessed with what HYDRA stood for and where they were headed. And, from then on, he has and always was an undercover double agent for HYDRA. In every way you look at it, you will find certain instances of Captain America being with HYDRA… according to the writers of this issue. It was there all along.

His parents were poor Irish immigrants as the creators have first stated in about 1930-ish. That does not seem like someone who would want to go with HYDRA for the sake of HYDRA brain-washing him. He came from the lowest of the low, you would think he would want to save lives such as what the Avengers do currently. Now, the serum could have been the moment where he switched to HYDRA there are many moments in Marvel history where you think what they are doing is good and it ends up being the opposite. It seems to be terrible writing because they instead chose to alter the way his parents raised him and alter the way he ‘accidentally’ goes to this HYDRA meeting when they could have started with the serum. It is cliché, but better than what they came up with in the long run it seems. It seems unbelievable that Captain America being who he is would go to HYDRA and be on the same team. His personality does not make the reader believe it.

In certain instances we have Captain America being Captain America – but, IF Cap was with HYDRA during the Civil War series, why would he want to keep his superhero friends from being under government influence? Wouldn’t helping them (like Iron Man was) favor HYDRA in a way? Because then HYDRA would know about every superhero or persons with superpowers. The again, you could say he did that so the members of HYDRA would not have to do it and they would not be outed. So, even though Marvel’s decision to take on this plot driven series, it might all make sense… but, you have to think about it hard enough to sit down and ponder. Why should it be that way for a plot twist?

It feels as though the writers are taking everything to the extreme to prove why he was HYDRA all along. Readers would then be questioning “Why” more so than anything else. Why would he wear the colors of the American flag if he was with HYDRA? It seems that if you believe Captain America is with HYDRA, then he is going through an awful lot to simply be an undercover double agent. Now, even some of the best HYDRA agents do not go through so much because they dislike the opposing side. What was the endgame for Marvel to prove that everything he was doing was not over-the-top too much to be with HYDRA? He wanted to infiltrate the Avengers, of course, and take over the team, possibly. But, why? What is the point? HYDRA wants to take over the world, sure, but they still do not have a compact reason as to why they want to do it so bad – which, is why Avengers always win against them the majority of the time. The Avengers have a solid reason for saving the world every time they do it, HYDRA does not have a solid reason to end it.

Steve Rogers’ mom died after he graduated high school and his dad died when he was a child. It does not specify when the time frame that they claim Steve got into HYDRA but seeming as though his dad died early on – how would he have the influence if he was a child going to this meeting. Why would Steve also try so hard to keep Bucky from going with HYDRA throughout his life, IF he was with HYDRA as well? It seems that even between the 1940s and 50s he was fighting off Nazis as much as he possibly could and it makes you wonder why he was doing that if he was with them the whole time. The writing seems to be off because, again, why he would go through the work of fighting people who were on his own team and taking them to jail or holding them captive. If you are a double agent for HYDRA you normally do not kill or hold captive people you work for or are on your same team. Or maybe you do.

It seems that the plot driven issue of Captain America has been exactly that – a plot-driven series. It seems to not have been thought through enough for it to make sense on both ends of the plot being assessed. The instances of Captain America throughout the years have been saving the world and dying, in that order. He has died, or almost died as much as one person can. But, maybe he has “died” in the series so he could work for HYDRA and find new ways to infiltrate. That seems to be the only way one would think he could have become HYDRA throughout his life.

Not only is all of this relevant, but what adds more substance to Captain America’s new found title is that he was created by Jewish creators. He was created and fighting the people he has become for himself when he was first created and what does that make of who Captain America is as a whole? Would they be okay with that? It’s doubtful. These creators chose to make this character in order to make the life they had, have light with whatever hardships that may have been. To change that and alter that and then make Captain America apart of the opposing team lessens that in a lot of ways. Making Captain America a HYDRA agent is a slight slap in the face to the creators who created this superhero for bigger reasons than this.

What To Make of HYDRA’s New/Old Double Agent?

The writing of this issue makes it seem like everything he has done previously to May 25th, 2016 is void.

Captain America has had multiple run-ins with Red Skull, who is with the HYDRA team. Red Skull has had it out for Captain America since before we can even remember. That makes you wonder as a reader, why would someone on the same team as Captain America would continuously fight them or try and kill them. Then again, maybe it was for show. That is also a possibility as well. So these new writers are proving to us that everything Captain America has done has been all for show?

All of the little children who have liked Captain America and have grown up with Captain America will not perceive this as something indifferent. They liked someone who was a hero, but also corrupt at the same time. There are kids that look up to Steve Rogers as a person and Captain America as a superhero, to think that they will now know him as a corrupt ‘superhero’ sucks. The writing was terrible and that is not to say all writers should think of the audience that it is writing for. But, in this case maybe a bit. Steve Rogers up until now has focused so much on being that hero, doing the right thing and being that person who does the right thing no matter what. Now it seems to be a foggy blurred line of everything he has ever done and makes you wonder.

Was Cap a HYDRA Agent All Along?

Turns out the writers were just pulling your leg on this one, an article by Inverse indicates that it was undone in the second installment of the series. That would make sense because nothing really added up like they wanted it to. It was an in RL version of click-bait as the article states and says that it was a backstory created by Red Skull (obviously) using the cosmic cube. The article states:

“The actual inception of Captain America was designed as an anti-Nazi message in a time BEFORE the United States was actually involved in WWII, the character has come to represent as kind of stand-in for the opposite of Nazism. Having him align with the Marvel’s version of the Nazis (Hydra) made a lot of people really angry because this felt less like a cool cliffhanger, and more like using anti-Semitism to sell comic books.” – Ryan Britt.

It seems to be a huge over-the-top use for publicity for Marvel, was this a cop-out? Or was Marvel doing something right?

What do you think? Leave a comment.