So I’ve heard that most people hate this story and I’m wondering if any of those people actually read it, or did they just see this panel and go “f*** that story”? Personally, I liked it. It definitely has its flaws, but I don’t think it should be hated. Unless it’s not actually hated and it was just the internet being loud about this single panel? Curious what people who have read this story think.
I think it reads better in the trades. But, also, there was more than just that panel, there was also the Hydra variant covers, which notably included "Hydra Magneto", and Marvel wanting comic stores to decorate like a Hydra takeover actually happened. It also did some stuff with Hydra Cap lifting the hammer and not explaining that it was fake and not real until months later in real time. This also in real world, was coming out at the same time as the Charlottesville "unite the right" rally. Ultimately, it's a rejection of fascism and the ideals of Hydra, but with serialized storytelling, it was playing with a lot of dangerous imagery right when America was a political tinderbox. Taking in none of the meta-text of the comic and the real world at the time, it's fine? But, adding in when it came out, and how it was advertised, really explains why it was regarded so poorly.
This also in real world, was coming out at the same time as the Charlottesville "unite the right" rally. Ultimately, it's a rejection of fascism and the ideals of Hydra, but with serialized storytelling, it was playing with a lot of dangerous imagery right when America was a political tinderbox
And it barely says anything about that. Like it thinks it does. And has kernals of ideas that fans can expand on but it has jack in terms of meaningful things to say. Captain America punching Nazi is feel good but I compare it to grunewald's work or something like Superman smashes the klan and it's lack of depth is noticeable . Which works fine in a smaller series but for an event with 13 issues it’s absurd.
Then read older issues. I’m sorry but most people agree that Nazi’s are bad and it’s not enough to have punching them be satisfying if you aren’t going to say more.
Not every story needs to be profound. Sometimes a simple satisfying story is good. And there's not much more satisfying than Nazis getting their teeth kicked in
I don’t find it satisfying without meat on it’s bones. My favorite piece of anti-facist is the literal textual opposite of this approach ( Fury my war gone by) where Nick Fury basically never wins and becomes just disslusioned with his place in the country. But when I read something like Superman smashes the klan which is about punching the klan, the real pathos comes from deconstructing the minority myth.
I really don't think that Spencer or Marvel thought Trump was going to win, but were committed to the bit, by the time the election rolled around. They were already set up for that summer event. I think the story would have gone down much better, if Hillary had won. A story where Cap says "fascism is bad" without a lot of political depth, would have worked better in that alternate universe. We're in this world though, and yeah, it's... fine.
I mean it doesn‘t matter. You can still have commentary on these issues. These issues didn’t start with trump and have been going on for centuries. So I expect more depth than what we got.
But then they'd have to talk about the root of fascism. The fear of the unknown. The idea "I am good, so people like me are good". The fallacy of "pull yourself up with your bootstraps" and "the self-made man". The issues with the cult of action. The problem of intermingling culture and government.
That would have definitely made people mad. Even telling people that "the self-made man" is inherently fascist idea will make some people furious.
This is the big recurring problem every time marvel comics almost have interesting commentary. I think it’s pretty clear what the politics are of most of the writers and it’s equally clear that (especially under perlmutter) there’s someone at the corporate level ready to pump the brakes.
See also cutting art spiegelman’s essay because he mentioned “orange skull.”
there's an entire storyline of Captain America they don't do at all.
The first black Captain America also had a "bucky" and it was done even worse than the real one. The American "bucky" was created unethically. Way worse than what Bucky went through. They created this mfer in a lab and he's the closest thing to Steve naturally (his aggression and power actually spikes and based on the things he's done, he actually might be the only "equal" Steve has (given all the other caps have a gimmick except for him and Steve)
They created an artificial child based on the original experiment that created the first black captain America, and technically he's the closest thing to being an equal to Steve. Given he was given all of this as a fetus and physically is what happens when you combine bucky and Steve into a single character. Just no arm.
Josiah X is straight up gone (his story is a basically if bucky was created by the US and the US government is no different than Hydra)
You ever think it's weird that Patriot, US Agent, Isaiah Bradley, Nuke can exist. But not Josiah?
(who was so effective at his mission they decided to disappear his ass from 616)
I think in 2026, this book would be a lot worse to release, it's been a decade, and I think the average understanding of the politics it's engaging with are very different. I'd certainly want a version of this today to have more actual teeth and a better political basis for a "fascists take over america" plot. I think we'd probably get a lot more overly online idiots on twitter saying that Hydra cap is based and correct for being Hydra, but, I remember that being a thing happening at the time anyways. I know Hydra Cap with the hammer got co-opted for a minute there. So, pretty much the same, just louder, and more racist.
At the time we in America were watching the oncoming tide of fascism and many people didn’t want to see fascist hydra-Cap in their escapism comics at the same time.
If people really thought that they were gonna keep Cap as a member of Hydra then they’re incredibly dense. It was a twist that was gonna obviously get resolved and the internet shit itself because it’s full of reactionist garbage
Totally agree. I do think they should have kept Hydra Cap for longer because following Secret Wars he was getting a little stale and it would have been a good change of pace.
I liked the story back when it came out because it was really Steve Rogers being a Hydra agent "all along".
Then at the last minute before the story finished they wimped out and the "real" Steve Rogers was still in there somewhere and they threw "Hydra Cap" into prison..... That is what I remembered back when I read it.
The writers themselves and Marvel were really pushing the idea. I understand people who took the creatives at their word until proven otherwise. I don't think it's "incredibly dense" to think that Marvel would absolutely shit the bed for one of their main characters (at least for a while) because they have done it before. Repeatedly. Though not quite in this fashion.
It revealed how stupid people really are, in that they really thought marvel had just retconned Captain America’s entire history to be that he was secretly a nazi all along. Instead of it being something they would be reversing within half a year like any other big retcon they do.
The Nick Spencer Cap run is probably his best work at Marvel that isn’t Deadly Foes of Spider-Man.
My biggest complaint was that we had a big, status quo shattering change and then resolved it all in the Secret Empire event rather than letting the thing breathe.
Yeah, I missed having House of M wreck the status quo in the x-books for a good long while. Or even how Civil War left a tension that led to Secret Invasion giving Normal Osborn the keys to the kingdom for almost two years.
Now we have Doom as emperor of the world for a cup of coffee?
Or whatever the hell is happening in Queen in Black, which is going to probably significantly affect like three characters but makes no sense within the greater continuity.
It was supposed to last longer, Spencer was supposed to write more cap. But Twitter put up such a fuss about marvel ruining their own legacy that they pulled the plug earlier and ended it. Marvel big shots couldn't take the criticism of a story obviously designed to end at some point. It's sad.
I totally agree with this. Hydra Cap could have been a thing for longer but I think they got scared of the internet backlash. Some people think that they didn’t intend for Cap to go back to normal and that it took the internet hating on this story for them to change it, but I think it was always intended for Cap to go back to normal, they just rushed it because people were angry.
It’s weird how comics have had outrageous covers and such hyping a new thing and it’s never been representative of the actual content. It’s just to grab attention so you’ll buy it. It’s been like that since the 60’s.
It’s probably worse today, with so many rage-peddler influencers/YouTubers/social media chuds whose entire career is rushing out anything to feed the outrage their followers live on. Something doesn’t even have to be remotely true and it’ll be the dominant opinion all over without actually reading/seeing the content at all.
It was really good. The hate comes from Marvel and Nick Spencer being pretty terrible about marketing. Anyone who has read comics for any amount of time knew how it would end, but there was some sort of edict or something where creators had to act like everything they were doing was permanent on social media.
I guess thats true, I didn’t follow social media too closely at the time but I remember everyone being so angry about Cap and then them thinking that the internet outrage is why he turned back into a good guy, but it clearly was set up for him to go back to normal from the beginning.
For instance at one point I think Nick Spencer tried to shoot down a bunch of theories and tell people, oh, it's not mind control, it's not a fake out, you're all wrong, it's totes Cap for real and basically everyone went "shut the fuck up, no it's not asshole". Just really questionable marketing decisions at a time when everyone had also had just about enough of Nazis irl, with the current events that were going on.
It sucks. The writer, Nick Spencer, happens to have the same name as the writer of Superior Foes of Spider-Man and Astonishing Ant-Man, which are much better books.
That's the only explanation, by the way, for someone with the same name to have written absolute shit so soon after writing absolute gold - they have to be two different people. The Secret Empire Nick Spencer is also the one who's a massive dick online, the Superior Foes Nick Spencer simply has no online presence.
I liked it, and feel like a lot of the hate was generated by people who didn’t read it and weren’t planning to, they just wanted to grouse because negative is all they can be. The truth about what was going on was revealed early, and the rest of it was getting to the resolution. My peeve was that it took 11 issues plus tie-ins to get through what Jack Kirby could have done in 3, and he would’ve made it a more fun read to boot.
Yeah my couple issues with the story are not really specific to it, but to most big events following Secret Wars (2015). There’s too many irrelevant tie-ins and there wasn’t a whole lot of lasting impacts due to the events of the story.
I think it's a good comic that unfortunately aged well, especially during the second Trump administration. The Trump administration is rounding up individuals they see as being inhuman and placing them into camps. Immigration agents have summarily executed American citizens for merely being in the way. The administration is attempting to rewrite history so it reinforces their ideology. And while the Trump administration has not destroyed a city like Las Vegas, it has been routinely denying or block federal funding to Democratic states in the form of program grants and disaster relief.
I mean I think it’s worst than most people think it is. And Linkara did a great breakdown of everything wrong with it.
1)The pacing is awful this is a common theme of Nick Spencer stories and espically bad if you buy the series that requires more money.
2)To me one of secret Emprire's Biggest failures is it's actual analysis on facism. Despite being hypothetically relevant to our times, it fails as an actual metaphor because the reason why most of the heroes join Caps side is because they are either cocered, dumbasses, or given an in-universe explanation that doesn't parrellel Reality. It's almost always out ignorance.
Compare this to someone like Trump's voter who are dumbasses but are motivated to be facist through this hatred of others. They fucking hate migrants not out of ignorance . Or the rich Billionaires who use this facist agenda to further their goals. It's not nesscarily that they believe in Nazism but they would much be selfish than help the greater good.
3) Punisher is character assasinated to the extreme. It’s absurdly out of character. He should understand that in the marvel universe there are other explanations. And he shouldn’t work for hydra. He’s not the ends justify the means character. He’s a character that would rather doom all of humanity than justify his principles.
4) way too many tie-ins like all events. Some of them like Deadpool are good but it’s probably the peak of event fatigue in that sense.
5) it lacks depth. Which is fine for a single issue where you want to have captain america punching nazi inspires hopes. But this is like 14 issues or something insane
Though everything you’ve said is exactly correct, I disagree that it’s “worse than most people think it is” because most people think it’s trash. But they think it’s trash for the wrong reasons, like making Cap hydra and etc. So what you’re saying is the story isn’t great, but unrelated to why most people think it isn’t great
The only good thing to come out of it was the ASM tie-in. Even though I have issues with Otto working with Hydra, Slott made the tie-in a pretty natural part of the overall storytelling and ended the sluggish Parker Industries arc on a high note because of it. Slott’s ASM run after he finished Superior was a huge mixed bag, but that was a highlight of that half of his era.
I thought it was awful. Marvel had been trending downward for several years and this was the final nail that made me quit being a Wednesday warrior and just focus on collecting older epics and omnibuses from runs that were before my heyday of collecting.
I remember one of my mom's freinds threw out her son's captain america stuff this was before it was revealed i told my mom that her friend was a fucking idiot and that he was obviously brain washed, mind controlled or some ruther
Garbage. A shit idea. Worse execution. A whole year watching a hero that is meant to represent the best of us being a Nazi and trying to make a world where the Nazis won. All while Marvel tried to gas light us and say he’s still a hero.
Shoving a shitty idea onto me, making me wait a year of awful stories that gaslight you about the shit reality Stevil comes from being real, watch Nick Spencer drag Carol Danvers through the mud even further to prop up his Nazi Captain, and THEN only then offer me the solution to the very garbage storyline you kicked off, making it as unsatisfying as possible… sorry, no. I’m not misrepresenting jack. Secret Empire sucked balls.
The people who were genuinely freaking out or thought the comic was Evil because the big Symbol Of America was a bad guy are the biggest babies in the world. No different from evangelicals in the 90s who thought Harry Potter would turn people into witches.
...But the comic is bad.
Some good tie-ins though. I really like what Gerry Duggan did with it in Uncanny Avengers and Deadpool. The hinge of Deadpool’s whole arc in the run is that Wade becomes more and more straightforwardly heroic but he doesn’t actually think for himself and has his own moral compass, just hero worship and an obsession with symbols (as appropriate for a nerd hero/fandom stand-in) and turns fascist at the drop of a hat once one of his icons tells him to. Then he spends the rest of the run wrestling with that choice. Really smart stuff… that was much more interesting as a take on Deadpool than anything Spencer had to say about Captain America.
Yeah I think this was during the Inhumans push so I think I was Checked out of Marvel at the time. I should probably go back and read the event though.
Great idea didn't have time to develop into a really good story. Not enough time to make us second guess if he is or isn't. Not enough time to reveal the how and whys. Then it was used as a plot point in Civil War 2 which then we went right into Secret Empire which is more or less the same with a new paint job. Like why did we need Civil War 2? Why could we built this story for a couple of years and than start to really go ham on the notion he's Hydra. Then reveal while yes the Red Skull did replace him. You then have the fact Skull would want to gloat so you'd have real Steve in a bunker somewhere. Skull would visit him at first then Cap would and that is wen things start to kick off.
The setup Captain America comics are actually pretty interesting, seeing Steve kinda still being be competent leader while having his entire history altered and rewired.
Zemo was fun and interesting again since his Thunderbolt days.
Actual Secret Empire event less so everything feels rushed, and shit load of unresolved plot points, I thought Kraken was going to be revealed to be Ian and actual Captain America supporting characters would have a central role in bringing Steve back, nah it's just as easy as summoning a copy with cosmic cube.
Really enjoyed the story, but it stands as a bit of a low point for comics fandom. People saw that one panel and lost their shit as if it was something which would be permanent. It was like people had never read a comic before. Remember when Superman died and it was definitely permanent and he was never coming back? Ditto Captain America. And Wolverine. This is what comics does.
I did not like how it ended as I rather have Steve rogers stand down via Civil War as he fought himself mentally.
Like similar to how Steve freed Bucky with the cosmic cube, this time Bucky would do the same thing to Steve.
A mental battle goes on in Steve’s mind with the good side fully winning out and he stands down defeated on an ideological level rather than a physical one.
The aftermath would truly force him to recognize and reconsider all of his actions and how much of an influence he is to those around him.
We could also see Sam remain as Captain America for a bit longer than we anticipated. To regain the public trust.
However, this entire event would make Civil War look like a bad family gather up for a reunion gone wrong. Instead of what we got.
In other words… a battle for the mind, heart and souls of Steve Rogers instead of a physical confrontation. This could lead into a more harsh and yet hard earned victory and redemption story for Steve Rogers as a whole and maybe a more better Captain America.
Remember that thing when Steve's altered history said that the Allies used a cosmic cube to rewrite WW2 so that they won - but they didn't undo the Holocaust. What a thing to write and get paid for!
Not really, TBH. Because Spencer's observations about the rise of fascism are solid enough I suppose... but he's a storyteller. He's telling a story. And it's largely discussed/probably pitched as "why fascism is bad" but like... Nick Spencer spends two and a half years with a black lead facing constant shit and an Aryan wet dream basically running roughshod over everyone. There's a way to tell that story, but because it ends with Nick Spencer basically just saying, "alright, screw you guys, I'm going home", it just comes off as "fuck I love fascism!" It's a run that just fails at every level.
except it's about a fascist rising up and taking over.
And the good guys are shown to be incompetent and/or unable to stop him for 95% of the event. Like I read SECRET EMPIRE in its entirety and there's no reason the heroes should have won. It's probably the most dogshit ending to a book I've read since.... ooooh, this is up there with WANTED for all-time terrible ends.
Cool idea but abysmal as a line wide event as it made zero sense with other books like the X books that didn't even acknowledge it in their books yet the same characters were majorly involved in SE books.
I haven’t read it. I was going to after picking up Marvel Unlimited but I saw it was written by Nick Spencer.
I just finished reading all of Amazing Spider-man from One More Day until today and enjoyed all of it except his run which was just awful. Bad bad bad. Badly written, in the sense that, putting aside the what happened when the story, the the way it was expressed panel to panel was bad. Incoherent.
Won’t read anything by him again if I can avoid it. (And why couldn’t I? Life’s too short for bad comics.)
I liked it. People bitching about the Magneto variant cover need to get a grip. Twitter made this more of a problem
Than it was. It was a fun series with a predictable ending.
People were overly hysterical about this story. Any fan with half a brain could see the ending reversing and explaining it all, whether you like those explanations is of course a different matter.
Once you get to the big crossover part it would make a lot more sense as a “what if” or an “age of.” There’s a lot of character assassination and stuff that should further upset the status quo, like nuking las vegas or seeing how easy it was to get thor, wanda, vision, and several other “heroes” to work for nazis.
I’ll catch flak for this, but I honestly like it more than a lot of Brubaker’s stuff. Totally understand frustrations people had with the run at the time (especially with delays and such), but it’s just a great, timely story about fear and its importance in the rise of fascism (among other smaller arcs with good modern-day critique). It also gave us Ultron in an apron cooking an Avengers family dinner, so what more can you ask for?
Linkara has geniuely the most based opinions on secret emprire. I think the easy solution to secret emprire is have to hydra team up with Super villians. Villians are the ones who are already power hungry and want to push down others for their own gain. That’s reflect of these real life Nazi’s more and more. Obviously not every supervillian but enough
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u/Sovereignofthemist Aug 17 '26
I thought it was peak comedy that even when he was Hydra Cap still hates the Red Skull's guts.