I’ve been dismally disappointed with previous Captain America movies. The 1990 version I referred to in the strip wasn’t even the worst of the lot. The 1979 made-for-TV version and the even more atrocious sequel, Captain America II: Death Too Soon, didn’t die quickly enough. That year, I was a foreign exchange student in Japan and might have forever been spared the agony of watching such hackneyed bilge. But some television programmer had the bright idea to use them for a double feature in 1980, and this little fan-boy was completely blindsided by the awful treatments. (Steve Rogers as a Commercial Artist? That’s just salt in the wound.) Thinking back on that evening still makes me a little nauseous. So, while I was excited to see what Marvel would come up with for this part of their carefully constructed Avengers franchise, my expectations were less than high, having received the scorched-earth treatment of disappointment once before. Thus, as I watched Captain America: The First Avenger, I felt grateful, pleasant relief. It’s a respectful treatment complete with top-of-the-line set designs, special effects, choreographed fight sequences, and Easter Eggs up the wazoo that will lure me back again and again to see what I missed.
