An illuminating, well-written volume that gives a whole new insight to Marvel Comicss Star-Spangled Avenger and what he stands for in the

twenty-first century.Mark Waid, Marvel Comics writer

An intriguing look at one of the most iconic and misunderstood characters in the history of comics. This book proves that Cap is no one-dimensional flag-

waver: hes a fascinating and complex character who has continually reflected the changes in the equally complex nation he represents.

J.M. DeMatteis, WriterCaptain America, Moonshadow, Brooklyn Dreams

Captain America matters more now than ever, and this book proves it. Digging deep, Mark White excavates Caps complexity, highlighting lessons and

virtues that can help heal America.William Irwin, General Editor of The Blackwell Philosophy and Pop Culture Series

Clad in an American flag, the patriotic comic book character Captain America was first portrayed battling against the forces of evil unleashed during World War II. Today, however, Captain America is often seen as a throwback to a simpler time, embodying a black-and-white ethical code poorly suited to the complexities of the modern world. In The Virtues of Captain America, philosopher and pop culture expert Mark D. White argues that Cap is indeed a hero for the contemporary era and someone to be emulated now more than ever. White reveals that Captain Americas focus on core principles and ideals, combined with his sound judgment, compassion, and iron will, is anything but simpleand is precisely what we need to navigate twenty-first-century problems in our personal lives, our communities, and our country as a whole. White shows us that while Captain America is often regarded as a jingoistic flag-waver, he has been written consistently as representing a kind of patriotism that adheres to basic tenets of liberty and equality while staying above partisan politics. On several occasions, in fact, Captain Americas devotion to these principles has led him to defy the American government when he feels it doesnt live up to its own ideals. Infused with philosophical insights couched in humor, The Virtues of Captain America shows us that by following Caps example, people on both ends of the political spectrum can learn to put their differences aside and focus on their common groundthe basic principles that all of America embodies.

Mark D. White is Professor and Chair of the Department of Philosophy at the College of Staten Island/CUNY and has written, edited, or co-edited many books, including Batman and Philosophy.

whitePHILOSOPHY/POP CULTURE

Modern-Day Lessons on Character from a World War II Superhero

Mark D. whitethis book has not been approved, l icensed, or sponsored by any enti t y or person involved in

creating or producing Captain america, the comics, graphic novels , f ilms, or tV series.

201342File Attachment978111861926 thumbnail image.jpg

The Virtues of Captain America

To my father, who never lost his love for his countryeven when disheartened by the people who ran it.

He will always be my Captain America.

The Virtues of Captain America

Modern-Day Lessons on Character from a World War II Superhero

Mark D. White

This edition first published 2014 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

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Cover image: Flag LoudRedCreative; Star Moose2000; Wings Visualgo; Metalbackground Pomachka (all images iStockphoto)Cover design by Simon Levy

Set in 10.5/13pt Minion by SPi Publisher Services, Pondicherry, India

1 2014

Contents

Introduction viiAcknowledgments xiiiNotes on Source Material xivAbout the Author xvi

1 Superhuman Ethics Class 1Utilitarianism 2Deontology 6A Civil War of Ethics! 10Virtue Ethics 13Virtuous Deontology No, Deontological Virtue MaybeDeontovirtue? 18

2 Captain America as a Moral Exemplar 25Can a Fictional Character Be a Moral Exemplar? 26Arent Fictional Characters Liable to Be Perfect? 29Fifty Years, Dozens of Writers One Captain America? 34

3 Five Basic Virtues 45Courage 46Humility 50Righteous Indignation 54Sacrifice and Responsibility 58Perseverance 63

4 Honor and Integrity 76The Honor of Captain America 76External Honor as Respect 78Internal Honor as Integrity 85Principle and Compromise 88Duty and Sacrifice (Again) 96

vi Contents

5 Judgment 109Making the Hard Decisions 110Whose Right Answer? 115Tragic Dilemmas and How to Avoid Them 118Black-and-White or Red, White, and Blue? When Judgment Evolves 122Hitting the Threshold 131

6 Principle and Politics 143Patriotism: The Captain and America 143Cosmopolitanism 146The American Dream Versus the American Reality 150Im a Hero, Not a Politician! 153Principle over Politics 156Captain America in (Principled) Action 161

Secret Empire/Nomad 161The Captain 163Civil War 166

7 Can Captain America Help Us Achieve Greater Unity and Civility? 178The Divided States of America, Then and Now 178The Three Core American Ideals 181

Justice 182Equality 184Liberty 186

Debating What We Disagree On While Recognizing What We Share 188Now Its Our Turn 193

Appendix: Why Are There Seven Volumes of Captain America and Five Volumes of Avengers? 198References 202Index 221

Introduction

This is a book Ive wanted to write for years, and Im very excited finally to share it with you. In these pages, Im going to explain how Captain Americathe fictional World War II super-soldier and modern-day Avenger familiar from comic books, movies, and animated TV series provides an example of the personal virtues that philosophers since ancient times have put forward as defining personal excellence, as well as the ideals and principles upon which the United States of America was founded. To do this, I will combine my love of superhero comics with my background in moral and political philosophy to show how we can be better peoplefor ourselves, our family, and our communitiesand how we can raise the level of political discussion in America so we can start addressing our problems rather than simply yelling at each other about them.

Not bad for something based on a funny book, huh?Captain Americaor simply Caphas been one of the premier comic-

book superheroes for almost three quarters of a century. Steve Rogers, the scrawny kid from New York who was transformed into a super-soldier by the United States government with super-soldier serum and Vita-Rays, was introduced when Joe Simon and Jack Kirbys Captain America Comics #1 hit the newsstands on March 10, 1941, nine months before the attack on Pearl Harbor.1 The book lasted until the end of the 1940s, suffering the fate of most superhero comics as readers interests turned to romance, horror, and Western comics. After a short-lived revival in the mid-1950s, Captain America was not seen again until 1964, when Avengers #4 told the now-famous tale of how Iron Man, Thor, Giant Man, and Wasp found Steve Rogers frozen in a block of ice, his super-soldier-serum preserving his body in a state of suspended animation.2 For the last fifty years, Cap has been a central player in the ever-expanding Marvel Universe, both in his own solo title and various Avengers books as well as the epic crossover stories that

viii Introduction

have become an annual event in comics publishing since the mid-1980s. Add to those the Captain America and Avengers films and his appearances in animated series, videogames, and other media, and its easy to see why Captain America remains as much a heroic icon today as he was during World War II.

For all their groundbreaking ideas and innovative artwork, the Golden Age superhero comics published in the 1940s were never big on charac-terization, focusing mostly on exciting action and pure heroics. But that changed with the revival of superheroes in the late 1950s and early 1960s, especially when the Fantastic Four and other new heroes were intro-duced by Marvel Comics. Once simply a patriotic symbol meant to inspire a nation at war, upon his return Captain America became a tragic figure along with his fellow Avengers and other Marvel superheroes. Just as the Fantastic Fours Thing was disfigured by cosmic rays, Iron Mans heart was under constant threat of encroaching shrapnel, and Spider-Man bore the guilt of inadvertently causing the death of his beloved Uncle Ben, Captain America found himself a man out of time, uncom-fortable in the modern age with its new technology, social customs, and values. This sense of displacement, established almost immediately by Stan Lee, Jack Kirby, and Don Heck upon Caps reappearance in comics like Avengers, Tales of Suspense, and his own title, came to define the character for years to come. And nothing epitomized Caps strangeness more than his old-fashioned values, forged in the Great Depression and World War II and thought by many of his fellow superheroes to be relics of a simpler time.

Ironically, it is this code of ethics, backed by Captain Americas steely resolve and careful judgment, that makes his participation and leadership invaluable to the Marvel Universe. Soon after his reappearance, Cap became the moral center of the superhero community, a figure to whom all other heroes would compare themselves and against whom they would argue their own moral positions. This was most obvious during Marvels Civil War when Captain America and Iron Man stood against each other over the issue of superhero registration. (Well talk about this conflict much more throughout the book, because Civil War is a storyline incredibly rich in moral and political concepts.) Soon afterwards, when Cap was apparently shot and killed, the Marvel Universe came under the control of a madman, Norman Osborn (formerly Spider-Mans nemesis the Green Goblin), in what was called the Dark Reign, which ended only after Captain America returned from the dead.3 With the simple command,

Introduction ix

Its time to take back this country, Cap rallied the other heroes to defeat Osborn, launching what was called the Heroic Age.4

While Cap was gone (not dead but rather thrown back in time), the Marvel Universe was literally a ship without its Captain, and without his leadership, Norman Osborn was able to take control of the world. After Cap came back during Osborns siege on Thors home of Asgard and helped to set the world right again, the moral center of the Marvel Universe was restored at last. This is not to say that the other heroesor the readersalways agree with Cap on what the right thing to do is. There are sound arguments to be made against his positions, just as there are against any-body elses. But the strength and constancy of Caps core moral positions provide a valuable source of debate and disagreement in the comicsand they also give us a lot of material to draw from throughout the course of this book!

In this book, Im going to present Captain Americas personal morality in terms of virtue ethics, a type of moral theory originating with ancient Greek philosophers such as Aristotle, Plato, and the Stoics. There are other ways to describe Caps ethics, certainly, and Ill draw from these other traditions when appropriate. But I chose virtue ethics as my main framework because it has clear intuitive appeal, does not require a lot of fancy philosophical language to explain, and is easily applicable to the personal and political issues of today. Literally speaking, if we look at them this way, Caps values are old-fashioned, dating from about 2500 years ago, but many philoso-phers (including myself) regard the work of the early virtue ethicists as timeless, and innovative work continues in the tradition today.

The original virtue ethicists incorporated wonderfully perceptive obser-vations about human nature into their prescriptions for behaving morally and promoting the good life. This allowed them to avoid the strict rules and formulas of the ethical systems that followed, and instead they offered the flexibility of moral judgment that people need to make decisions in complex real-world situations. As advanced as we like to think we are in the modern world, the essential moral problems of respecting each other, get-ting along, and working together have not changed much in the last several thousand years. In fact, because technology, along with its many gifts, has also expanded the scale and scope of the ways we can hurt each other, the lessons of the virtue ethicists are more important now than everand a man out of time such as Captain America can see that better than anyone.

Throughout this book, Ill argue that Caps old-fashioned moral code is exactly what we need to restore civility and respect in the twenty-first

x Introduction

century in both our personal lives and our political debates. He is what the ancient philosophersyes, more ancient than Capcalled a moral exem-plar. Today wed call him a role model, but both terms refer to a person we can look up to and use as an example of how to act in certain situations. Role models today are often political figures, entertainers, or athletesall of whom are real people (whether alive or dead). But can a fictional character be a role model? Well talk about that soon, but obviously I would answer yes, we can learn things from fictional characters (while keeping in mind that many of the details or stories we know about real-life role models are just as fictional!).

This book starts with an introduction of basic ethics in chapter 1 and discusses several issues with using fictional characters such as Captain America as role models in chapter 2. After that, we start looking at Captain America in detail, using examples and quotations from the last fifty years of his stories in the comics. In chapter 3, well discuss several of the individual virtues that Cap exemplifies, such as courage, humility, and perseverance, and show how virtue ethics shows them to be more subtle and nuanced than they might seem. In chapter 4, well look at qualities that describe Caps moral character more broadly, such as honor and integrity, and well explore his adherence to principle and duty, both of which influence how Captain America exercises his virtuous character traitsand provide a valuable example for us in the twenty-first century as well.

While these virtues and characteristics describe the basic themes of Captain Americas ethics, they arent much help when it comes to making hard choices in specific circumstances. As well see, having the virtue of courage doesnt tell you just how brave you should be in different circum-stances; for that, you need judgment, which well discuss in chapter 5. Well borrow some ideas from legal philosophy to show how we can use judg-ment in moral dilemmas in the same way judges make decisions in difficult legal cases: by balancing our personal principles to arrive at a decision that maintains our integrity. Well also see how Captain Americas judgment regarding some issues like killing and torture may have changed over the yearsand why. Did the world change in such a way that Cap had to make moral compromises, or was it his moral character that changed? Ill present the evidence, and you be the judge.

In chapter 6, well move from the personal to the political by exploring the America in Captain America. Well see what patriotism means to philosophers and how Caps particular brand of patriotism is inclusive and cosmopolitan rather than exclusionary and jingoistic. Well discuss how he

Introduction xi

consistently puts principle before politics, including the orders of his own government, which is a reflection of his moral integrity and sense of honor. This chapter reinforces the point that Captain America represents the basic ideals of America, not its politics or government, which explains how he can serve as a symbol of these ideals to all Americans, regardless of political orientation, as well as people around the world.

In the final chapter, Ill argue that Captain Americas belief in principle over politics can help Americans in the real world to address our current state of political divisiveness. By focusing on what we have in commonthe core American principles of justice, equality, and libertywe can start to realize that our disagreements are largely about how we want to interpret and implement these ideals, with each of us balancing our versions of them in ways that express our individual characters. If we keep in mind what principles we share, we will have a common framework upon which to debate our different approaches to solving the problems America faces, instead of spending our time and energy arguing past each other, demon-izing our opponents, and trying to control the narrative rather than push it forward. As Cap often says, we need to work together to turn the American dream into the American realityand Im just crazy enough to think a comic-book superhero can help us do that.

Most of the examples I use in this book are drawn from the various Captain America and Avengers comic books published over the last fifty years by Marvel Comics, many of which are available in collected editions in your local comics shop, bookstore, or online. (A complete listing appears at the end of the book.) But I promise, you dont have to be familiar with any of this source material to appreciate the points I makeultimately, this is a book about philosophy and politics, not superheroes. (You can consider them a bonus!) Just sit back and enjoy the bookand if it inspires you to pick up a Captain America comic or a copy of Aristotles Nicomachean Ethics, all the better!

Notes

1 Caps origin has been retold a number of times since his first appearance, my favorite being Captain America, vol. 1, #255 (1981).

2 A Captain America (actually the villainous Acrobat in disguise) was seen in a story titled The Human Torch Meets Captain America in Strange Tales, vol.1, #114 in 1963 (later reprinted in Captain America, vol. 1, #216, 1977), to

xii Introduction

test the waters and see if readers wanted the real Cap back. (Guess we know the answer to that, hmm?)

3 Death in comic books is rarely what it seems, so I use quotation marks and words like apparently a lot. Theyre not legal disclaimers, but theyre very close!

4 Siege #2 (2010).

I would like to thank Jeff Dean for supporting this project from the beginning, and Allison Kostka, Lindsay Bourgeois, and Jennifer Bray at Wiley Blackwell for helping shepherd it through the process. Id also like to thank William Irwin, who not only gave me the opportunity to edit and write on superheroes and philosophy for his Blackwell Philosophy and Pop Culture series, but who has also been a wonderful and supportive friend for many years. Speaking of the Blackwell series, I want to thank all the co-editors and contributors Ive worked withincluding Bill Irwin, who has the distinct honor of being thanked twiceall of whom helped me hone whatever writing style Ive got. Many friends provided encouragement and support while writing this book, chief among them Lauren Hale, Lynn Beighley, Carol Borden, Heather Giltner, and Anita Leirfall. (I would mention Bill again, but no one deserves to be thanked three timeshell start expecting money!)

Finally, I could not have written this book if not for all the brilliant and inventive creators who contributed to the Captain America canon: first and foremost Joe Simon, Jack Kirby, and Stan Lee, but also people such as Brian Michael Bendis, Ed Brubaker, Kurt Busiek, J.M. DeMatteis, Steve Engleheart, Christos Gage, Mark Gruenwald, Paul Jenkins, Dan Jurgens, David Morell, John Ney Reiber, Rick Remender, Jim Steranko, Roger Stern, J. Michael Straczynski, and Mark Waid. Steve Rogers may have made Captain America the symbol of justice, equality, and liberty that he is, but all of these creators (and more) made Steve Rogers who he is, and my gratitude to them is endless.

Acknowledgments

The Virtues of Captain America: Modern-Day Lessons on Character from a World War II SuperheroCopyrightContentsIntroductionAcknowledgments Notes on Source MaterialAbout the Author1 Superhuman Ethics Class UtilitarianismDeontologyA Civil War of Ethics!Virtue EthicsVirtuous Deontology No, Deontological Virtue Maybe Deontovirtue?Notes

2 Captain America as a MoralExemplar Can a Fictional Character Be a Moral Exemplar?Arent Fictional Characters Liable to Be Perfect?Fifty Years, Dozens of Writers One CaptainAmerica?Notes

3 Five Basic Virtues CourageHumilityRighteous IndignationSacrifice and ResponsibilityPerseveranceNotes

4 Honor and Integrity The Honor of Captain AmericaExternal Honor as RespectInternal Honor as IntegrityPrinciple and CompromiseDuty and Sacrifice (Again)Notes

5 Judgment Making the Hard DecisionsWhose Right Answer?Tragic Dilemmas and How to Avoid ThemBlack-and-White or Red, White, and Blue? WhenJudgment EvolvesHitting the ThresholdNotes

6 Principle and Politics Patriotism: The Captain and AmericaCosmopolitanismThe American Dream Versus the American RealityI m a Hero, Not a Politician!Principle over PoliticsCaptain America in (Principled) ActionSecret Empire/NomadThe CaptainCivil War

Notes

7 Can Captain America Help Us Achieve Greater Unity and Civility? The Divided States of America, Then and NowThe Three Core American IdealsJusticeEqualityLiberty

Debating What We Disagree On While Recognizing What We ShareNow Its Our TurnNotes

Appendix: Why are There Seven Volumes of Captain America and Five Volumes of Avengers ?Notes

References Notes

Index