Recently I had been reading the Captain America by Mark Gruenwald omnibus specifically to determine why that run didn't appeal to me. Once I found that answer, I lost all interest in the project a dozen or so issues shy of the end of the volume. Whereas I do plan to return to it one day, my plan had always been to move on to the John Ney Rieber and John Cassaday run next. Now, with Cassaday's recent death and the 23rd anniversary of the 9/11 attacks just passed, it seems like an appropriate time to revisit "The New Deal," the first Captain America of the 21st century. In the decades since 9/11, I have read Jack Kirby's "Madbomb" far more frequently than I have "The New Deal." I read it once in serial form, and again when the harcover was released; this will be my third time through. I don't plan to say much about the politics of the story (the purpose of this discussion is to highlight John Cassaday's art), but here is an except of Max Allan Collins' introduction to the collected edition.
"What is even more remarkable is this story's courage and ability to examine the complexities of the issues that accompany terrorism... specifically, not to duck the things America has done to feed the hatred that led to the attacks. that is not to say Rieber offers justification for terrorism. Rather, he insists that we examine the root causes in a more complicated, grown-up manner than one might expect from a super-hero comic book. This book is in color, after all, not black and white--and one of the most dominent and troubling colors here is gray."
Because my purpose here is to highlight John Cassaday's art, here are the first three pages of it.
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ISSUE #2:
Part of issue #1 took place on September 10, 2001, part on September 12. Then the action shifts seven months ahead to Easter Sunday 2002 and the small town of Centerville, somewhere in the midwest. Max Allan Collins again: "If you threw a dart at a map of America, aiming for the middle, you might well puncture my hometown--Muscatine, Iowa, where I still live. Muscatine is the kind of town that the Centerville of this graphic novel represents. Middle America. the Heartland. A great place to live, if only they didn't play country-western music in just about every restaurant and bar. On the other hand, the cost of living is low, the schools are great, and my wife and I have our families here."
ISSUE #3:
The terroists are led by Faysal al-Tariq, who targeted Centerville becauise of it's factory that makes components for weapons of war. They also blame America for leaving behind unexploded land mines and cluster bomblets that sometimes fall without detonating, but then explode at a touch. In order to stop al-Tariq, Captain America had to kill him. He then removes his mask on televison and takes personal responsibility. The terrorists are all wearing SHIELD-issue "c.a.t.tags" (for casualty awareness tracking).
ISSUE #4:
Time has passed. It is now July 4, 2002. Colonal Nick Fury is discussing Captain America with one Secretary Dahl. Fury is defending Cap's decision to "compromise his usefulness" (as Dahl puts it) by revealing his identity. Suddenly, Captain America himself arrives and fights his way in to the meeting room. (The soldiers he fights think it is some sort of drill.) He confronts Fury about the SHIELD-issued CATtags the terrorists were wearing, but Secretary Dahl prevents him from giving Cap any information due to "national security." after Cap leaves, Dahl orders Fury to "Make the call." On his way out of the facility, Cap passes a soldier, who salutes. Cap stops, looks at him, returns the salute.
"I'm not an officer, Lieutenant," he says.
"I know who you are, sir," the soldier replies. "We all know."
"Thanks. I'm glad someone does."
Cap is heading for Dresden, Germany (for some as-yet-undisclosed reason). He rides his motorcycle through a small town during their fireworks display. The consensus among the crowd is that he is not a super-hero, just as hero, as they all could be if they cared as much and tried as hard. Cap thinks about the American Dream. As he rides over a dam, he is attacked by a squad of soldiers wearing plain grey uniforms.
ISSUE #5:
I have determined this story reads better in a single sitting than it does read serially over the course of several days. To that end, I'm going to try to finish it today. The "small town" I mentioned is actually Riverside Park on the Potomac (which would probably make the "facility" the Pentagon). The soldiers who attacked Cap are the terrorists (I didn't recall and was worried there for a second). Cap trades words with their leader after he defeats them, then the leader's CATtag turns from green to red and he drops over dead. Col. fury arrives on the scene. Cap asks him what else the tags do beside track casualties. Track movement? Kill captured soldiers? Fury knows, but he's not saying. All he will admit is that "They're an edge that our enemies have, damn it -- if we don't have them too." (I no longer think the terrorists' devices were SHIELD-issued as I had previously assumed.)
The next day, Steve Rogers is on a plane bound for Germany. His seatmate is a young woman who recognizes hin from when he unmasked on television. She tells him that he broke her grandfather's jaw in WWII, then challenges him to a game of chess. Her POV represents the European view of America's "War on Terror." As they play, they spar verbally. He tells her that 90% of the casualties of WWI were soldiers, but half of 61 million casualties in WWII were civilians. He's fighting because he doesn't want to see WWIII. "Check. Mate in three."
He once accepted the bombing of Dresden as necessary, but after September 11 he has changed his mind. As he walks into a building, a bomb explodes.
ISSUE #6:
It turns out that the bombed building is were the CATtags are manufactured. Cap survives the explosion, but his faceless would-be assassin drops a grenade in the wreckage, just to make sure. Cap's shield protects him from the blast, but the explosion frees him. I described Cap's would-be assassin as "faceless" because his face is hideously scarred by a fire. He blames clandestine operations of the U.S. govenment for all his troubles, and he and Cap engage in a philosophical debate while they fight. The terrorist seeded the CATtag technology to the company whose offices he just bonbed, knowing that SHIElD would be forced to embrace the technology (as we have already seen) before it was fully understood. Then, after the tech was widely in use, the terrorists would use it to kill their enemies (not unlike the booby-trapped pagers and walkie-talkies in the news today). to prove his point, captain America defeats the unnamed terrorist without killing him.
That's the end of the story and the last of the John Cassaday art in this series. I now bring this discussion lecture to a close, but one day soon I may revisit Astonishing X-Men by Joss whedon and John Cassaday. Right now, though, I would like to wrap up the Lone Ranger origin story (elsewhere on this board) before the day is through.