I haven’t thrown any crackpot interpretations of comic book continuity out there in a while, so I guess it’s time to rectify that state of affairs.
I’m enjoying Nick Spencer’s Captain America, but I’m having a hard time wrapping my mind around the changes to Captain America’s past wrought by Kobik. Such a drastic change to Steve Rogers’ psyche some 90 years ago would certainly have manifested itself (or been uncovered) before 2016. I cannot believe even a Cosmic Cube is capable of such far-reaching, all-encompassing change.
I can accept, however, an alternate reality in which Steve Rogers was influenced at an early age by Hydra (and one in which Hydra even existed that early). That Steve Rogers would have become a very different Captain America by 2016, as indeed, the Captain America of right now is. I postulate that Kobik reached into this alternate reality and somehow overlaid this alternate Captain America’s psyche atop the one of Earth 616. In other words, Kobik didn’t so much change 90 years of established history as she did change Steve Rogers’ memories and perception of that history.
That I can accept.
Replies
Now you've got me picturing a Marvel version of this:
Maybe she grabbed the nearly insane Cap mind set from the 1950's? Maybe, but I thought after the last big even the marvel multiverse didn't exist anymore.
Mark S. Ogilvie said:
It got better.
It has to. The Dr. Strange trailer says there are other realities. Can't have them existing in the movies if they're not in the comics.
A lot of people on the web have tried to explain Cap being a Hydra agent by suggesting Hydra wasn't originally an evil group but was corrupted by Nazis and the good Hydra members either died out, left the group, or went into hiding, and Cap is actually one of those.
Oh! I forgot the point I had posting this topic in the first place. I like Spencer’s Captain America, but whenever I see this Steve Rogers (especially in the new costume), I think of him as the duplicate Captain America. In other words, good story, but I’m just not invested in the main character.
Hmm.
It could be that Cosmic Cubes are that powerful. They've mostly been wielded by the Red Skull, and he's tended to think pretty small when he's had one. Who's to say it couldn't rewrite history? If Wanda could do it back in the day, why not a Cosmic Cube?
It's entirely possible that this "alternate history" for Steve is similar to the Joker's origin in The Killing Joke. It's a possibility, but not necessarily the origin.
Another possibility: this isn't our Steve. He's trapped somewhere, been body-switched, something along those lines. This is comic books, after all. Anything's possible.
The Shaper of Worlds was a Cosmic Cube once, but he was unable to bring the real Jarella to the Hulk, or bring back the real Crackerjack Jackson from the dead, so not all Cubes are all that powerful. Unless of course he lied and he was never a Cosmic Cube.
If this is an alternate reality Cap, it really would have worked better if they hadn't just said there aren't any alternate realities anymore. Unless Reed Richards just made this one, in which case what's happening is Reed's fault.
"Who's to say it couldn't rewrite history?"
If Kobik did rewrite history, its powers would have to work along the lines of the Scarlet Witch's, as you suggest. I'm not sure i'm ready to believe the Cubes are that powerful. the personality overlay is just my way of explaing it for the benefit of myself.Anyway you look at it, though, I just not buying that this Cap is the same one whose adventures we've been following all these years. It's like an ax which has had the blade replaced twice and the handle three times.
The way I read the story was that Kobik just altered present day Cap's memories. So his actual history is still the same as it ever was but he just doesn't remember it that way.
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