What if Captain America had gotten the Phoenix Force instead of the P5?

[Caio]

/\ wow, amazing

[listererik]

It's the real world... Srry.

It's sooo scary. And hey, as long as you don't buy into that nonsense on the site, we're cool^^

More recently, Civil War started because Cap wouldn't unlawfully hunt down his fellow superheroes on behalf of Maria Hill and S.H.I.E.L.D., which for all of you here will likely beg the question of why he was willing to do that to Hope and the X-Men when Avengers Vs. X-Men rolled around. The only argument I can make for that is that the Phoenix Force was a more imminent danger than S.H.I.E.L.D.'s and the U.S. government's presumptions of superheroes as out-of-control public menaces, something clearly belied by Cap's own experiences. If we still have to throw stones, I definitely believe that Cap handled his approach to the X-Men entirely wrong, framing it as an ultimatum rather than reaching out in the spirit of cooperation and mutual benefit and forcing confrontation on multiple occasions when he had the opportunity to reason instead. I would rather chalk that up to bad writing and the so-called Architects wanting to draw things towards a certain conclusion at the expense of staying faithful to previous characterization, but then that opens a whole other can of worms, so I'm just going to say here that 616 Cap is (usually) far from being a self-righteous jingoistic douche; he just gets badly written sometimes by people who think he should be more like his Ultimate version or by people with their own axes to grind about America and its role in the world.

Well said. I'm pretty much just tossing all of the AvX characterization (of the Avengers, that is, Cyke still came out well, IMO) under the bus at the moment, because it was written horribly, and paying attention to the Hickman-penned Avengers. Hopefully Steve will become likable again during his tenure, because AvX really soured me on the character.

[infinitEEntropy]

Hey guys, what if The Hulk had gotten the Phoenix force instead of the P5?

[punisher97]

Ultimate Cap is a nationalistic, jingoistic douche because that's Mark Millar working out his frustrations with America for the eight years that Bush was in office. The technical basis is that Ultimate Cap, being a "man out of time," was supposed to represent the best and worst of 1940s America, but it mostly amounted to him being a self-righteous, close-minded jerk. 616 Cap, on the other hand, developed into an exemplar of the absolute best that America can be and when his faith in his country was shaken by the realization that the U.S. President (a stand-in for Nixon around Watergate) was in cahoots with a super-terrorist organization called the Secret Empire, he ultimately came to the conclusion that it was American ideals he should stand for, not the oftentimes corrupt and corruptible American government.

Hell, there was a story arc in the 1980s where he was replaced as Captain America by another super-soldier named John Walker because he wouldn't carry out missions for the U.S. government that he thought were too morally questionable. The government took his shield and his costume and gave it to Walker while having Taskmaster train him in Cap's unique fighting style, but it ultimately turned out to be a plot by an incognito Red Skull to discredit Captain America and the United States of America by extension and Steve took back his role to kick the Red Skull's @$$ all over the place.

More recently, Civil War started because Cap wouldn't unlawfully hunt down his fellow superheroes on behalf of Maria Hill and S.H.I.E.L.D., which for all of you here will likely beg the question of why he was willing to do that to Hope and the X-Men when Avengers Vs. X-Men rolled around. The only argument I can make for that is that the Phoenix Force was a more imminent danger than S.H.I.E.L.D.'s and the U.S. government's presumptions of superheroes as out-of-control public menaces, something clearly belied by Cap's own experiences. If we still have to throw stones, I definitely believe that Cap handled his approach to the X-Men entirely wrong, framing it as an ultimatum rather than reaching out in the spirit of cooperation and mutual benefit and forcing confrontation on multiple occasions when he had the opportunity to reason instead. I would rather chalk that up to bad writing and the so-called Architects wanting to draw things towards a certain conclusion at the expense of staying faithful to previous characterization, but then that opens a whole other can of worms, so I'm just going to say here that 616 Cap is (usually) far from being a self-righteous jingoistic douche; he just gets badly written sometimes by people who think he should be more like his Ultimate version or by people with their own axes to grind about America and its role in the world.

Amazing post, as your Spider-Man one was. Cap's characterization in AvX was definitely off. It was my least favorite version of him I've ever read.

[Swashbuckler]

Cap is a moron. He probably would have wished everyone was back in the 1940's and used the Phoenix to make it happen.

[Father_Jerusalem]

No more mutants 2: Electric boogaloo.

That's what.