We’re Getting A Native American Captain America
We will soon be getting our first story with a Native American character taking on the Captain America role.
This article is more than 2 years old
The Falcon and the Winter Soldier introduced fans to a new Captain America. The recently concluded Disney+ series marked the first time Anthony Mackie’s Sam Wilson, formerly known as the Falcon, wore Cap’s suit and shield during an actual mission. We had seen him throw the shield into trees as a training exercise, but now, he is using the famous weapon as a self-actualized superhero who has finally come into his own. Now, Marvel Comics is introducing yet another Captain America, one we have not seen before but one that is long overdue.
According to Bounding into Comics, Marvel has officially revealed that Native American Kickapoo Tribesman Joe Gomez will become another Captain America. Lipan Apache writer Darcie Little Badger (Strangelands) and Qalipu Mi’kmaq First Nation artist David Cutler (Marvel’s Voices: Indigenous Voices) created this new take on the character. They are expected to appear in the third issue of Marvel’s upcoming The United States of Captain America comic miniseries. The series is scheduled for release this summer.
Writer Christopher Cantwell and artist Dale Eaglesham collaborated on the main story featured in the The United States of Captain America miniseries. The comic will also introduce LGBTQ+ activist Aaron Fischer, the Captain America of the Railways, and Nichelle Wright, the Captain America of Harrisburg.
As The Falcon and the Winter Soldier–and the Cap-centric Marvel Cinematic Universe films–have showed us, the mantle for this character is one that symbolizes a lot of different things to a lot of different people. It’s also a mantle that is not necessarily limited to one wielder/wearer. Created by cartoonists Joe Simon and Jack Kirby in the early 1940s, Steve Rogers quickly became Timely Comics’ most popular character during wartime. But due to plummeting sales and rapidly diminishing interest in the superhero genre immediately following World War II, Timely cancelled the Captain America comic series in 1950. However, roughly 15 years later, following the launch of Marvel Comics, the character made his triumphant return in The Avengers #4.
Since his revival in 1964, Captain America has become one of the most popular superheroes to ever grace the comic page. This is, at least in part, thanks to Chris Evans’ incredible turn as Steve Rogers in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, but a lot of the character’s success has to do with the richness of the stories in which he appears.
That being said, it will be awesome to see how a Native Captain America enriches and enhances the character’s mythos even further. There is so much potential here, and both Cantwell and Eaglesham seem to recognize that. Now is the perfect time to expand what the Captain America title actually means and represents, and it is great to see Marvel continuing to shoot for diversity and inclusion. Hopefully, these new characters prove popular enough to convince Marvel to include them in more of its stories going forward.
You can catch the new character taking on the mantle, Joe Gomez, when he appears in The United States of Captain America. The miniseries will officially kick off on June 2.
