The NSA Plays Villain to Captain America — Again

You know you’re living in strange times when the most jingoistic superhero goes to war with his own government.

Captain America has already done battle, implicitly, with the NSA, and audiences loved it. The second installment of the film franchise, “Captain America: The Winter Soldier,” made over $700 million worldwide. According to The Verge, rumors suggest the film series could be headed into even more interesting territory:

The bulk of the series is about the fight between Iron Man and Captain America over the Superhero Registration Act, which becomes a stand-in for broader issues of civil liberties and government control. At the peak of the series, Cap is killed by agents of Red Skull after surrendering to the government, a symbol of the ultimate failure of the registration project. When the Civil War comics came out in 2006, it was a statement on the Iraq war, how the rush to fight had left behind certain fundamental American values. Eight years later, the ideas seem even bigger.

In many ways, it was the natural place to take the character. Cap’s not just about fighting the country’s battles, remember: he gave Hitler a sock in the jaw a full year before the US entered the war. At his best, he represents bigger ideas about freedom, democracy, and liberty, fighting fascism in all its forms. Put in Cap’s simpler language: “I don’t like bullies, wherever they’re from.” He’s uncompromising, even when the rest of the world is ready to take moral or political shortcuts. And in 2014, fighting fascism is more complicated than it looks.

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— Posted by Peter Z. Scheer