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Thursday, October 11, 2007

Alex Ross Designs New Captain America Costume - With Sketches!


Now this is killer! This is why I love running this blog.

Here are several of the design sketches for the new Captain America costume by Alex Ross, along with an official Marvel press release, detailing the whole project.

Now, seeing as how it's partly my job to be critical and honest, I don't know how much I dig it. It's a little too... "hip-hop" for my tastes; a little too chrome-y. And what's with the built-in abs? Still, WAY cool to get the sneak preview like this!

Six months after the death of Steve Rogers captured national attention, Marvel is proud to unveil the new Captain America as designed by renowned, award winning artist Alex Ross! This bold new look, seen here for the first time, also serves as the variant cover to January's Captain America #34, featuring the first appearance of this new Captain America! After the death of Steve Rogers, and the climactic events of Captain America #33, there must be a new Sentinel of Liberty and now Ross, one of the industry's most renowned artists, has created a dynamic new look for the seminal hero.

Marvel President of Publishing Dan Buckley explained, "Captain America is one of the true iconic super heroes of our time and to design the new look for a new Cap, we had to go with the most iconic, preeminent painter of our time — Alex Ross."

"We're excited to have Alex Ross so heavily involved in this landmark event," said David Gabriel, Senior Vice President of Sales & Circulation. "And we'd like to thank Dynamite Entertainment for their help in coordinating Alex's efforts on the Captain America costume redesign and cover."

To celebrate this landmark event, Captain America #34 will ship with two covers featuring the new Captain America—one by Ross and one by acclaimed series penciller Steve Epting! Additionally, a Captain America #34 By Alex Ross Poster will arrive in stores this January.

But just who is this new Captain America? And why did he pick this costume? The answers arrive this January in Captain America #34 featuring Alex Ross' new costume design for Captain America and a special variant cover by the legend himself! For more about this landmark debut and comments from Alex Ross, Ed Brubaker, Steve Epting and more, visit here!

CAPTAIN AMERICA #34
Written by ED BRUBAKER
Pencils & 50/50 Cover by STEVE EPTING
50/50 Cover by ALEX ROSS
Rated T+…$2.99
FOC—12/27/07, On-Sale—1/16/08

CAPTAIN AMERICA #34 BY ALEX ROSS POSTER
24x36 Color Poster…$7.99
FOC—12/13/07, On-Sale—1/9/08


2 comments:

Anonymous said...

The original (and the best) Captain America had a strict no-killing policy. It’s what separated him from being a primary-color-clad version of the Punisher.

Is the new Cap operating sans-scruples, or is he just out to kneecap some b*tches?

Manodogs said...

Great comment - thanks for posting!

You may not have read some of the earlier posts, as I mention this quite often - about how, in the late 80s and throughout the entire 90s, pretty much every comics character became a raging vigilante - but even though the world has changed, the whole superhero image has been forever compromised by the gritty, "realistic," vengeful and bloodthirsty characterizations so prevalent in the last generation of comics.

Now, I grew up on these and yes, I was one of the biggest Wolvie fans out there, but by the time Punisher and Wolvie were appearing in literally every title on the stands, every month, and even Supes had "had enough" and started bludgeoning folks to death, I could see the writing on the wall.

I agree with you: it's one thing to modernize a superhero, but if all that modernization consists of is giving him a license to kill, then something is terribly wrong with the mores and values of the reading audience.

Obviously, comic books are a business, and they have to go where the money's at, but I do think there are certain things that should be sacrosanct. If the audience wants to read about a vengeful, bloodthirsty character, why not introduce them to Punisher through a guest-appearance story arc, continued in his title, or some other sort of means; don't change Cap into Punisher just because the title's sales are flagging! There are at least 30 billion other ways of ramping-up the drama and intensity, which in turn will intensify the action, and that in turn will boost sales!

This is the whole reason I got out of comic books in the first place, back in the 1990s: they were all beginning to resemble one another to the extent that they were all basically the same characters with the same storylines doing the same things every month!

I haven't been reading Cap (even though Brubaker's Daredevil is classic stuff!), but from the press releases and other reviews and stuff I've read, Cap is on a "streak of vengeance" and "has had enough" and so on and so forth. It may move units, but I'm with you here: I'm just not interested and I'm a little put-off by an American icon's total change of values and approach to crimefighting.