If you weren’t around in 1976 (or were, but were too young then to remember much now), it might be hard to appreciate just how big a deal the United States Bicentennial was — not just in the key anniversary month of July, but also for a goodly number of months leading up to it. But please, take an old geezer’s word for it; it really was everywhere in American popular culture for what seemed like quite a long while — and the nation’s comics publishers definitely did their share of celebratory flag-waving.
That included those publishers whose wares targeted the younger members of America’s funnybook-reading demographic — such as Archie Comics, whose eponymous star character imagined himself reliving “The Birth of a Nation” in Life with Archie #172 (Aug., 1976), and Harvey Comics, the home of Richie Rich, Casper, and other kid-friendly characters, who left it to the 
most infernal headliner on their roster to commemorate the republic’s founding on the cover of Hot Stuff, the Little Devil #136 (Sep., 1976).
Still, it was the comics publishers who cultivated a somewhat older readership — i.e., DC and Marvel — that really seemed to go all out for Bicentennial observance. Let’s start with the former’s splashiest, as well as broadest, initiative: for almost all of their comics bearing a “July” cover date (which means they actually reached spinner racks in April), DC slapped a “DC Comics Salutes the Bicentennial” banner across the top of the cover; each banner also bore a number, which was unique to each comic. Why the numbers? Because, kids, if you bought at least twenty-five out of the thirty-three of these babies released by DC, and then cut all their tops off, and then mailed all those tops to DC, they’d reward you with… a metal Superman belt-buckle! Wow, right? (Frankly, I’m not exactly sure what the mutilation of collectible comics and the distribution of “antiqued silver finish” fashion accessories had to do with honoring the two-hundredth anniversary of American independence, but it apparently made sense to the good folks at DC, so who am I to object?)
Interestingly, while most of the 33 covers released as part of this promotion had no other Bicentennial-themed content beyond their red, white, and blue banners, DC for some reason decided to go further with the one for Adventure Comics #446 (Jul.-Aug., 1976). This number featured a seahorse-riding Aquaman carrying an American flag (which was even depicted as rippling in a highly improbable undersea breeze). The King of Atlantis might seem like an odd choice for this distinction, but maybe he can claim American citizenship via his lighthouse-keeper dad, despite being a foreign head of 
state. Or is that even feasible? (Sorry, it’s been a while since I took a civics class.) It might have been more logical to go this route with one of DC’s several war titles; but for whatever reason, they didn’t, although the following month brought us Our Army at War #295 (Aug., 1976), whose relatively restrained cover image of Sgt. Rock standing before an American eagle emblem would have filled the role nicely. (It’s also worth noting that this cover bears the official American Revolution Bicentennial logo; as far as I know, it’s the only commercial comic book that ever did.)
DC wasn’t done yet, however. May also saw the release of the tabloid-sized Limited Collectors’ Edition #C-47, “Superman Salutes the Bicentennial”. Accompanying the cover’s stirring central image (an adaptation of the cover illustration from Superman #14 [Jan.Feb., 1942]) was a blurb promising prospective buyers “8 Tales of Heroic History Celebrating the Spirit of ’76!”. That pitch was true enough, in its own way; it’s just that almost all of the stories included were reprinted adventures of DC’s frontier hero Tomahawk. Not that there was (or is) anything wrong with old Tomahawk stories, but I imagine there were at least some fans who, having been led to believe by the cover that they were buying a Superman comic, were ultimately disappointed when they discovered that the Man of Steel’s role within was limited to introducing a different character’s heroic exploits.
DC did rather better by their flagship hero, as well as his fans, in Action Comics #463 (Sep., 1976), which came out on June 29, less than a week before the nation’s 200th birthday. Here, a time-tossed Superman managed to prevent the Declaration of Independence from being stolen right before it was due to be signed — thus quite literally saving the day on July 4, 1776 — while meeting such Founding Fathers as Benjamin Franklin, John Hancock, and George Washington along the way.
So much for DC; what about their number one rival, Marvel Comics? What should probably be counted as the House of Ideas’ first major entry into the Bicentennial field wasn’t a comic book at all; rather, it was a calendar. The Mighty Marvel Bicentennial Calendar 1976 allowed the discriminating Marvel fan to celebrate all the year long, with each month offering a different tableau, including the Incredible Hulk cosplaying as George Washington at Valley Forge, Conan the Barbarian rallying the Minutemen, and the Mighty Thor providing the lightning for Ben Franklin’s famous kite experiment.
Also getting an early start on the celebrations was the monthly Captain America title, where the returning Jack Kirby’s initial story arc, beginning in October, 1975 with issue #193, chronicled the efforts of Cap and his partner, the Falcon, to track down and terminate the threat of the “Madbomb”, which was intended to go off and drive the entire population of the United States insane on the 200th anniversary of America’s founding; our heroes were of course ultimately successful, with their triumph appearing in May, 1976, in the appropriately numbered 200th issue of the series.
Captain America also turned up in Spidey Super Stories #17 (Jul., 1976) , which reached newsstands in April; in this adventure for young readers, the Sentinel of Liberty joined your friendly neighborhood Spider-Man in traveling back in time two centuries to prevent Kang the Conqueror from derailing the American Revolution.
That wasn’t quite it for Marvel’s Bicentennial commemorations — there was, for example, writer Steve Englehart’s sadly truncated “Occult History of America” in Doctor Strange — but I do believe we’ve hit all the biggies… save, of course, for the literally biggest one of them all: Marvel Treasury Special Featuring Captain America’s Bicentennial Battles #1, a 10″ x 14″ tabloid-format publication that arrived on the nation’s magazine racks June 15, 1976. Given this book’s size and theme, it might easily have been seen as Marvel’s “answer” to DC’s Limited Collectors’ Edition #C-47, which beat it to the stands by about a month; that said, if you’re going to honestly compare the two releases, Marvel’s effort frankly eats its predecessor’s lunch, offering not a mere collection of reprints completely unrelated to the superstar featured on its cover, but rather 80 big pages of all-new Captain America action, written, pencilled, and edited by that character’s co-creator, Jack Kirby.
Before we get into the actual book, here’s a couple of advisory notes similar to those we’ve given regarding our coverage of other tabloid comics, including Limited Collectors’ Edition #C-36 (“The Bible”) and Superman vs. the Amazing Spider-Man, First, the large size at which these comics were originally printed contributed significantly to their overall graphic impact, so I encourage you to view these images on the biggest screen, and at the largest scale, that you have available. Second, this is a long story, so we’re going to be here for a while; please plan accordingly.
And now, our feature presentation, starting with its cover,,, which, naturally, you can take another look at by scrolling back up to the top of the post. Interestingly, this piece turns out to be much more of a collaborative work than one might have expected; yes, it’s mostly by Jack Kirby, but, in addition to its having been inked by Frank Giacoia, some of the actual pencilling appears to have been done by Marie Severin (who drew the Revolutionary War solders on the left) and John Romita (who added the figure of Captain America to the moon scene on the right). Per the Grand Comics Database, a photostat of Kirby’s original illustration (in which a boxing match appears in the spot where Severin drew in the soldiers) was at some point used for the cover of an Italian reprint; that cover may be viewed here.
MTSFCABB #1 was entirely ad-free, so the inside front cover is given over to a table of contents, albeit one that sports a black-and-white illustration pencilled by Kirby and inked by Romita — and then, it’s on with the show…
Kirby’s pencils were inked by several different artists over the course of this lengthy story — some, but not all, of whom are listed in the credits line just above. First up is Barry Windsor-Smith — and as far as your humble blogger is concerned, his eleven pages constitute the artistic highlight of the whole project, despite the probability that his finely-detailed finishes bear rather less similarity to Kirby’s original art than the work by Romita, Herb Trimpe, and others that we’ll see further on. There’s an irony in that, of course, given that when he was first starting out in the late Sixties, Windsor-Smith was very much a Kirby imitator; his inking here demonstrates just how far the artist had come in developing his own style since then. In addition, his appearance here was, in 1976, a rare treat; his last new comics work had appeared close to two years before, and not counting an upcoming piece for Savage Sword of Conan, we wouldn’t see new sequential art from him until 1982.
Was it inappropriate for Jack Kirby to “borrow” the name of the venerated founder of a major world religion for his “Mister Buda” character? Yes, it was; that said, I don’t believe he intended any disrespect by doing so.
As unreal as this situation obviously is, Cap quickly adjusts to what’s in front of him, and throws himself into Nazi-bashing action…
If you didn’t already know Barry Windsor-Smith was inking these pages, the lush but precise detailing on the vegetation in the panels above would be a dead giveaway.
And now it’s time for our first passing of the inkwell, as Herb Trimpe takes over from BWS just in time for the first of the comic’s multiple double-page spreads:
Cap tells the cabbie he’s heading to “a Bi-centennial luncheon” to give a speech. The cabbie opines that no one is better suited to such a task than his famous passenger, but our hero confesses that he himself isn’t so sure. Just because he’s seen a lot of the country during his years of service, does that mean he knows what it’s all about?
As a crowd quickly forms around him, Cap learns that he’s landed in the Philadelphia of the 1770s. While some of those present speculate that this strangely-garbed fellow might be “an agent of Satan” or “a rogue in search of notoriety”, one person — a young boy — implores the stranger to come with him: “My employer would have a word with you!”
This wasn’t Benjamin Franklin’s only appearance in a Marvel comic in June, 1976; as regular readers of this blog will recall, he’d also encountered Dr. Strange (not to mention Doc’s girlfriend and disciple, Clea) in the second chapter of the aforementioned “Occult History of America”, released a little earlier in the month.
As Captain America takes a seat and accepts a beverage (probably tea, but who really knows?), Franklin asks the same boy who’d earlier summoned Cap to go fetch “Miss Betsy”. And a few moments later…
I love that Kirby plays the time-paradox angle here mostly for laughs, with our stalwart Star-Spangled Avenger clearly freaked out over the whole thing.
I find it emblematic of Kirby’s generally positive outlook that the first destitute person Cap meets upon his arrival in Great Depression-era New York doesn’t ask him for a handout, but, rather, asks our hero if he’s in need of help.
While Cap is conversing with the newsboy, a car pulls up to the curb. A back-seat passenger asks for a paper, but when the boy asks for payment (one nickel), the man puts his hand in his face and shoves him backwards. Needless to say, Captain America is having none of that…
Kirby had a longtime affinity for 1930s gangster stories, as demonstrated by the short-lived black-and-white comics magazine he’d produced for DC in 1971, In the Days of the Mob, as well as numerous other works. So it’s hardly surprising that one of the stops along Captain America’s ping-ponging route through American history would include such a scene as this one.
“When I get to be a big-shot artist…” The newspaper headline regarding John Dillinger dates the Depression-era sequence to sometime around 1933-34; at that point, Jacob Kurtzman — or, as we’d later know him, Jack Kirby — would have been 16 to 17 years old, and still living at home with his family on New York’s Lower East Side. He’d already been drawing for years, and had plenty of experience selling newspapers as well… or in trying to sell them, at least:
From the time I was old enough to deliver papers, I was aware that the income was necessary. It was that way in all the families in our neighborhood. Whatever you could bring home counted.
But I was terrible at selling papers. You’d have to go to this building and pick up your papers from the back of a truck. I was the shortest guy and the other boys used to run right over me.
— Jack Kirby, as quoted in Mark Evanier’s Kirby: King of Comics (Abrams, 2008).
And now back to our story…
Cap puts up a good fight against these Native American warriors — but given that he’s not only badly outnumbered, but also outgunned, a bad outcome seems likely. But then…
As the U.S. cavalry arrives on the scene, Geronimo opts to retreat to Mexico, leaving the fighting to another day. The war-leader and his band gallop away, leaving Cap to face the oncoming troopers…
The splash panel above makes for what is, for me, the most powerful moment in the entire story. Captain America’s anguish and desperation is almost palpable — and made more so by our own grim knowledge that his call for “another way” will ultimately not be heeded.
According to the Grand Comics Database, an uncredited John Verpoorten was responsible for inking this mine shaft sequence.
Captain America quickly discovers that he and the trapped miners have more to worry about than their air running out, there’s noxious gas seeping into the collapsed shaft, as well. That means they can’t wait for rescue, but must act now, or die. Calling on his companions not to panic, Cap goes for what may be their only option…
Herb Trimpe returns for this World War I aerial battle sequence; given the artist’s well-known enthusiasm for aviation (Trimpe actually owned, and flew, his own 1939 Stearman biplane), his getting the assignment was likely a no-brainer.
Despite the efforts of the doughboys in the trenches, it’s ultimately up to Cap to save himself. After commenting on the irony that, having trained on jet fighters, he now finds himself “saddled with this tricky antique”, he nevertheless proceeds to flawlessly execute a daring maneuver that sends the German ace crashing into a couple of trees, while leaving our hero unscathed. Not that that leaves him completely home free…
Again per the GCD, following Cap’s exit from WWI and return to Mister Buda, John Verpoorten resumes the inking chores for the next fifteen or so pages.
Of all the episodes from American history Kirby could have chosen to highlight in this story, a boxing match featuring John L. Sullivan (1858-1918) strikes me as the most arbitrary. I guess the King was a fan of the “Boston Strong Boy”, or at least of the sport which made him famous… still, you can see why Marvel felt that Marie Severin’s flag-carrying Revolutionary War soldiers would work better for the cover.
Cap manages to duck the first blow from Sullivan’s “hammer-like fist“, then lands punches to each of the champ’s jaws in quick succession — only to be stunned when his opponent is barely staggered: “Sullivan’s feet must be nailed to the floor!”
Cap and his new ally batter the slave-catchers unmercifully; unfortunately, a section of the farm’s fence gets broken during the fight, causing the watching boy to idly muse: “I wonder what Paw’s gonna say about them bustin’ our fence like that!?”
Cap’s words in the above panel are likely to sound hopelessly naive to many contemporary readers. But, as we noted in our Captain America #197 post back in February, the dramatic advances towards racial justice that had been made during the 1950s-60s civil rights movement were still very fresh in the public consciousness circa 1976; bearing that in mind, I think we can forgive Jack Kirby for what might, from our half-century-later perspective, seem to be an excessively optimistic outlook.
Here we have another highly memorable moment, as a scene which has had an almost light-hearted tone in spots suddenly turns somber, even chilling. “History is people!“, Jack Kirby had declared at the very beginning of his story; and his inclusion of John Brown in this pre-Civil War episode reminds us of how very complicated history — as well as the people who make it — can sometimes be.
The soldier doesn’t respond to Cap’s query (nor does he or anyone else ever ask this stranger wearing a Captain America costume for some sort of official ID) — but our hero ultimately finds an answer on his own when, moments after driving past a sign reading “RESTRICTED AREA — KEEP OUT”, the Jeep is waved to a stop by another soldier who dramatically announces, “It’s five minutes to Doomsday!”
When a distraught man tries to rush into one of the burning buildings to salvage his possessions, Captain America grabs him and won’t let him go. That doesn’t stop part of the building’s wall from crumbling, which threatens to crush both men on impact — still, Cap takes the brunt of the impact on his shield, and they escape without injury.
As the hero and the man he’s rescued crawl out of the rubble, John Romita takes over as inker for a few pages…
Oh, please, God, no. Not another Jaws reference! Augghh!
This “strange craft” seems likely to have been inspired by the U.S. Navy’s SEALAB habitats, though its actual design is completely the work of Jack Kirby, as far as I know.
As Cap revives within the vessel, our story’s inkwell once again passes to another artist. Per the GCD, the recipient this time is Dan Adkins — though, like John Verpoorten, he goes uncredited in the book itself.
Once more according to the GCD, multiple inkers worked on the pages of this fifth (and final) chapter of our story. Your humble blogger would rather not further interrupt the narrative flow to track all of the changes from one finisher to another and back again, so please be advised that Dan Adkins, John Romita, and Frank Giacoia are all reportedly in the mix.
Aware that recent efforts in space exploration “have been sponsored in the name of international cooperation“, Captain America is stunned to discover that, some indeterminate time in the future, war has come to the Moon. As he advances across the lunar landscape, he comes upon a firefight between ground troops — and while he can’t make out any insignia, it stands to reason that, if Mister Buda has sent him here, “Americans are involved!!”
As he meanders through the studio lot, Cap is suddenly accosted by movie producer Melvin Grubber, who thinks he’s perfect for the big finale of his latest picture — which, naturally, is just about to start shooting. And so, before you know it…
Contemporary readers are almost certain to get “Star-Spangled Man with a Plan” vibes from this scene, which is perfectly fine; just remember, Jack Kirby got here first.
As the two men continue to talk, the scene surrounding them becomes a peaceful meadow. Hearing the strains of country music in the distance, they follow the sound to its source:
The “child of the ghetto” that Mister Buda is referring to above is almost certainly Cap’s partner, the Falcon, aka Sam Wilson; although, of course, when Cap met Sam, he was already a grown man rather than “a ghetto kid”, and their first encounter occurred on a remote island, not in the inner city.
I don’t suppose that anyone already familiar with the body of Jack Kirby’s work could be surprised that this story ends with the appearance of an ethnically diverse “kid gang”. And perhaps the concluding “truth” apprehended by Cap — i.e., that Children Are the Future — isn’t especially original, or profound… at least, not enough to justify Mister Buda’s having put our hero through such a wringer just for the purpose of his discovering it. That doesn’t make the story’s closing message wrong, though. And at least for this reader, Captain America’s journey has in itself been worth the time and attention it’s taken to follow him on it, even if the destination he’s finally arrived at proves just a bit of a disappointment.
This very long comic book wraps up with a series of pin-ups, the first of which was inked by John Romita…
… followed by one that the GCD says might have been embellished by either John Romita or John Verpoorten…
(The long hair Kirby’s given the Western Captain America makes me wonder if he’s supposed to be a grown-up Angel from Boys’ Ranch.)
John Romita is also reported to have inked the next (also the final) “Cap Through the Ages” piece…
… as well as the inside back cover’s black-and-white portrait of our hero’s civiilan identity, Steve Rogers — who otherwise makes no appearance within this book’s 84 (counting covers) pages:
Finally, the back cover (possibly inked by Frank Giacoia) wraps things up with a special appearance by Captain America’s fellow patriotic symbol, Uncle Sam:
And that’s the way it was, fifty years ago.
Compared to the number of comic books that, in one way or another, commemorated America’s Bicentennial back in 1976, the industry’s response to the imminent Semiquincentennial has been rather muted. That’s to be expected, I suppose, for a couple of reasons. On the more mundane level, there’s the simple fact that numerical milestones ending in “50” tend to garner less attention than those ending in “00”. But there’s also the matter of the prevailing national mood, which has many of us less than enthused about celebrating American greatness, to pit it mildly.
All that said, there have been at least a few offerings. From Marvel, we’ve had a series of variant covers inspired by the Mighty Marvel Bicentennial Calendar that have been coming out over the last year (see left for one example, produced by artist Luciano Vecchio for Captain America [2025series] #1). There’s also been a five-issue miniseries, 1776, in which Marvel’s heroes had to travel back in time to once again prevent a villain (Morgan Le Fay, this go-round) from derailing the cause of American independence. (Your humble blogger found both the story and art in this project to be pretty 
underwhelming, frankly, but your mileage may vary.) And looking to the near future, Archie Comics will be releasing a special one-shot on July 1st, Archie Comics Celebrates America’s 250th #1, which they’ve blurbed as “The Official Comic Book of America” — a claim sounds dubious to me, but these days, who knows?
Also due out on July 1st is a DC Comics offering that, while clearly timed to the Semiquincentennial, might more accurately be considered a bit of counterprogramming to whatever patriotic celebrations will be occurring that week. The first installment of an eight-issue sequel to an old and well-regarded crime fiction series from DC’s Vertigo imprint, 100 Bullets: The US of Anger #1 is described in the publisher’s press release thusly:
As the country reaches its 250th anniversary, the world has finally caught up to the kind of story [Brian] Azzarello and [Eduardo] Risso have always told — one where violence, power, and rage collide in ways that feel uncomfortably familiar.
Sad to say, that feels more appropriate to our present historical moment than Marvel’s and Archie’s flag-waving do. I wish it weren’t so, but there it is.
Looking a good bit farther into the future, will the comics readers of 2076 (assuming there are any) have any American Tricentennial comic books to peruse? I’ll never know, obviously — but if such does indeed come to pass, I’d like to imagine that those books will not simply reflect a return to the national status quo of 1976 — or even of 2016 — but rather will celebrate the renewed spirit of a country that will have made substantial further progress towards the more perfect union that America has always aspired towards, but never fully achieved. In the summer of 2026, I can’t say that that prospect seems terribly likely — but while there’s life, there’s hope.
Cover art credits:
- Life with Archie #172: Stan Goldberg
- Hot Stuff, the Little Devil #136: unknown
- Adventure Comics #446: Jim Aparo
- Our Army at War #295: Joe Kubert
- Limited Collectors’ Edition #C-47: Fred Ray
- Action Comics #463: Bob Oksner
- The Mighty Marvel Bicentennial Calendar 1976: John Romita
- Captain America #200: Jack Kirby and Frank Giacoia.
- Spidey Super Stories #17: John Romita
- Archie Comics Celebrates America’s 250th #1: Dan Parent
- 100 Bullets: The US of Anger #1: Dave Johnson
Mister Buda at some point (I don’t find it here) got retconned to the Contemplator, an Elder of the Universe. It might have been you who noted the same of the Collector, who just seemed to be a human crook originally albeit with high tech.
Yes, “Mister Buda” was indeed revealed to be an Elder of the Universe named the Contemplator in his second appearance, which was Captain America Annual #6, written by J.M. DeMatteis.
As a friend of mine complained, it was a silly retcon — why bother to call himself Mr. Buda at all, then?
Ah, yes, this takes me back to that long, hot UK summer. I came across this in my favourite newsagent and it was totally unexpected. I had no idea it would receive UK distribution. It cost 50p – the equivalent of five regular comics – but I had to have it.
Although my tastes were running more towards Englehart, Gerber and McGregor at age 14, I still had a great love for anything Kirby, and this breathless and exuberant adventure delighted me.
I still have my original copy, but also bought Marvel’s reprint edition a few years back – the one that also reprinted the Bicentennial calendar – and thoroughly enjoyed it all over again – on better paper with better printing.
Looking back, for a UK kid I had an unusual level of enthusiasm for the Bicentennial, but I guess I was always fascinated by US history and culture.
A fourth (fifth?) UK reader here (plus reprint), although in my case it was as a back issue maybe 15 years later.
I’ve defended Kirby’s writing before and I’ll do so again here, specifically for that final page. It may be a bit clunky and overly simplistic, but it speaks to me as an outsider in terms of the legend (myth?) of America; of the progressive, FDR-era, belief that, for good or ill, the USA is a beacon of light in the world and on the right track.
Maybe that leads, ultimately, to the form of American exceptionalism being expressed by the rich and powerful in that nation today, but that doesn’t mean the ideal is wrong, just that corrupt people can corrupt anything. And will.
That bicentennial logo is a thing of beauty.
“Superman Salutes the Bicentennial” – what a let down. They sold us Superman and gave us Tomahawk. What a rotten trick to play on a third grader.
Your longer posts always contain a wealth of information so being here a while was fine with me, thanks.
Your cover art credits have Action Comics #463 as being by Bob Oskner, but that figure work certainly looks like Ernie Chan, with Oskner only on inks? The more important question is whether Clark will ever forgive Lois for doing the dirty with Bad Boy Ben F, or was the whole encounter subsequently retconned away as a dream? 😊
For all that I’m very much Team Kirby in most opinions, this was one of the things I liked least on his return to Marvel in the seventies, and it’s taken a long time for me to appreciate the better points. The Bicentennial maybe didn’t impact some of us as much here in the UK, and I never felt that key moments in American history were really given any profound exploration in this story. Some bits are nice, like working in the phrase ‘liberty and death’ into Cap’s little speech with Geronimo. Against that you’ve got exclamations like ‘Jumping fireballs! I’m in the soup again!’ which I’m sure is on the lips of most people faced with imminent life-and-death combat situations.
Overall, I like this much better now than I did then, although I totally agree that the ‘concluding truth’ is a (big) bit of a disappointment. Corny as all get-out, but who else but Jack Kirby could have even attempted writing and drawing something like this?
On a more serious note, I think your estimate of the mood in your country is spot-on. While I was maybe too much of a smug and blasé teenager to properly appreciate the Bicentennial, I think most people nowadays (in the US and the rest of the world), don’t feel like there is anything much to celebrate.
Another UK buyer back then, still have it. I guess it felt approapriate and timely that the co creator of the super powered personification of the US was back around the time of the Bicent, even if opinions on his output were mixed. In an alternativr universe Barry Smith would have inked the whole thing and more.
From across the pond, not sure how much my 12/13 year old self would have grasped the post Watergate zeitgeist but it felt , like this story, at times ambiguous , but ultimately optimistic and affirming, even if the nuances of US history were mostly lost on me.
Back then, I was around 6% as old as the US. Now I’m a quarter as old. How time flies.
Didn’t care for this at the time. Don’t care for it now (I reread it recently). It had it’s moments, like the John Brown segment, but ultimately Kirby drawing Cap in random American history moments was less impressive than the best bits of Madbomb, and I’m not a fan of Madbomb.
Archie also had a TV series in 1974, “US of Archie,” with the kids having adventures involving the underground railroad, the suffragette movement, the invention of the telephone etc. (I believe they were presented as ancestors of the modern-day characters rather than Archie, Betty & Co. traveling through time).
I remember that show! Wildest cartoon idea since “The New Adventures of Huck Finn,” but it actually – sorta, kinda – worked.
I skipped this like I did all but one issue of Cap’s Kirby run. Windsor-Smith and Trimpe seem to blunt what I like least of Kirby art but no one could ever save his dialog. At least there doesn’t seem to be any excruciating names going on like in the 4th World and other places besides Mister Buda. I did get that calendar though…
“Toldya! Toldya!”
Sorry about that. My inner “15-year-old” simply could not contain himself. The reason for that is at that time, I skipped out on this expensive treasury edition. But flipping through its pages at a grocery store, I thought it was nothing more than a collection of wild Kirby art stitched together by the thinnest threads of a story. (I all but hurled the costly comic away when I came upon the “Revolutionary Soldier” Cap pin up at the back.)
That certainly seems the case based on Alan’s comprehensive and well-written review. That said, there are many occasions in past comics where exquisite and exciting art more than covers the warts of piecemeal stories. Unfortunately, not even Kirby in his prime would allow me to overlook such atrocious dialogue. And that’s not even getting into the totally inappropriate “Mr. Buda.” It is a shame that Marvel did not assign someone to script this treasury edition. That would have justified at least a greater portion of that cover price.
As Alan and others have noted, it is impossible to consider this comic and the Bicentennial without reflecting on our nation’s upcoming Semiquincentennial. Offering a simplistic overview that hopefully avoids sparking a political debate, there seemed at that time a desire for unity that was shared across our country – particularly following Watergate and President Nixon’s resignation. Contrast that to our nation today where there seems no effort or desire for such unity. It’s more that those in charge are determined to foster further division with a “winner take all approach.” I also recall that reaching agreement with those from the other party was not viewed as the mortal sin that it today.
Shame Captain America can’t come to our current time.
And the Toddler in the White House is convinced it should all be about Him, Him, Him!
Given Kirby didn’t want co-creators on Cap or Black Panther (etc.) who might take credit for his contributions (hmm, wonder why he worried about that?), I imagine the same held true here.
On the plus side, Mr. Buda’s provoking Cap to look at our history and truly know America (but seriously, Cap should have words for anyone who claims he just wants to lead a parade) is better than that idiotic Civil War tie-in where the reporter tells Cap he can’t be an American symbol if he doesn’t have a MySpace page.
This specific comic is very much not calibrated to my tastes – since I’m not a Kirby fan, an ardent anti-nationalist to boot, and not even an American at that. But I appreciate the effort and good intentions.
I have however to point out that I had forgotten the Pyramid Power craze of the mid 1970s. I’m not troubled by the depiction of Mister Buda, but I can’t deny that it has a very 1970s bias to it. It was such an innocent, optimistic time…
I’m a bit surprised that as it turns out this book has no true connection to Steve Rogers of the 1770s that Kirby clearly referenced just a few short months ago, though. All the more so since this is a story that specifically has Steve travelling to that time and place. Maybe Kirby thought it would be over-egging the pudding (IMO it would).
A curious tidbit of this time in comics is Captain Marvel #45. It has no cover blurb about commemorating the bicentennial, but the story is literally named “The Bi-Centennial”. The odd spelling may be a reference to the plot, which has Rick Jones and Captain Mar-Vell separated and in something of a conflict with each other while in space until a few aliens break it out. Your guess about what they mean by “centennial” is as good as mine. It is a relevant comic, but not for any reasons relating to the USA’s bicentennial.
luis, what good timing! For anyone out there curious to know more about “The Bi-Centennial”, you’ll have a chance to check it out as part of our coverage of Steve Englehart’s final “Captain Marvel” issues, coming this Saturday. 😉
I didn’t read this back in the day. Don’t even remember it. No idea why, but I don’t. That said, its exactly what I would have expected from Kirby on such a project, which is great if you love vintage Kirby and not-so-great if you didn’t. I tend to land more on the Team Kirby side of the fence more often than not, but generally feel this whole book was too rushed for either Cap or the reader to really appreciate the historical moments Jack was trying to convey. Also, I kept waiting for Cap to inform Buda that he was already on “same-first-name” basis with the Sorcerer Supreme and didn’t need whatever the inappropiately named wizard was selling. This is reminscent of the discussion we’ve had before about Batman, who knows Constantine, Zatanna, Etrigan, Deadman, and so on, but claims to not believe in the supernatural every time he’s confronted with it. Also, the whole story started a bit too abruptly for me. How was Cap invited to see Mr. Buda? Why did Cap feel it important to accept the invitation?
All in all, as very broad attempts at performative patriotism go, I like this one, “OK.” Jack’s heart was in the right place, if nothing else, and considering what I remember of our national mood in 1976, I think most of the country was right there with him. Ye gods, what a difference a scant fifty years can make. Thanks, Alan!
I really like Windsor-Smith’s inks on this in 1976.
I attended the institution that provided the Security for Brown’s execution in 1859, which was overseen by a certain Professor of Natural and Experimental Philosophy (and instructor in Artillery Tactics) at that place, a Major in the Virginia Militia by the name of Jackson.
But I did not know that for a few years . . . .
As in Thomas J. “Stonewall” Jackson, as he would become known within a couple of more years after Brown’s execution. And it was a then Colonel Robert E. Lee who led the military operation to capture John Brown at Harper’s Ferry.
Along with an officer from Lee’s Cavalry Regiment from Texas with whom. Lee was attending a convention of Episcopal laymen and a detachment of Marines led by a LT named Green.
I bought this as a back issue in the 1990s when I was actively collecting Captain America. I feel that the Jack Kirby artwork is really nice, especially in large “treasury edition” size, but the story, such as it is, is basically a series of slight vignettes as Cap bounced back & forth across America’s history.
Oh, well, at least I can appreciate the fact that Kirby did try to offer a somewhat nuanced glimpse of American history, instead of some one-dimensional nationalistic flag-waving. And, yeah, I *really* wish more people in the United States today believed in what Kirby has Cap shouting here:
“There is another way!! — Another way!! — We’re all Americans!”
Never noticed it before, but that paper boy who Cap meets in the Depression Era sequence looks & sounds a lot like Scrapper from the Newsboy Legion at DC Comics, who Kirby of course co-created. Probably some autobiographical elements to both young newspaper-selling lads there.
Yeah, it seems like very few people are in the mood to celebrate America’s 250th birthday, because of a certain toddler-in-chief and his vile cronies. I feel like that’s why so many people are so thrilled by the Knicks winning their first championship since 1973. It’s nice to have *something* that we can celebrate.
I got this new in 76 and read it on a long ride to the beach. I liked the art quite a bit even though it’s an odd duck of a book. I think Cap comes off as overly exasperated and sort of ill-tempered throughout… he kind of reacts like the Hulk when Ben and Betsy copy his costume… and I think the reaction would be more like “Well that’s a surprise!”
I recall that from 1974 to 1976 CBS ran 60 second infomercials called “Bicentennial Minutes” which usually began with a narrator saying, “200 years ago today.. ”
As for this treasury edition, I remember it well, but didn’t buy it. Seeing BWS ink Kirby was a nice surprise, but I wonder why neither he nor Kirby caught a basic error most art students are taught to avoid: when a figure is bending forwards the legs bend diagonally backwards and the rear farther back as a counterbalance. Kirby’s/Smith’s Mr. Buda is bowing to Cap with legs so straight as if his feet were glued to the floor.
Here is an example of a real figure bending forwards:
https://www.istockphoto.com/photo/overweight-man-in-tight-formal-wear-bending-over-and-stretching-on-white-gm1150909997-311723321
Aside from the cover, this is the first time I’ve seen any of this, so thanks for the excerpts, Alan! This is the sort of thing that strikes me as pure Kirby, somewhat like a DC fantasy farce than anything typical of Silver or Bronze Age Marvel, but somewhat more nuanced as Kirby recognizes some of the ugly aspects of U.S. history. In the segment with the runaway slave and John Brown’s young son, I couldn’t help but think that per the very controversial Compromise of 1850, it didn’t matter where a runaway slave was within the U.S., free or slave state or territory – law enforcement was legally required to capture any runaway slaves to return them to their owners. There was no “free zone” within the U.S. where an escaped slave did not risk being captured and returned to slavery as based on Constitutional law. In other words, Cap was breaking the law in helping the slave escape those attempting to capture him. Of course, for Kirby to have Cap having to deal with that serious moral quandary would gone well beyond the scope of his overall intent, but would have been interesting for Cap to have to acknowledge that sometimes what was perfectly legal in the good ol’ USA was also absolutely abhorrent to anyone who truly idealized freedom for everyone regardless of skin color, creed, ethnicity, etc. The slave catchers represented laws that promoted injustice and tyranny as much as the Nuremberg laws of Nazi Germany. What if Cap had been zapped into that armory at Harper’s Ferry when Brown and his little ragtag revolutionary army fought a losing battle against Colonel Robert E. Lee and the U.S. troops under his command? Would Cap have supported Lee to uphold the law as of that date or joined the outlaw Brown in support of freedom for unjustly oppressed people?
This giant mag came out only about two years after Englehart writing a Cap who was so shocked to his core to learn that the villain who had been behind the smear campaign against him and to frame him for murder as part of a larger plot to take over the nation had been the fairly elected president of our nation who wanted more power unencumbered by legal “technicalities”. Fifty years later, we once again have such a leader of our nation. In the 1850s, the laws supported the injustice and tyranny of slavery; in the early 1970s and in our present era we’ve had presidents who insisted the law was whatever they said it was and anyhow, they were above the law, a mindset that the American revolutionaries of 1776 in part fought against, although too few saw the hypocrisy in crying for freedom while maintaining slavery and supporting theft of land from native peoples.
Kirby’s opus here was pure fantasy, very dreamlike and bizarre. Somewhat cheesy in some aspects and hardly deep but still capable of arousing some thoughts about our national history and entertaining enough, IMO.
In my opinion, nothing did so much to endure a civil war as expanded enforcement of The Fugitive Slave Law
Without that, if you are a Dutch-American Burgher or a Yankee Industrialist or a Scots Ironworkers or an Italian stone mason or an Irish laborer in the Hudson Valley you did not have to be confronted by Slavery and now you did with slave catchers down on Broadway.
. . . and these diverse people agreed they did not like this