Steve Rogers aka. Captain America (Chris Evans) has the best solo movies, but Joss Whedon’s Avengers films - 2012’s The Avengers and 2015’s Avengers: Age of Ultron - never truly understood his character. The Star-Spangled Man has been a part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe since his solo origin movie, 2011’s Captain America: The First Avenger, which directly preceded the first Avengers movie. Outside the team-up films, Captain America’s story continued in 2014’s Captain America: The Winter Soldier and his solo trilogy concluded in 2016’s Captain America: Civil War.

Captain America most recently returned in 2018’s Avengers: Infinity War as Earth’s Mightiest Heroes finally came face to face with the Mad Titan Thanos, a villain the MCU has been setting up since the very first Avengers movie. And after the cliffhanger ending of Infinity War, in which Thanos won and wiped out half of all life in the universe, Captain America was one of the heroes left standing, having watched his best friend Bucky Barnes aka. Winter Soldier (Sebastian Stan) die. Next, Captain America will return in Avengers: Endgame as the remaining heroes team up to take on Thanos again and try to reverse the snap.

Avengers: Endgame is set to conclude the story of the MCU so far, what Marvel Studios head Kevin Feige calls the Infinity Saga and, as such, we’re looking back at the franchise as a whole. In particular, Captain America has had an interesting arc throughout his solo movies, but has been underutilized in the first three Avengers movies (Cap has more lines in his Spider-Man: Homecoming cameo than Infinity War). Further, Whedon’s characterization of Captain America in his two Avengers movies gets certain key aspects of the hero wrong, revealing the writer-director doesn’t understand the Star-Spangled Man. Now, we dive into how Whedon’s characterization of Captain America is different and what it gets wrong.

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Captain America Is The Best MCU Character - In His Solo Movies

One of the lines of dialogue most associated with Captain America comes from his second solo movie, The Winter Soldier: “The price of freedom is high, it always has been. But it’s a price I’m willing to pay.” However, this dialogue is actually a callback to a scene early on in The First Avenger when pre-super soldier serum Steve picks a fight with a man in a movie theater who was being disrespectful of a newsreel about the United States Army’s involvement in World War II. In that newsreel, the voiceover says, “Our brave boys are showing the Axis Powers that the price of freedom is never too high.” These lines are important because they represent Captain America’s core beliefs in the MCU. He believes in freedom and he believes in paying the price to earn that freedom, even if that price is giving his own life - and even, as seen in The Winter Soldier, if no one else is willing to give their lives for freedom.

Steve also demonstrates a stubborn fighting spirit, particularly in The First Avenger: “I can do this all day.” In the first act of the movie, Steve picks a fight with a man much bigger than him, and it becomes clear from his conversation with Bucky that this is a regular occurrence. Then, it’s revealed Steve has tried to enlist in the army and join the war five times - five times - before he’s taken in by Dr. Erskine for the super soldier program. It’s Steve’s time fighting on the streets of Brooklyn in the 1930s and 40s, then his time in WWII where he proves he isn’t afraid to get his hands dirty. That mentality carries through the rest of his solo films as he takes on an entire branch of the United States government in order to defeat the MCU’s Nazi organization, Hydra, and again when he fights his own friends in Civil War in order to protect the Avengers’ freedom from government oversight.

Captain America’s relationship to the U.S. government is another key aspect of his characterization, and one that doesn’t get explored much, if at all outside of his solo movies. Over the course of his three movies, Steve goes from putting all of his faith in the U.S. government’s mission in WWII, to questioning an institution that can allow an evil like Hydra to foster within its ranks. And, having learned that even a government in which he placed so much faith can be fallible and corrupt, Civil War sees Steve fight to make sure no government has the power of the Avengers under their control. Since the Avengers movies tend to feature more extraterrestrial threats - with the exception of Ultron - Captain America doesn’t have as strong a showing as he does against the villains of his solo movies.

Still, though Captain America may not be the most important Avenger in the team-up movies, his solo movies and his solo trilogy are arguably the best of the MCU. The Captain America films have a very specific trajectory and Steve Rogers is a fully realized, well-developed character through all three movies. He’s a hero who fights for freedom, always, and one who appreciates his abilities after having grown up getting beat up in the back alleys of Brooklyn. Marvel Studios created one of its best heroes in Captain America - but he hasn’t gotten to shine properly in the Avengers movies, and part of that is due to Whedon not truly understanding the character of Steve Rogers.

Next Page: Joss Whedon Rewrote Captain America & Got It Wrong

Joss Whedon Rewrote Captain America For Avengers 1 & 2

Contrast to Steve Rogers in Captain America: The First Avenger, Joss Whedon’s version of the character in The Avengers - which he wrote and directed - is a boy scout who butts heads with Tony Stark aka. Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr.). Some of this comes from Steve’s faith in S.H.I.E.L.D. and, by extension the U.S. government, which is true to the character as established in The First Avenger. Steve hasn’t yet been forced to face the truth of S.H.I.E.L.D.’s corruption and so he trusts Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson). Then Steve and Tony butt heads again in Avengers: Age of Ultron over Tony’s desire to protect Earth with Ultron, seeing it as a preventative measure similarly problematic to Fury’s Project Insight. But while the basic points of Steve’s character are the same, Whedon changes certain aspects of Captain America’s characterization for both Avengers movies.

Though Whedon did some script work on The First Avenger, there’s a notable change in Steve’s tone from his first solo film to The Avengers, then again from The Winter Soldier to Age of Ultron. Whedon’s characterization of Steve emphasizes the man out of time nature to his character in the Avengers movies. Steve was born in the 1910s, grew up in the 1920s/1930s and went into the ice in the 1940s, then wakes up in 2011. In The Avengers, he wears clothes more reminiscent of the 40s, and calls Natasha Romanoff aka. Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson) “ma’am” on more than one occasion. To be clear, no other character in the The Avengers refers to a female character as “ma’am,” and Cap only uses the term of respect once in The First Avenger, directed at Agent Peggy Carter (Hayley Atwell) - in a scene that may have been rewritten by Whedon. In all other instances in The First Avenger, he refers to Peggy by her title, Agent Carter. While it’s a small change in Cap’s character, it gives him more of an old-fashioned tone in The Avengers.

That tone carries into Age of Ultron, particularly in Whedon’s “Language” bit. Despite having lived in the modern era for a few years at that point, Steve warns Tony away from using the word “shit” in the opening sequence of Age of Ultron, and the other characters refuse to let it go, teasing Steve about it throughout the rest of the film. It’s another instance of Whedon using Steve being a man out of time to comedic effect, carrying that theme over from The Avengers, but it doesn’t account for the character growth Steve saw in The Winter Soldier. Essentially, Whedon’s Captain America can be boiled down to two character beats: a man out of time and a hero who believes in “truth, justice and the American way.” But, that’s not who the MCU’s Captain America actually is.

Why Whedon’s Interpretation Of Captain America Is Wrong

Captain America, as introduced in the MCU and developed through his solo movies, is a much more complex character than Whedon’s interpretation. Whedon’s characterization simplifies or outright changes Steve’s core beliefs to deliver punchlines or create tension among the Avengers team, particularly in Steve’s conflict with Tony. Steve is a man that grew up likely as an Irish Catholic (though that’s not confirmed in the MCU) in 30s/40s Brooklyn and went to war, where he spent time fighting Nazis alongside fellow soldiers, but Whedon ignores that background in order to portray Steve as an uptight, god-fearing idealized man from the 40s. Whedon conflates Steve being a “good man from the 40s” with Steve using overly formal language, being religious to the point of refusing to accept the reality of gods like Thor and Loki, and reprimanding Tony about swearing. But that’s an overly simplistic view of Captain America that erases everything about him that makes him so interesting.

This is never more obvious than at the end of Age of Ultron when Steve is giving one of his trademark speeches, and it’s a stark contrast to the one he delivers in The Winter Soldier. In his second solo movie, Cap says, “The price of freedom is high,” and refers gravely to S.H.I.E.L.D. agents potentially giving their lives to win the organization’s freedom from Hydra’s grasp. In Age of Ultron, Cap tries to rally his teammates by saying, in part, “If you get killed, walk it off.” The line is delivered as a punchline, one Whedon no doubt included to bring some levity to the moment, but it flouts Steve’s belief in the preciousness of life. Dying in battle is the highest price someone can pay. Steve Rogers wouldn’t joke about it.

But therein lies the problem with Whedon’s Captain America: it uses Steve’s beliefs and ideals, and the era from which they come, to deliver punchlines, but to the detriment of the already established character. Whedon tends to write characters with snarky, quippy banter - it’s one of the aspects of his writing that won him a massive fan-following. While that works for certain Avengers characters like Iron Man, Hawkeye and, to an extent, Black Widow, it doesn’t necessarily fit Captain America. Steve isn’t an overly serious character who never cracks a joke, but he’s also not the type to blithely quip about his friends dying - particularly after losing his best friend in battle. Whedon ignores the aspects of Captain America that don’t fit his particular style and tone of writing, rewriting Steve to fit his own sense of humor.

Ultimately, Whedon’s tweaks to the characterization of Steve Rogers have a snowball effect to the point where the character comes off less like a three-dimensional person and more like an idea. Whedon’s Captain America is “truth, justice and the American way” personified when the actual truth of Steve Rogers is more complex. He’s a normal man with a good heart who was chosen to become a superhero because of his ideals - but that doesn’t mean all he is is his ideals. He’s faced loss and hardship, shouldered responsibility others would crumble under, and still stands strong in his beliefs. He’s a good man in a way that isn’t relegated to his original time, but transcends the era in which he was born. In Whedon’s Avengers movies, these aspects of Captain America’s character are fodder for jokes, not the foundation upon which the character is built. It emphasizes a lack of awareness on Whedon’s part about what makes Steve Rogers a superhero and proves he never truly understood Captain America.

Next: Everything We Know About Captain America’s Role In Avengers: Endgame

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