When asked about his motivations for creating Captain America, Simon explained, “…opponents to the war were all quite well organized. That’s why Captain America was born America needed a superpatriot.” 8 Simon likewise felt that Americans should enter the war even though most Americans opposed intervention in what was a European conflict. “We weren’t at war yet, but everyone knew it was coming. “Captain America was created for a time that needed noble figures,” Kirby once said. I would write the script on the boards as we went along, sketch in rough layouts and notations, and Jack would follow up by doing more exact penciling.” 7Ī few months into their collaboration, Joe Simon conceived of the idea of a star-spangled superhero who would fight for America against Hitler himself. He could take an ordinary script and make it come alive with his dramatic interpretation. Simon recalled, “Jack had a great flair for comics. Simon recognized Kirby’s artistic talent immediately, so when Kirby asked him if he were interested in working on some side projects, Simon jumped at the chance. 6 Simon attended university and worked on the art staffs of a few newspapers before taking a job at Fox Comics where Kirby also worked. 5 The two men lived across the street from each other, and both had fathers who worked as tailors. Like Kirby, Joe Simon grew up in the Lower East Side and was the son of a poor Jewish immigrant. You fight on the roof, and you fight all the way down again.” Kirby also encountered anti-Semitism, which had the ironic effect of making him feel not bitter but thankful that America was a place where “people of all different backgrounds had to live together.” 3 Kirby’s love for American diversity and his Jewish heritage later motivated him to draw a patriotic superhero who would take on the greatest anti-Semite of all time, Adolf Hitler 4. In one interview, he reminisced about one particular “climb-out fight.” “A climb-out fight,” he recalled, “is where you climb a building. 2 A second-generation Austrian immigrant of Jewish descent, “Jacob Kurtzburg” Kirby later changed his name to Jack Kirby because, as he put it, he “wanted to be an American.” His poverty-stricken neighborhood was filled with violence, much of which would later fill the pages of his comic books. Jack Kirby was born in 1917 in New York’s Lower East Side. Their backgrounds shaped the superhero’s message. Jack Kirby and Joe Simon created Captain America in 1940. ![]() ![]() ![]() Race, technology, Great Depression ideals, and nationalism all come into play in Captain America Comics, often revealing the darker side of wartime patriotism. While Captain America reflects a nationwide surge in nationalism on the eve of war, there are subtler forces at work that shape the making and message of these comics. The average boy-turned-superhero takes on Hitler in the first issue, leaving no question as to where his allegiance lies. Roosevelt responds, “What would you suggest, gentlemen? A character out of the comic books?” 1 Captain America made his first appearance just months before America’s entry into the Second World War. 1, two servicemen approach President Roosevelt with misgivings about the war.
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