The Specters of Captain America: Time and the Haunting of American Politics

Abstract

Abstract:Captain America is a revenant. Since coming back from the dead in 1964 he has been killed and returned on other occasions or has gone missing and has been shown to haunt the central narrative from a distance. In this sense he can be considered a specter as developed by Jacques Derrida in Specters of Marx. The spectrality of Captain America is also a way for writers to engage in efforts to define the character and for readers to understand the politics of the comics, which are often defined in opposition to versions of Captain America that are excessively nationalist, zealously patriotic, and even fascistic. This paper also argues that other aspects of Captain America's biography, including his 1941 origin, the use of and search for a replacement super soldier serum, and the death of Bucky have also been repeatedly used to explore the political meaning of the character.