Marvel Celebrates Captain America’s 80th Anniversary With Giant-Sized Tribute
by James Ferguson
In March 1941, Jack Kirby and Joe Simoon created Steve Rogers, the super soldier known as Captain America. 80 years later, with hundreds of comics, dozens of television episodes, countless action figures, and a few movies, Marvel Comics is celebrating the character with Captain America Tribute #1, a giant-sized special all about the First Avenger.
Due out in March 2021, Captain America Tribute #1 will feature an array of artists redrawing and modernizing Cap’s first appearance, Captain America Comics #1, plus his reintroduction to the Marvel Universe in Avengers #4. This will take us through his origin, his first battle against the Red Skull, and his Silver Age debut emerging from suspended animation to fight evil as the Star-Spangled Avenger.
Who will be lending their pencils to this monumental task? Oh, just a few name you might have heard of like John Cassaday, Marguerite Sauvage, David Lapham, Declan Shalvey, Perf Pérez, Salvador Larroca, Leinil Francis Yu, Valerio Schiti, Carlos Pacheco, Inhyuk Lee, Kei Zama, Sara Pichelli, Jesús Saiz, Kim Jacinto, Adam Kubert, Federico Vicentini, Mahmud Asrar, Jim Cheung, Terry Dodson, Joe Bennett, Alex Ross, Steve Epting, Adam Hughes, Stephanie Hans, Javier Garrón, Alitha E. Martinez, Elena Casagrande, Paco Medina, Daniel Acuña, Chris Samnee, Butch Guice, Rachael Stott, Pepe Larraz, Greg Smallwood, Greg Land, Ray-Anthony Height, Mark Bagley, and Marvel’s Stormbreakers including Peach Momoko, Juann Cabal, Carmen Carnero, R.B. Silva, Joshua Cassara, Natacha Bustos, Iban Coello, and Patrick Gleason.
“We packed this book full of top-flight artistic talent, all paying tribute to the King,” Executive Editor Tom Brevoort said. “So while you can just read these as stories, readers are definitely going to want to savor the experience, and see how each artist stacks up to the original work done by Jack Kirby.”
We’ve had remakes in movies and TV shows, but this sounds kind of like the shot-for-shot Psycho remake from Gus Van Sant. A big part of Captain America’s origin comes from Kirby’s artwork and if that’s removed, albeit by some super talented artists, I’m not all that comfortable with that.
Captain America Tribute #1 is set for release in March 2021.
