“Who is it that can tell me who I am?”― William Shakespeare, King Lear
With the resonance of a cautionary tale expressed through a classic Shakespearean tragedy, Marvel’s Avengers: Twilight – a six-issue series developed by writer Chip Zdarsky and artist Daniel Acuña – began with issue 1 of 6 this week (and, just in, issue one has earned a second printing and will return to comic shops on February 28 in case you missed the first run).
For fans of dystopian visions of the future and fans of history, this series certainly has the potential to become a modern classic.
As a clear homage to Frank Miller’s Batman: The Dark Knight Returns and Alan Moore’s The Watchmen, Zdarsky’s vision of a morally dark United States in the not-too-distant future exists in the sweet spot of extrapolation, where the world of the future echoes the recognizable realities of the present, where an aging and retired hero, Captain America, Steve Rogers, must decide if he will go gently into that good night or rage against the dying of the light and take a stand to once again defend the core values of the American way.
Beginning with an instantly engaging cover painted by the incredible Alex Ross, the book stands out among other current comics. On the cover, a somewhat recognizable Captain America scowls as he squats in a classic superhero pose. Upon closer inspection, Cap is clearly different. Where is his shield? What happened to the classic texture of his red, white and blue uniform? This cap is grizzled, with a deep scar tracing down from his cheek to his chin. The brilliance of the cover is expressed in how it emphasizes the motif of a twilight hour and the theme of all things coming to an end. The light on the cover rises up from a setting light, revealing the dark, matte navy and the deep reds of this new uniform. This reader could not wait to find out the root of these changes.
The interior panels of the book are simply stunning, with what I would coin the “Acuña aesthetic”, a brilliant combination of pencils and inks delivered with a painter’s touch through the coloring and inks. The inking of Cap’s face captures precise details of his aging face, with deep wrinkles and sagging skin covering the remnants of a once powerfully athletic build. The characters come alive with color and precise and emotional expressions.
Coming back to the story and its ties to a world we can recognize, and possibly see becoming a reality within a decade, the core of the first book focuses on the nation’s reaction to a 9/11-level event called “H-Day” … a day Steve Rogers reflects upon as he wakes up into another day of retirement: “It’s August 13th. I don’t get to forget.” Much like the 9/11 event of 2001, this H-Day event lives inside the minds of the heroes who were directly affected by it.
Aging heroes, Luke Cage and Matt Murdock, meet Steve in metropolitan park, possibly central park, to reflect upon the state of their lives and the world. Freedom has been deadened in this post-H-Day America, where Orwellian Big Brother cameras keep an eye on the populace, cell phone cameras have been outlawed, and terror threats are being leveraged to suppress civil liberties and civil rights. Steve’s tone suggests the U.S. Constitution is being used as a doormat and not as the foundation of a nation built on life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. How can anyone pursue lofty ideals when “terror curfews” and the fear of some unseen Hydra threat is all anyone can discuss?
Zdarsky’s writing incorporates a prescient warning about those who might manipulate history, changing the stories, in order to influence the present. Steve, after returning home from his rendezvous in the park, is stunned to see a preview for an upcoming documentary about the villainous Red Skull, his arch-nemesis. The program airing on FNN is titled “Red Between the Lines: The Lost Nazi” and suggests Johann Schmidt (Red Skull) “worked against Hitler, trying to take the Führer down from within the Third Reich.” This revisionist history, which seems to lionize one of history’s greatest evil figures, undoubtedly appalled Steve. Zdarsky’s prescience comes in the form of a parallel event which took place in the fall of 2023, when Osama Bin Laden’s “Letter to America” began to make its way around social media platforms. In late 2023, revisionist historians suggested, in a disgusting turn, that somehow the attacks of 9/11 were somehow the fault of the foreign policy of the United States and not the result of a plan hatched by a ruthless and brutal terrorist cabal.
This sort of writing is perfectly timed for the present, where anxieties and conspiracies take on lives of their own in just a matter of hours. Like Miller and Moore in the 1980s, Zdarksy has his finger on the pulse of the zeitgeist of contemporary America.
Generational strife has been a theme of literature for ages, going back before the hubris of Oedipus, and it continues in a powerful way in Avengers: Twilight. Steve Rogers, born a full generation before the Boomers, is now aging without the help of super-soldier serum coursing through his veins. As a result, Steve is forced to look at the world through thick corrective lenses (a metaphor?), fueled by coffee, supplemented by prescription meds, and with a cautious awareness of his heart’s arrhythmia. In so many ways, he resembles the looming future Generation X is facing now, where the invincibility of youth is beginning to pass away and new generations develop their own visions of what America can become. The old world passes away as a new generation replaces the old, and within that change conflicts may emerge.
In a word, I love this book and can’t wait to follow the path of Steve Rogers as he considers how to react to a world leaving the one he saved countless times as a relic of the past. Will he remain the aging, mild-mannered former legend or once again don the mantle of Captain America?
We shall see … in the fading twilight.
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