Abstract
In 2007, Captain America, or Cap to his peers, died outside the courthouse where he would answer for leading a band of superheroes against the government’s Superhuman Registration Act in a plot line Fox and Friends took issue with, condemning Marvel Comics for killing Cap “while we’re at war,” referring to President George W. Bush’s war on terror. In 2008, former sidekick Bucky took up the Cap banner. Legacy characters are common in comics, but fans noted an unexpected addition to the costume: a handgun. Cap’s shield, a symbol of defense, now had an offensive accent. News media outlets lauded the new gun as a “sign of the times,” as Rolling Stone said, considering it a critique on the post-9/11 cultural landscape, but fan communities felt uneasy about the decision. The gun’s presence on Bucky Cap’s belt marks a continuous period of exceptionality, the kind Giorgio Agamben warns against in State of Exception. When Bucky’s predecessor would return to the role of Captain America, the sidearm would no longer remain, but the character would confront issues related to guns, and media and fans would once again respond. Even though Cap only encounters guns a few times during the 2010s, reception to these moments is more significant than that of characters who regularly use lethal weapons. Fetishistic emphasis on Captain America’s gun exposes the state of exception inherent in all superhero media, prompting a digital discourse across professional and amateur platforms on gun-related subjects. This project analyzes how superhero media portray gun use and the subsequent reception from both news media and digital fandom. A sampling of comics, television series, and films are textually analyzed, along with digital news media and online fan forums pertaining to those examples.
Fetishizing Captain America’s sidearm: iconography, exceptionality, and the politics of representing guns
