Mark D. White

This week's mammoth 70th anniversary Captain America #616 is packed full of great stories and art, from Ed Brubaker's updating of Bucky's situation and Steve's continued dilemma about donning the stars and stripes once more (continued thematically from the terrific Captain America #615.1), to the surprise reprinting of commissions of Cap from two of my childhood favorites, Jim Aparo and Curt Swan, to an assortment of short stories from an wide range of creators and drawing on a variety of eras. (I'll admit the tears didn't come until the last story, by Kyle Higgins and Alec Siegel–see if you can guess where in the story I started to well up.)

See the extensive preview of the issue at Comic Book Resources if, for some reason, you haven't picked up the issue yet. (No, don't tell me, I don't want to know… there is no way you can explain…)

The most interesting story from a philosophical point of view would have be to Frank Tieri and Paul Azaceta's modern tale of Steve and Sharon discovering a very mysterious person lurking in the New York City art circles… SPOILERS and more after the fold.

 As "The Exhibit" begins, we see Steve in a coffee shop showing his "portfolio" of Cap portraits to Edmund Heidler, an art dealer, who does not hide his disdain for the subject but nonetheless sees commerical potential in it. After the art dealer makes an apparently racist comment about the waitress, he and Steve leave and part ways, and Steve hops into Sharon's car. Sharon is puzzled about why Steve's so interested in this despicable but seemingly innocuous man, until he draws a moustache on the picture of the art dealer on her tablet computer, and Edmund Heidler becomes Adolf Hitler.

Sharon is shocked–she whips out a gun and turns the car around to pursue him, but Steve orders her to stop. He explains that the man is one of Hitler's clones, many of whom Cap had fought in the past, but one who apparently slipped away undetected. However, he left the lab of his "birth" before his programming was finished, so he has no idea whom he was modeled after. Steve tells Sharon that he just wanted to meet him to gauge his threat level, and he judged him to be no danger–not the nicest man, necessarily, but not evil, at least as Steve could tell.

Of course, this evokes the classic puzzle: if you could go back in time and kill Hitler while he was an infant, would you–and should you? (Gee, there oughta be an issue of What If?…) This case is different, though, because we know what Hitler did, and in the hypothetical scenario we have a chance to prevent it. But this man, Heidler, is not Hitler, though he shares the same genetic material; he did not even receive his "programming" that would have made him "a" Hitler.

In wanting to observe him but not interfere with him (yet), Steve is arguing that genetics do not determine character or behavior, and no one is predestined to live out their genetic legacy. One's DNA may instill certain predispositions in a person, but when it comes down to it, Steve holds people responsible for their choices–it is their responsibility to acknowledge antisocial "tendencies" and resist them. (If Tony Stark can do it, well… am I right?)

But Sharon doesn't buy it. "Still," she says, "something might be in there. Even at an unconscious level. Look at the name he chose for himself. Hiedler was Hitler's grandfather's surname. Edmund was his brother's name…" From her point of view, choices Heidler has made suggest that his genetics are leading to similar behaviors as his "original." (Yes, I just watched Never Let Me Go–good flick. Carey Mulligan was incredible, Peter Parker wasn't bad either, and Keira Knightley just needs a cheeseburger.) And if there's even a chance Heidler could become a Hitler–just as the baby Hitler did years ago–she's going to put a stop to it now.

As usual, Steve gets it right: "I won't condemn a man for what might lie in his mind. I won't condemn a man for what he might do. Even Hitler." He's saying that we can't judge a person for what he or she might do, because every person deserves the chance to make the right choice. Steve's words would suggest that, given the chance–which he does, given the ease of time travel in the Marvel Universe, as shown most recently in Mark Waid's miniseries Captain America: Man Out of Time–he would not kill Hitler in his crib.

Steve believes that even the most evil man in the world can change, can recognize his flaws, and can make the right decisions. Do you?