Thursday, July 31, 2014

Miss America

No, I'm not talking about the Beauty Title, nor will I ever.  Miss America is currently a comic book heroin who is a part of Young Avengers.  Ironically she has no connection to the Miss America from World War II who was essentially a female version of Captain America.  


Miss America is something else entirely.  First off, she's called Miss America because her legal name is America Chavez.  She doesn't go by the moniker to illicit American pride, or to spread the ideals of America.  It's just her given name and so converted to the moniker because apparently super heros need a cool name.



She's also very similar to Supeman in terms of base powers.  She's invulnerable, can fly, has super human speed, super human strength, and finally can kick holes in reality.  As in likes to travel between realities and take her allies with her.  She also likes to punch things and ask questions/assess later.  Lastly was raised in another dimension.

Why am I telling you all this?  Well first off, because Miss America Chavez is awesome, and secondly because I think she's the closest thing to Captain America that can be created now a days and survive.



Captain America's first issue came out a year before the Pearl Harbor Attack.  During this time period America was trying very hard to practice isolationism, after Pearl Harbor America decided to get involved with the world war.  The first issue has the extremely famous cover of Captain America punching Hitler right in the jaw.  From there on Captain America fought many enemies that were almost all politically connected somehow to the real world.  He also fought home issue, like not doing drugs.  He was America's ideal person, and also America's biggest advocate.  He was founded and was written during a time when American pride was high and when people were happy to read about a Super Hero telling the rest of the world why they should be like America.  



Now let's talk about the millennial generation, which is by the way, my generation.  I was raised during a time where I got told a president that didn't get elected was in charge, let my country get attacked, and then used my country to go to war with a country that was even harboring the person who attacked us.  To make it even better I was taught that the president who didn't get elected, got elected "again," but not by the people of the United States, but by a system that assumes that the populace is uneducated and can't be trusted to elect our leaders.  Cue the giant recession, and news media being oddly blaming of the generation that couldn't vote at the time.  From there we run into the latest iteration of slavery, aka needing to take an unpaid internship so that you can MAYBE be qualified to get a job.  Corporations being declared people and being told that your employers may be allowed to make decision on what they feel like paying for you medically speaking.  Student loans being higher than ever and Corporate and Upper Class taxes being lower than ever and then being told by the media that we're lazy and the country is doomed if we become in charge.  



Ok I'm done, I could go on, but I will try not to.  Shockingly most millennials do not seem to have particularly high American pride.  So if Captain America was created today I think it would have died, quickly, possibly loudly.  Miss America on the other hand first off is of latin descent and is bilingual, was actually raised not in our current America, and lastly she doesn't try to spread America being an awesome place.  She just tries to be awesome and then wears the stars and stripes.  Which I think at this point is what most people are trying to do.  They're trying to be awesome and hopefully pull America up with them.  

If, like me, you feel Captain America really doesn't speak to our current America, despite his current iteration being awesome in other ways, I highly recommend you check out Young Avengers.  Also if, like me, you think America has gone downward and deserves a second chance, go forth be awesome and try to take America with you.

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