ORIGINALLY POSTED ON COMICZONEAZ.com (website no longer active)
Psh, no.
Apparently, there’s this big controversy going on that Captain America #602 involves Marvel siding with/slamming the Tea Party movement, which I had not heard of until today when a customer came in saying that Captain America #602 was recalled from store shelves everywhere, etc., etc. (Wow, a book called “CAPTAIN AMERICA,” mentioning political issues and polarizing the country, which is possibly more blindly divided now than ever before? No, THAT could never happen…)
I have not gotten a single letter from either Marvel or Diamond Comics Distributors about that issue being recalled. So that story is bunk, right off (although, he did buy all the copies of Cap 602 that we had left, so at least we made a nice sale off the guy. Hehe!).
The panels in question are below:
Marvel’s Editor-in-Chief, Joe Quesada, has already released a public statement on the issue, in his newest “Cup O’ Joe” article, on CBR.
The book was getting ready to go to the printer, it was on fire already from a deadline standpoint, but the editor on the book noticed that there was a small art correct that needed to get done. On the first page featuring the protestors, the artist on the book drew slogans into the protest signs to give them a sense of reality and to set up the scene. On the following page featuring the protestors again, there were signs, but nothing written in them. From a continuity standpoint, this omission stood out like a sore thumb, but was easily fixable. So, just before the book went to the printer, the editor asked the letterer on the book to just fudge in some quick signs. The letterer in his rush to get the book out of the door but wanting to keep the signs believable, looked on the net and started pulling slogans from actual signs. That’s when he came upon this one.
-Joe Quesada
And used it in the scene and off it went to the printer. Unfortunately, to make the deadline, the work wasn’t double-checked thoroughly, and it was printed as is, which is where we as an editorial group screwed up. We spoke to the letterer, and he was mortified at his mistake and was truly sorry as he had no political agenda. He was just trying to do his job, but ultimately the onus falls on me as E-i-C. All that said, we caught the mistake two weeks ago, after it was printed and removed the sign from the art files so that it no longer appears in future reprints of the title or collections. So, while the crowd protesting has nothing to do with the villains in the story, we in no way meant to say they were associated with the Tea Party movement, it was a simple perfect storm of screw-ups. It happens, we’re human.
So, there you go. It was a deadline-crunching accident made by someone who was trying to do his job, so that we could all get our copies of Cap #602 on time. And considering how poorly a job CAPTAIN AMERICA: REBORN was doing, in regards to shipping on time, I’m not surprised Marvel wanted to get the first new issue of CAPTAIN AMERICA-proper out on time.
So, as a warning, DO NOT go out and buy 23 copies of this comic. They will sit in your closet and rot. You will not be able to sell them for big money (unless it’s to the folks who actually, you know, READ comics like CAPTAIN AMERICA, and happened to not get this particular issue on time).
This is like the WWE (then-WWF) Al Snow action figure debacle of 1999, all over again. Al Snow was a pro wrestler who used to come to the ring with a mannequin head, appropriately named “Head.” Al’s gimmick was that he wasn’t the sharpest tool in the shed, and he and Head would talk to each other. To show that he was nuts, he would write “HELP ME!” backwards on both his own forehead, as well as Head’s forehead. Unfortunately, when JAKKS Pacific made the Al Snow figure, the Head accessory looked a bit too much like a Barbie head for one mother. She saw the figure and, after doing exactly zero research, complained to Wal-Mart about WWF being an advocate of Al Snow murdering women, decapitating them, and carrying their disembodied heads to the ring like some kind of Devil Worshipper. Wal-Mart immediately pulled all the Al Snow figures from their shelves, causing Toys “R” Us and Target to do the same. This caused all Al Snow figures on the secondary market (like eBay) to skyrocket to absolutely ridiculous prices, with some people selling their Al Snow figures in the triple-digits. However, after all the hysteria calmed down, all the retail outlets put their Al Snow figures back on the shelves, and nobody cared.
Completists may want to buy Cap #602 to see the story with is unaltered poster signs. People like myself who buy the comic monthly will want the issue to make sure we continue collecting each month’s comic. And, really, everybody should be buying Ed Brubaker’s run on CAPTAIN AMERICA, which started in 2005, because it’s really freaking good. But the only people who are going to be getting rich of Cap #602 are the people selling you the comic at an artificially inflated price. Don’t be a sucker.
Comics are for reading. You aren’t going to get rich off anything printed in 2010.