New Still Image from Captain America: The First Avenger Reveals a Comic Book-Inspired HYDRA Agent
Posted 05.12.11 by BrentJS
One of the little things about director Joe Johnston's Captain America: The First Avenger adaptation that the perpetually cynical and hyper-critical comic book movie fan community complains about is the look of the Red Skull's (Hugo Weaving) henchmen, the agents of HYDRA (it's not an acronym, by the way, even though many entertainment sites have taken to spelling it as such). In the Marvel comic books on which the movie is based, the international terrorist organization known as HYDRA existed long before the Nazis came to power in Germany, but they are apparently a branch of the Nazi party in the movie. This tweak to the origin of the group doesn't seem to bother comic book movie fans as much as the fact that, based on the still images and movie footage seen so far, the classic HYDRA uniform seemed to have been abandoned in favor of some screwy-looking high-tech gear—many of these same fans had fits over the fact that Chris Hemsworth only wore Thor's iconic winged helmet in one scene in Thor.
As silly as these types of peccadilloes may seem, Marvel and Paramount Pictures must be listening to the fans. A new still image from The First Avenger was just released that does not feature Captain America (Chris Evans), his sidekick, Bucky (Sebastian Stan), or the Red Skull. It doesn't even feature any of the secondary characters from the comic books, like Dum Dum Dugan
(Neal McDonough), Dr. Abraham Erskine (Stanley Tucci), or Howard Stark (Dominic Cooper). Instead, an anonymous HYDRA agent is the featured subject, seemingly to show the fans that Johnston didn't completely abandon HYDRA'S comic book costume of green tunic and cowl with goggles (any fan would agree that losing the yellow gloves and piping for black gloves and Red Skull-red piping is an improvement).
The movie is based on the classic patriotic hero created by Joe Simon and Jack Kirby that first appeared in Captain America Comics #1 (March 1941). The screenplay was written by Stephen McFeely and Christopher Markus. The movie tells the story of how Steve Rogers (Evans) became America's first and only super-soldier during WWII after volunteering for a secret government experiment. As Captain America, Rogers tackled only the most dangerous missions, but he would not live to see the end of the war, literally getting frozen in time after plunging into the icy waters of the Atlantic. Decades later, Cap will be thawed out by The Avengers and become the super-team's greatest leader (but you'll have to wait until The Avengers opens on May 4, 2012, for that story).
Next Showing: Captain America: The First Avenger opens July 22