| Captain America: White | |
|---|---|
 Cover of the collected edition | |
| Publication information | |
| Publisher | Marvel Comics |
| Schedule | Irregular |
| Format | Limited series |
| Genre | |
| Publication date | July 2008; September – December 2015 |
| No. of issues | 6 |
| Main character(s) | Captain America Bucky Barnes |
| Creative team | |
| Written by | Jeph Loeb |
| Artist | Tim Sale |
| Letterer(s) | Richard Starkings Comicraft |
| Colorist | Dave Stewart |
| Editor(s) | Richard Starkings Jon Moisan Mark Paniccia |
| Collected editions | |
| Captain America: White — Deluxe Hardcover | ISBN 978-0785194194 |
| Captain America: White — Paperback | ISBN 978-0785133766 |
| Marvel Knights: Jeff Loeb & Tim Sale: Yellow, Blue, Gray & White Omnibus | ISBN 978-1302914059 |
Captain America: White is a six-issueMarvel Comicslimited series written byJeph Loeb and illustrated byTim Sale. An homage toCaptain America comics from theGolden Age of Comic Books, the series focuses on the relationship betweenSteve Rogers / Captain America and his sidekickBucky. It is the fourth and final comic in Loeb's and Sale's "Color" series, followingDaredevil: Yellow,Spider-Man: Blue, andHulk: Gray. The series is noted for its extensive production delays, with seven years elapsing between the release of the first and second issues.
White is narrated bySteve Rogers as he recounts a mission with his partnerJames Buchanan "Bucky" Barnes duringWorld War II.
While in basic training atFort Leigh,Virginia, Barnes discovers that Rogers isCaptain America after walking in on Rogers changing into his costume. Rogers trains Barnes as his sidekick, who takes a diminutive of his middle name – "Bucky" – as his alias. They are deployed toNorth Africa in December 1941, where they extractNick Fury and theHowling Commandos before being shipped to Europe. While en route, their plane is shot down over the Atlantic Ocean. Barnes saves Rogers from drowning by detachingRogers' shield and allowing it to sink to the bottom of the ocean; the shield is later recovered and returned to Rogers byNamor of theInvaders.
Rogers, Barnes, Fury and the Commandos make landfall inOccupied France, where they repel a Nazi military unit and join with Fury's allies in theFrench Resistance. They proceed to Paris to confrontRed Skull, seeking to thwart his plan to raid and destroy theLouvre. Believing Rogers has lost faith in him after losing his shield, Barnes secretly leaves to confront Red Skull alone. Upon learning of Barnes' plan, Rogers abandons the Louvre mission to confront Red Skull at his base in azeppelin circling theEiffel Tower. Red Skull, who has captured Barnes, issues Rogers an ultimatum: save the Eiffel Tower and its surrounding environs, which he has armed with explosives, or save Barnes. Rogers chooses to rescue Barnes, unintentionally destroying the zeppelin and Red Skull's detonator in the process, and escapes to safety with Barnes.
Many years later, shortly after having been rescued fromsuspended animation by theAvengers,[a] Rogers is visited by Fury. They travel to Rogers' and Barnes' graves atArlington National Cemetery, which are marked with statues of the two men. Rogers destroys his own statue with his shield, and laments Barnes' death.
White is the fourth comic in Loeb and Sale's Color series, followingDaredevil: Yellow,Spider-Man: Blue, andHulk: Gray. Comics in the series broadly focus on the formative years of a given character, as juxtaposed against a personal loss they have suffered.[1] Loeb had conceived of a story about Rogers' grief over Barnes' death prior to the publication ofThe Winter Soldier, the 2005 run of issues inCaptain America (Volume 5) that revealedthat Barnes was still alive.[1] Consequently, Loeb set the non-WWII portions of the comic in a period of continuity prior to the events ofThe Winter Soldier.[2]
Sale illustratedWhite using a mix of charcoal and ink wash, drawing inspiration for the look of the series fromTwo-Fisted Tales byHarvey Kurtzman andWilliam Gaines,Foxhole byJack Kirby, and the political cartoons ofBill Mauldin.[3] Sale expressed a desire to maintain a high level of historical accuracy in early interviews about the series,[3] but later commented that maintaining strict historical accuracy "drove [him] crazy for a while"[2] and caused him to shift priorities for the series' art.[2]
White was announced in March 2008 atWizard World Los Angeles.[2] Issue #0 was published on July 9, 2008,[4] makingWhite one of the first Marvel Comics titles to be authored by Loeb following a period of exclusivity withDC Comics.[5] #0 was published under theMarvel Knights imprint, though subsequent issues would be published with the generic Marveltrade dress.[4]
The series subsequently languished indevelopment hell[6] due to Loeb's involvement withMarvel Television[2][7] and Sale's scarce availability for sequential comic work.[3] While the majority of the series' art was completed in 2008,[2] scripting would not be completed until 2011.[8] In a 2009 panel at Long Beach Comic Con, Loeb stated that the comic was further delayed by his and Sale's desire to complete all six issues before going to print.[9] Unsuccessful attempts were made to time the release ofWhite to the release of the 2011 filmCaptain America: The First Avenger,[1] and the series remained in development through 2014.[10]
At a retailer breakfast atC2E2 in April 2015, a September 2015 release date was announced forCaptain America: White #1.[11] The issue was released as a double-sized issue containing a re-print ofCaptain America: White #0.[12] The series maintained an irregular publishing schedule, with the final issue released on December 30, 2015.[13] The series was collected into a deluxe hardcover released on February 17, 2016[14] and atrade paperback released on October 26.[15] AMarvel Omnibus containing all four entries in the Color series was released on December 5, 2018.[16]
Black. And white. You saw it like I did, right, Bucky? That's the one thing I could always count on in my partner. With you gone ... without you to back me up ... what has my life become?
— Steve Rogers/Captain America,
Captain America: White #4
Subtitles for stories in the Color series each represent a double meaning, i.e. yellow inDaredevil: Yellow represents both the color of Daredevil's original costume and the color typically associated withcowardice.[17] InWhite, the color is initially used in reference toblack and white hat symbolism in film, as symbolic of Rogers's belief in the moral righteousness of his decision to fight in the war;[17] he comments that "in theWesterns,we wore the white hats".[18] Its secondary meaning refers to Rogers' struggle to apply this absolutism to a morally gray world and his ultimate rejection ofblack-and-white thinking, as manifested in his decision to save Barnes over the city of Paris.[17]
While previous entries in the Color series focus on romantic relationships –Matt Murdock andKaren Page inYellow,Peter Parker andGwen Stacy inBlue, andBruce Banner andBetty Ross inGray –White is distinct in its focus on the platonic partnership between Rogers and Barnes. Loeb has stated that he wished to depict Rogers and Barnes as having a close-in-age fraternal relationship, in contrast toGolden Age comics that depicted Rogers as a much older father figure to Barnes.[17] Conversely,Marvel Cinematic Universe screenwritersChristopher Markus and Stephen McFeely comment on the pseudo-romantic nature of Rogers' and Barnes' relationship inWhite in the foreword to the deluxe hardcover edition of the series:[19]
No adventure is complete without a love story. And, yes, these books have one — the longest, most tortured one in Marvel history, in fact. We're talking about Steve and Bucky, without smirking or innuendo or raised eyebrows. Platonic though the relationship may be, from the meet cute to the tragic separation, their bond has all the elements of a classic romance. These two men love each other — as any pair of friends who faced exclusion, combat, inhumanity, and death would. Their bond stretches across half of the twentieth century. [...] Just as Jeph and Tim's earlierDaredevil: Yellow,Spider-Man: Blue, andHulk: Gray all dealt with the major love interests in the heroes' lives, so too doesCaptain America: White. Steve and Bucky are each other's soulmate, if you will, because no one on Earth understands what either of them has been through as well as the other does.[19]
White received positive reviews. Chris Galvin called the series "enjoyable the whole way through" and "a remarkable read" in a review of the final issue forComicsVerse.[20]Nerdist gave the series a 5 out of 5 rating, calling it a "true work of art" and offering praise for Sale and Dave Stewart's artwork.[21] Sale's artwork was similarly commended by Jesse Schedeen in his review of issue #1 ofWhite forIGN, who praised the series'Golden andSilver Age influences, but felt that the story was "a little too hokey".[22] Conversely, in a review of issue #0 forComic Book Resources, Augie De Blieck Jr. praised Loeb's storytelling and questioned whether Sale's stylized art was a good fit for aCaptain America story.[23]Newsarama gave the final issue in the series a 7 out of 10 rating, calling the series "well-paced and beautifully drawn, but ultimately empty", surmisingWhite as "another beautiful but inconsequential Cap story".[24]
In 2009,Dave Stewart won anEisner Award for Best Coloring for his work onWhite and other titles.[25]
Sgt. Fury & his Howling Commandos: Shotgun Opera, aone shot that serves as a companion toWhite, was published by Marvel in 2009.[26]
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