When thinking of Captain America, one most likely reflects on his courage, loyalty, and passion for justice. His honor resides in defeating evil so that good can prevail. Although perhaps reductive, this mentality is also shared by the police (minus the cape and body suit to accompany it.) The police force was created to enforce laws that promote justice and peace. To assume that Captain America and the police are companions or allies would not be foolish. However, all too often in the comics, Captain America’s agenda seems to conflict with the police’s agenda. Captain America and the police may desire the same outcome, but the strategies of the two do not seem to align. To take the argument further, this misalignment creates barrier between the two such that the story becomes the police vs. Captain America vs. the criminals. For children reading Captain America Comics, the fact that Captain America and the police are not allies must mean that either a) there are situations where good people and the police are at odds or b) the police are bad. This idea is specifically apparent in Captain America Comics, “The Queer Case of the Murdering Butterfly and the Ancient Mummies” where the police are so inept that they become annoying obstacles for Captain America to avoid.

In the beginning of “The Queer Case of the Murdering Butterfly and the Ancient Mummies”, the police visit Doctor Vitrioli after the notorious killer, The Butterfly, threatens to steal treasure from the doctor’s museum. After The Butterfly easily kills two night guards and steals the precious jewels, the radio announcer ensures that the commissioner has his “best men” on the job, although his best have been completely unsuccessful and are extremely “baffled.” Bucky soon after visits the museum and conveniently stumbles upon The Butterfly’s lair, which one would think the police could have found by now if a squirmy boy found it within a few minutes. Meanwhile, The Butterfly has enlisted several crooks to rob a bank although immediately and coincidentally confronted by Steve Rodgers strolling by. Rodgers beats up the gangsters, just a “good afternoon’s work” for him, but flees the scene when the police arrive seconds too late. Skipping ahead a few scenes, Captain America defeats The Butterfly and discovers the villain’s true identity, Doctor Vitrioli. Always two steps behind Captain America, the police rush in only for Captain America to once again flee the scene and the cops. The ending sequence shows Steve Rodgers and Bucky reading the newspaper as it congratulates the police for a job well done in catching The Butterfly.

Now, just to sum up the story in a few words: police cannot find villain, little sidekick boy effortlessly finds villain, Captain America defeats crooks, police are too late, Captain America defeats villain, police are too late, police get credit for defeating villain. The takeaway from this story is incredibly obvious, the police (“boys”) are too incompetent (“baffled”) to promote and administer justice so Captain America must take on responsibility, which is really just an “afternoon’s work” for him anyway. The police become like a nagging mother or annoying fly that Captain America must shake although the police will eventually and inevitably receive all the glory. The concept inspires a deeper issue explained by Fredric Wertham, “ [A hero]… undermines the authority and the dignity of the ordinary man and woman in the minds of children.” And in this case, the ordinary man and woman are the police. If comics imply that there are justifiable situations in which a “hero” must run away and avoid the police, whether due to the police’s competence or another reason, they are creating a fine line between good Samaritans and radical anarchists.

 

Comics have successfully, and some would say flawlessly, transitioned between comic books, comic strips, television series, and feature films. First becoming prominent in 1920s, comics featured “pulp heroes”, action heroes displaying typical human abilities and experiencing normal but amusing adventures, and later matured into highlighting the more mainstream superheroes. However, even pre-superhero, comics advanced past comic strips to radio almost immediately with characters like Popeye and Doc Samson. The emergence of characters like The Phantom and The Clock in the early 1930s led into The Golden Age (1938-1956) which featured the most popular characters such as Superman, Batman, Fantastic Four, Captain America, etc. in comic strips, books, and radio. Although popularity began to decline at the end of World War II, comics have always had a passionate, loyal following that seems to be growing over the past couple decades. With increasing presence in films, video games, and television series, some would consider comics as “transmedia” due to the constant media-hopping starting from strips to radio to film. However, it is important to recognize the inherent difference between transmedia and media: transmedia is not a type of media, instead, it is a description of the mode. With this in mind, comics are not the media, but a transmediatic mode.

Transmedia, more often than not, is referred to as “transmedia storytelling”. According to the Director of Media Psychology Research Center, Dr. Pamela Rutledge, “Transmedia storytelling uses multiple media platforms to tell a narrative across time…The process is cumulative and each piece adds richness and detail to the story world.”(1) Thus, transmedia storytelling is a narrative, a process, not an actual medium. The practice is used so that one mode can be supported by several media. In this case, transmedia storytelling is used so that comics can be supported by several media. This statement is (or should be) noncontroversial. However, objections begin to rise when W.J.T Mitchell directly compares transmedia and modern media, “As media, comics are more like cinema and the computer, capable of remediating every other medium. They are a transmedium that, in contrast to the modern media, maintain a direct link to the most primitive forms of mark-making…” The comparison makes little sense because transmedia describe the strategy used within media while modern media define the actual means of communication. Mitchell goes to argue that, “Comics is transmediatic in its openness to multiple alternative frameworks in terms of style, form, structure, material support and technical platform.” I wouldn’t disagree with this statement if “transmediatic” was defined as containing a narrative across multiple media platforms. In fact, the history of Batman embodies this. Created in 1939, Batman comic books gained popularity, except for a dip in the 1950s and early 1960s, until the comic achieved a television series in 1966. Later, the movie Batman debuted in 1989 and was followed by several other films and adaptations (2). However, this proves that Batman is the mode, not the medium. Its ability to transfer from different media makes it transmediatic, but not the medium itself.

Depending on how you define “transmedia”, it can be argued that comics are transmediatic. However, I only believe this if we are going by Dr. Rutledge’s definition, and not Mitchell’s.

(1) http://athinklab.com/transmedia-storytelling/what-is-transmedia-storytelling/

(2) http://ultimatebatmancomicswebsite.weebly.com/batman-history.html