Captain Confederacy # 1 (1986)
Writer: Will Shetterly
Artist: Vince Stone
Rating: 
For this week’s installment of reviewing weird titles, I’m taking a look at Captain Confederacy # 1 from SteelDragon Press, and yeah, you can’t get any weirder than this title.
Have you ever come across a comic with such a bizarre premise and say to yourself “Oh my god, this is a thing?! THIS IS ACTUALLY A THING?!!”; Well, if you found yourself in a comic shop in 1986 and came across Captain Confederacy, pretty sure that would be the reaction you would have once you saw the cover …..not to mention what was inside the comic.
The series takes place in an alternate history where The Confederacy won the Civil War and split into eight nations called The Confederate States of America. We’re also introduced to Jeremy Gray, an out-of-work actor who takes a “Superman Serum” that grants him super strength and healing abilities than as Captain Confederacy, takes part in a series of TV news sequences that are produced for the sole purpose of reinforcing Confederacy-themed ideologies. I do feel like Captain Confederacy comes across as a twisted-funhouse mirror version of Captain America thanks in part to the premise, so the series has that going for it, if that’s a good or bad thing is entirely up to the readers. I have to give the creators credit for taking a very ugly part of U.S. History and channeling it for a superhero story that sets out to deliver something different; I enjoyed the pacing of Will Shetterly’s script and Vince Stone’s art looks very similar to Luke McDonnell’s art yet he does a great job of bringing out the realism in the story.
Captain Confederacy is somewhat of a mixed bag. On one hand, we got a hero trying his best to uphold his standards of justice in a world heavily influenced by confederacy-themed propaganda, but on the other hand, I liken the comic (and the series itself) to a trainwreck where you know it’s somewhat of a disaster but you can’t look away no matter how hard you try (The constant use of the n-word throughout this issue may bother some readers) so if you ever come across this title, just remember that it’s an acquired taste that shouldn’t be taken seriously, and while Shetterly & Stone may have looked at themselves as the Joe Simon and Jack Kirby of their time, this series is definitely not your daddy’s Captain America or The Fighting American for that matter.
Well, that’s it for me. I’ll be back next week with another review of a weird comic so thanks for sticking around and I will see you next time.
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