Aries: The small plant colony in your molars will finally begin to grow. You will root to the ground and become fertilizer for the bounty to come next.
Taurus: Its the early morning and the weather has gone sour. You will see a little girl in a purple raincoat. Keep walking. Do not make any movement towards her. As she passes, the smell of rot will be overwhelming.
Gemini: As you move furniture you will stumble and send an elbow through the drywall. You will see the words written on the inside of the facade. Meaningless words upon meaningless words. Their power has long since gone. There is nothing for you to do but forget and patch the hole.
Cancer: You will meet your state senator. An unassuming man. Wait. Where they a woman?The loose american cut suit obscured any defining features. Where you try to remember their face all you can see are scribbles. You remember them being pleasant if a bit occupied.
Leo: You will dream of the colossal spirit train. It will stop to pick up new passengers. The lavish interior and strange alien guests will be off-putting. Do not get off. Stay in the cabin.
Virgo: As you sit by the bank of a river, you will see an old steamer trunk float by. It will contain your possessions from a previous life. If you have anything you want to save, lock it inside.
Libra: The wind will finally catch up to you. The frail bones of consumed birds raining down on your shoulders. Now or never dear.
Scorpio: You will get into a fight. Go on a quest for revenge. And know the true visceral feeling of the hunt.
Ophiuchus: Things will begin to wander out of the bamboo thicket. New things. Things with alien biology and the deepest of hunger. The stars and I recommend a nice cross spear.
Sagittarius: Well, youll find that cursed ivory comb you’ve been looking for, so thats a plus. Otherwise its looking pretty uneventful.
Capricorn: Maybe you can realize how truly lucky you are and she will incinerate you with a rain of blazing moonlight. Maybe.
Aquarius: After all this time you will finally become one with the cold. Sleep with the windows open. Call beasts to your feet. Watch the plants die at your touch. The usual.
Pisces: Youll finally get the courage to ask out that scion of a sentient cloud of tar and a large bird. It will be quite the adventure. Keep an oxygen supply handy.
In December of 1940, America still hadn’t entered the war.
There were a lot of Americans – such as the 800,000 paying members of the America First Committee – who looked at fascists massacring their way through Europe and declared “that’s not our problem.”
Captain America was created by two poor Jewish Americans, Joe Simon and Jack Kirby, with the specific intent of trying to convince Americans that entering the war was the right thing to do. It wasn’t easy – Kirby went far beyond what was expected of artists at the time, penciling the entire issue with a deadline that would have been difficult for a two-man crew to pull off.
Captain America punched Hitler right on the cover, at a time when a majority of Americans just didn’t feel like doing anything decisive against the Nazis.
Kirby and Simon faced considerable resistance for their creation, including steady hate mail and outright death threats.
Once, while Jack was in the Timely office, a call came from someone in the lobby. When Kirby answered, the caller threatened Jack with bodily harm if he showed his face. Kirby told the caller he would be right down, but by the time Jack reached street level, there was no one to be found.
Both creators enlisted after America entered the war. Kirby, as an artist, was called upon to do the extremely dangerous work of scouting ahead to draw maps. He also went on to co-create Black Panther in 1966.
They didn’t create Captain America to be an accurate depiction of America-As-It-Is. The character was meant to inspire and embolden, to show America-As-It-Should-Be.
The subject of where the Vibranium for the shield came from actually never came up for decades of comics, until it was finally addressed by Black Panther’s writer, Christopher Priest, in 2001. Priest never shied away from acknowledging America’s racism, but he also understood that Captain America represented an ideal, intended to inspire Americans to be better.
The story mixed together a “present day” discussion between Cap and T’Challa with flashbacks to when Cap met the Black Panther ruling Wakanda during World War II.
FLASHBACK:
PRESENT:
PRESENT -> FLASHBACK
PRESENT:
The Vibranium was given, freely, by one good man to another good man.
It is right to rage against the injustices done by our governments. We must call them out, and we must fight for what’s right.
But if you can’t even stand to see the symbols created to inspire people to be better, and rail against those,then you’re just confusing cynicism for realism.
This was a masterful callout that deserves a place in the callout hall of fame, which I just realized needs to exist. It strikes the perfect tone of, “I’m not criticizing where you’re at on this, I’m holding my hand out and inviting you to step up to the next level in your thinking about it.”
That’s the kind of callout that people can sometimes actually hear, not just for entertaining the bystanders. Truly, we need more of this.
pervasive doubt 