Today we take a look at why Captain America’s shield went round.
In Abandoned an’ Forsaked, we look at stories and comic ideas that were not only abandoned, but whose stories/plots were also specifically “flipped” by a later writer (as if they were legal precedent).
Now that just makes me laugh. You see, as you may have noticed in a few of my columns over the years when it comes to a discussion of Captain America’s shield (which has come up many times over the years , of course, because everyone loves Captain America’s shield, it’s just one of the most iconic weapons in all of comic book history (probably THE most iconic, next to the throwing knives of Fancy Dan), my strokes are usually inspired by reader Hunter S.’s questions about Captain America’s shield, however this time, when I thought Hunter asked me about it, I went to my notes and he hadn’t actually asked me about it so I guess I was going to do it myself but literally a day or so after I got the title and image approval from header, Hunter wrote to me…about this topic!Too funny.
Anyway, let’s see why Captain America’s shield went round in the comics!
THE REAL REASON CAPTAIN AMERICA’S SHIELD BECAME ROUND
The real reason the shield goes round is pretty mundane, really. One of the things you need to keep in mind about the early days of comic books is that most comic companies at the time knew each other very well, as almost all of the major comic companies were there. origin of the pulp magazine companies which then also entered comics, and so everyone knew each other from the pulp game.
Few things made it clearer how intertwined the lives of these companies were than the fact that Maurice Coyne, one of the three men who came together to form MLJ Comics (based on the initial of each of their names: Maurice Coyne, Louis Silberkleit, and John L. Goldwater) continued to do the books for Martin Goodman on Goodman’s comic book line even after Coyne was one of the owners of a rival comic book company. That’s just how these guys rode back then. It’s similar to how National Comics (now DC) allowed Marvel to distribute its comics through DC’s distribution system in the late 1950s after Marvel’s distributor went bankrupt.
However, even though they helped each other, they were all still active business rivals. One of the ways this was often expressed was the threat of lawsuits against each other.
For example, MLJ introduced the first patriotic-themed superhero with the shield in Pep Comics #1…
When Martin Goodman’s Comics Company Released Captain America Comics #1…
MLJ threatened to sue because Cap’s shield was similar to the shield costume, so Joe Simon and Jack Kirby switched to a circular shield…
And that’s the “real” reason Captain America’s shield was round. And in the comics?
THE FIRST OFFICIAL EXPLANATION WHY CAPTAIN AMERICA’S SHIELD BECAME ROUND
It’s weird, because there are a lot of hidden theories about the origins of Captain America’s shield that don’t actually come from the comics themselves, so I really don’t know where they came from. For example, one theory that I see a LOT of (to the point where maybe I should as Comic Book Legends Revealed debunking it – unless it appears in a comic that I don’t know about) is that Captain America the shield is round because it was cast in the mold of a tank hatch. That’s a great idea, but it’s not really in the comics where the shield background was given, Captain America #303 (by Mike Carlin, Paul Neary and Dennis Janke). In this comic it is true that Myron MacLain was working on making tank armor when he was given Vibranim to work with and he discovered the alloy that created Captain America’s shield through a mysterious mixture of Vibranium and steel into a super metal, but he specifically notes that he poured it into a disc-shaped mold because that would be the easiest thing to test…
Does that make sense? I really have no idea, but this is the official answer! At least it WAS!
HOW DID BLACK PANTHER INFLUENCE THE SHAPE OF CAPTAIN AMERICA’S SHIELD?
The miniseries Captain America/Black Panther: Flags of Our Fathers saw Captain America and Nick Fury and the Howling Commandos travel to Wakanda during World War II to stop the Nazis from taking over the country and taking over its supply of vibranium. Captain America befriended the WWII Black Panther (T’Challa’s grandfather) and they fought against Red Skull and some super-Nazis, as seen here in Flags of Our Fathers #4 (by Reginald Hudlin, Denys Cowan, Tom Palmer, Sandu Florea and Peter Pantazis)….
Captain America’s original shield is destroyed in battle…
Black Panther gives him a round Vibranium shield and Cap likes it very much…
In the end, Black Panther offers Cap the shield, but Cap refuses it, but suggests that it gave him a good idea for a new shield…
We then learn that, under the direction of Nick Fury, Captain America has stolen a piece of Vibranium…
And with Cap’s suggestion for a round shield, Vibranium was used to craft the special shield…
Evan Narcisse, Paul Renaud and Stéphane Paitreau then resumed this comeback in The Rise of the Black Panther #1, where it was revealed that Black Panther was GIVING Captain America the piece of Vibranium as a gift…
That’s it for this episode of Abandoned an’ Forsaked! Thanks to Hunter S. for suggesting that I feature this one, even though I technically did anyway! He couldn’t have known, so it still counts! Everyone else, feel free to send me ideas for future installments at brianc@cbr.com! I always like to know what stories people are interested in!
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