Ask any casual reader of Marvel Comics who Captain America is, and the answers are usually uniform: Steve Rogers is a super-soldier, a living symbol of freedom, the star-spangled man with a shield and a plan. But in the hands of Ta-Nehisi Coates, Rogers returned to a more complex role that he’s not often inhabited: a man struggling with his role in a country slipping into authoritarianism. In Coates’ run on Captain America (Vol. 9, 2018–2021), the Star-Spangled Avenger becomes the vehicle for a scarily topical political critique, interrogating the very nation he was created to defend. Coates breaks apart the elements of American symbolism baked into the Captain America identity, deconstructs them, and pairs them with a stripped-down narrative voice which allows his deeper meanings to shine through the unique combination of art and text that is only possible in comics. In so doing, Coates reframes Captain America as a witness to the collapse of American myth.

The Hydra Hangover: Fascism Wearing the Flag

Inheriting the narrative fallout of Secret Empire, where Captain America was revealed to be a Hydra sleeper agent, Coates chooses not to ignore the trauma but to interrogate it. In Captain America #1 (2018), art by Leinil Francis Yu introduces us to a Steve Rogers haunted by the possibility that his symbol has been permanently tainted. The opening sequence takes place in a snowy battlefield in the American heartland, where Rogers battles manufactured patriotic super-soldier “Nuke” clones. It is an explicit allegory for the dangers of nationalism divorced from ethics.

“They say I belong to them now. That Hydra Cap was the real me. They say the dream is dead. I say it’s ours again.”

The stark visual contrast in the page’s palette and framing drives the message home. Rogers fights in muted blues and grays. He’s scaled small in the context of the larger fight, as if to suggest a man uncertain of his role, subject to the whims of fate. Meanwhile, the Nuke clones wear bright, almost neon American flags tattooed across their faces. Yu’s framing exaggerates this juxtaposition, framing Rogers in low-angle, snow-obscured panels while giving the Nukes symmetrical, militaristic spreads.

This is not subtle. The iconography of patriotism has been co-opted by fascism. The fight, then, is not against enemies from without but traitors from within. In the Trump era, where white supremacists carried American flags into the Capitol and were pardoned for those crimes, the relevance is chilling.

The Broken Shield: Shattered Myths and the Crisis of Identity

Throughout Coates’ run, the shield, which serves as Captain America’s defining symbol, is repeatedly stolen, cracked, or abandoned. In Captain America #7, Sharon Carter says, “The shield means something… but it doesn’t mean the same thing to everyone anymore.” In a particularly poignant panel, Steve holds a visibly cracked shield, its red-and-white stripes bleeding into one another. It’s a potent visual metaphor for how deeply the myth of America scars those who serve it.

Coates is acutely aware of the visual legacy of Jack Kirby, whose dynamic panels once celebrated American might through bold lines and kinetic movement. Like Kirby, this more mature Cap has become cautious in his movement. Steve is often framed alone, his posture slack, his eyes shaded. The dynamic hero has become a brooding silhouette.

In Captain America #9, Steve remarks:

“I never wanted to be a symbol. Symbols get used. Turned upside down.”

This line lands with gravity in a political moment when symbols like the American flag or “patriotism” were frequently invoked by authoritarian figures seeking legitimacy. The shield is not just a weapon or a defense—it’s a narrative device that shifts meaning depending on who wields it.

In one key sequence (issue #11), John Walker (U.S. Agent) tries to take the shield back, claiming that “the people” don’t trust Steve anymore. The panel layout mimics a courtroom, with Steve on the defense—visually echoing America on trial. Coates and artist Jason Masters use a muted color palette and heavy shadows to reinforce the gravity of a culture deciding what, and who, deserves to represent it.

Hope in the Fracture: Coalitional Patriotism and Radical Ethics

Despite the despair, Coates never descends into nihilism. His Steve Rogers chooses to resist not out of blind loyalty but ethical obligation. In Captain America #16, Rogers is freed from a black-site prison not by SHIELD or the Avengers, but by a grassroots alliance of ex-cons, Wakandan operatives, and community defenders calling themselves the “Daughters of Liberty.”

The Daughters of Liberty are central to Coates’ reconstruction of the American myth. They include Misty Knight, Sharon Carter, and even Peggy Carter, resurrected and repurposed as a revolutionary. These women do not operate in the shadows. They infiltrate the machinery of the state to dismantle it from within. In issue #19, the splash page shows them storming a Hydra lab, their poses echoing classic superhero landing shots, but with Coates’ narration rejecting glorification:

“We do not fight because we believe we will win. We fight because we cannot let evil pass unchallenged.”

Artist Bob Quinn renders their assault in sharp, deliberate lines, avoiding stylization. The realism is intentional. These aren’t gods. They are citizens who choose resistance.

In his nonfiction, Coates has often written about “the lie of American innocence.” That idea suffuses this run. The panels are dense with moral ambiguity; villains like Aleksander Lukin speak in plausible rhetoric about national security. There are no cosmic threats here. Only the slow, grinding entropy of civic collapse.

And yet, Steve picks up the shield. Again. And again.

A Mirror and a Mandate

Ta-Nehisi Coates’ Captain America is not a traditional superhero story. It is a eulogy for a country in crisis and a call to moral arms. He dissects the weaponization of symbols, the seduction of nationalism, and the fragility of democracy. In the end, Coates’ warning is clear: fascism does not sneak in. It marches through the front door, waving the flag.

But it can be fought.

Not by heroes alone.

By coalitions. By doubt. By choosing, daily, to make the myth real.

In the age of Trump, Coates returned Captain America to his roots. He is not a soldier of the state. He is its conscience.