This Day in Pop Culture for March 1

1941: Captain America Beats Up Hitler

When Joe Simon created the character in 1940, he originally created him as Super American. After deciding that there were too many “supers” out there already, he settled on the name Captain America. Drawn by Jack Kirby, the character’s first comic book was first a product of Timely Comics before Marvel Comics. Although Captain America Comics #1 was available in December the year before, the cover date was March 1941. Steve Rogers was a weak young man until injected with an experimental serum which made him super strong. He was given a super shield to help protect him. Planned as an patriotic super hero, the very first issue features the Captain punching Adolf Hitler. It sold close to one million copies but not everyone was a fan. Simon and Kirby received hate mail and some people protested outside of their offices. Captain America was the first Marvel character to appear in film in 1944 and continued appearing in 77 other comic books and finishing up in September 1954. Captain America made a revival in 1963 in Marvel Comic’s Strange Tales #114 and he’s never really gone away since.