Nia DaCosta Believes Steve Rogers Is Anti-Hero
In an interview with Marvel Comics writer Roxanne Gay on Inverse, The Marvels director Nia DaCosta said that Steve Rogers was “sort of an Anti-Hero.” What’s up with that? Read on, Marvel Blog True Believers!
Illustrator Emilio Lopez imagines DaCosta as Captain Marvel, the subject of her next film, The Marvels. Photo: Emilio Lopez/Inverse
Anti-Super-Heroics
First of all, let’s take a look at the definition for “anti-hero.”
According to The Merriam-Webster Dictionary, an “anti-hero” is “a protagonist who is notably lacking in traditional heroic qualities (as courage).”
Anti-Hero Pool. Photo: Fox
DaCosta’s claim flows from her belief that although Cap was trying his best to make the right decision during the events of Avengers: Infinity War, he failed because he did not sacrifice Vision in order to prevent the Snap.
Photo: Marvel
“He chose one robot’s life, albeit a sentient one, over the entire universe,” DaCosta said in the interview. “There’s a sort of anti-hero in that if you want to look at it through that lens.”
Captain America, Anti-Hero?
At Marvel Blog, we’re not so sure where the anti-hero plays into the Captain America storyline.
Photo: Marvel
Making this harder is DaCosta’s definition of a hero, which reads:
Someone who’s trying their best with the information and resources and tools they have at the time. They’ll always get it wrong. Heroes are complicated in a real-world sense because they are basically vigilantes; they don’t have any oversight. Half the time no one’s even asking for their help. It’s tricky in that way, but integrity is a big part of it, choosing to put others before yourself, that sort of thing.
If an “anti-hero” is “a protagonist who is notably lacking in traditional heroic qualities,” we’re not sure how that fits Cap’s action here, after all he was doing the best with the information that he had available to him at the time! Perhaps you can argue that he should have weighed his options and sacrificed Vision, but that doesn’t seem like an heroic decision, it seems like a pragmatic one.
Photo: Marvel Studios
And giving anything to save your friend… what’s more heroic than that? In our opinion, Marvel Blog True Believers, Steve Rogers would have been acting much more like an antihero if he had callously chosen to sacrifice Vision in order to overcome their shared enemy, Thanos.
Photo: Marvel Studios
“There’s something connected to the journey of the anti-hero and the hero,” DaCosta went on. “The hero’s pain is something that spurs them to martyr themselves, and an anti-hero’s pain is a thing that kind of starts their journey as opposed to ending it.”
O Captain, My Captain?
One thing’s for certain, Marvel Blog True Believers: I think we’re going to see a different sort of “Captain” from director DaCosta when The Marvels premieres in 2023!
Featured Image: Ilya S. Savenok/Getty Images for Tribeca Film Festival
