Sam Wilson and his legacy as Captain America will be explored in a new Marvel series next year. Sam Wilson: Captain America launches in January, just ahead of the release of Captain America: Brave New World. Fans of the comics and the Marvel Cinematic Universe will be pleased to know that several fan-favorite characters will appear across both, most notably Sam Wilson and Red Hulk. But what does it mean for Sam Wilson to be a Black Captain America in today’s political climate? And what happens when there appears to be an injustice taking place, but not everyone sees it as such?
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These are the themes writers Evan Narcisse and Greg Pak will explore in Sam Wilson: Captain America. SocioLayers spoke to the co-writers ahead of the release of the first issue to find out how their collaboration process works, who some of the special guest stars are that appear in the debut issue, Red Hulk’s inclusion in the series, assembling a Black superhero cookout, and more. We can also exclusively reveal interior art for Sam Wilson: Captain America #1 by Eder Messias, Fer Sifuentes-Sujo, and Joe Caramagna, and the cover of Issue #2 by Taurin Clarke.
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SocioLayers: When collaborating together on a project like this, I wanted to ask how does a typical workday for both of you go?
Greg Pak: We do a lot of texting and talking to start off with. We’re both good with text. So, we have big phone conversations and then we just send each other texts back and forth when we’re thinking about these stories. And then I guess the way we’ve done it is that once we get our big plot points figured out, then one of us sits down, hammers out an outline, we send it back and forth and refine it and then text each other, “I’m stuck here. What do you think about this?” And the other guy texts back and says, “What about this?” And the first guy says, “Oh my god, that’s amazing.” And then sticks it in. I just love working with Evan and this is the way it should be.
Evan Narcisse: I’d say, when we started out, we obviously got the chance to write this book and it started with Greg reaching out to me and we started out talking about character, who do we understand Sam Wilson to be? What parts of his backstory do we see informing where he is now? That kind of thing. And then theme, right? So who’s he fighting and how does that resonate possibly with the real-world audience? And then we built the story from there, right? When you read the first issue you see that [Dennis] Harmon’s scheme definitely pings on some of the injustices that somebody like Sam would be concerned with. Sam’s a social worker, He’s a Harlemite. He’s obviously a Black man in America. So these are all things that activate him, and ping off of his sense of heroism and how he embodies the Captain America ideal.
So we started with character and theme and then the rest kind of flowed out of it and then there’s stuff historically that we wanted to touch on and put some of that stuff in the backup. But like Greg said we ping back and forth with all this stuff and then we outline and we script separate sequences but then go back and forth. We’re always touching each other’s work. There’s nothing I would say in this series so far that feels like it doesn’t belong to both of us.
Greg Pak: Even just on this last pass we did, I think since the version you read, we tweaked some dialogue. Evan just looked at a couple things and he tweaked it and it just becomes so much better. You know what I mean? And every point we’re finding little ways to refine and it feels really good to have someone, I mean our editors always have our backs, but it feels really great as a writer to have someone who has your back in that way too. Someone who’s going to take whatever you’re doing and just pick it up to the next level, help you make it what it really can be.
Evan Narcisse: I’d agree with that. Greg has touched so much of the Marvel Comics Universe over 20 years of writing. So I know when he wants to have Storm be in part of the sequences, like this is a guy who’s written Storm, who gets her, and most importantly I think, understands what she means as a metaphor and a symbol to the fan base.
So working with Greg Pak means you have access to a deep reservoir of craft knowledge but also execution and history in building a lot of the structures that we’re using in this story.
Greg Pak: Evan and I are both political science majors. I’m doing a story about a person of color who’s Captain America. That’s right up my alley but I’m not Black. I have no business solo writing a story like this. Authenticity is also a trap. The idea that only people from one background can write a thing and it’s not authentic or that it’s automatically authentic if people of a certain background are doing it, or what the hell does authentic mean? So not talking about that, but I’m talking about somebody like Evan, there are nuances that he brings from lived experience. There are nuances I bring from lived experience from being a freaking boy scout. That’s a major part of my identity. Growing up and all that. But it’s just a great combo on every level. The way characters interact with each other, little lines of dialogue, all of that stuff. It’s like having co-writers who have different experiences and broad experiences lets as many different aspects and different deeper nuances as possible.
So, it’s been a massive pleasure and just on a goofy level, Evan’s coming up with loopy sci-fi stuff that I would not have come up with either. And I’m the king of sky-loopy sci-fi stuff, but it’s just a kick. It’s a huge pleasure.
How Red Hulk’s MCU debut plays into Marvel’s Captain America comic
SocioLayers: How early on in the process did Red Hulk come up as a character that was going to be inserted in the comic?
Greg Pak: From the very beginning. I mean, we won’t play games, you know what I mean? There’s a movie coming out.
Evan Narcisse: There’s no reason to be coy.
Greg Pak: There’s a movie coming out. And the great thing is that gives us a chance, because, it’s great to have a comic book coming out at the same time as the movie that has some of the same characters. All of that plays on that excitement and feeds off and contributes to it. But the great thing is that we’re not beholden to whatever’s happening in the movie. Neither of us has seen it. You know what I mean? We don’t know anything more about it than you do. So what we’re doing is independent stuff that’s happening in the comics, which is the way it should be, and it’s great. Red Hulk’s in the movie, so that’s a fun character for us to use, but it totally makes sense with everything that’s happening in the story. So it’s one of those things that’s absolutely part of the initial mandate, but it absolutely makes sense and feeds all the themes we’re working on.
Evan Narcisse: I’m a strong believer with him in the fact that the movies should follow the comics and not the other way around. I think there’s a richness and depth of characters and interpretations in the comics that make them, for me, a much richer text. And there’s variations of characters. So if this was 17 years ago, Sam would have still been the Falcon, right?
And the fact that his evolution into being somebody who shares the mantle of Captain America with Steve, that’s all happened in the comics already. That gives us so much more thematic fodder to play with in terms of what he’s been through, and I’ll say the same thing about The Hulk mythos contains so many different characters who’ve hulked out and we’re able to play with some of that in this story in a way that you really can’t in the movies because they’re just starting. They’re just introducing this character, whereas this character has been around in the comics for so long that we can tap into some of the twists and turns that Red Hulk and Sam and some of the other characters in this series have gone through. So, yeah, we’re excited to be adjacent to the movie coming out, but not beholden to it like Greg said.
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Isaiah Bradley’s role in Sam Wilson: Captain America explained
SocioLayers: I did enjoy seeing the Black superhero cookout in the first issue. That was a highlight for me. Was that your idea, Evan?
Evan Narcisse: One of the things for me that was important was that Sam is part of a legacy. He has a legacy unto himself, right? Sam Wilson’s been around for 50 years at this point. And he’s obviously Captain America alongside Steve and some of the other patriotically themed heroes in the series.
But one of the things for me was that Sam, really to my reading, and I haven’t read everything, but I couldn’t remember a sequence where Isaiah Bradley, who’s historically such an important figure in the Marvel universe, and Sam ever interacted. Truth is an amazing series and really was one of the foundational stories that made me want to think about Sam as a Black Captain America. He has a predecessor. And when you start thinking about the predecessor, Isaiah’s history within the fictional construct of the Marvel Universe, it’s still something that’s treated as almost a myth. So, I wanted our work on the series to ground and expand on it and see how Truth, and a lot of Sam’s stories especially since becoming Captain America have explored what it means to be patriotic and Black at the same time right in America.
So we’re definitely going to keep on mining that territory, but also we want to show how you always hear from Black culture creators that we’re not a monolith. Let’s put that on the page. So, that’s some of what we’re going to be aiming to do in this series. And, Sam’s cousin Billy is another example of somebody who, we allude to some past military service there, but somebody who doesn’t feel like they’ve gotten what they deserve in life despite having served this country, So, what do you do then if you feel like, I did my duty. I was called upon to serve and I did that and why am I still feeling stuck? Why am I still feeling like I can’t make my life what I want it to be?
And I think whether it’s a character from Billy or Isaiah, look how Isaiah wound up, it’s a great tragedy and the story was meant to be a tragedy but I feel like one of the things I’ve been saying as we’ve been talking about this is that there are cultural histories within the Marvel Universe. People when remember Magneto stormed the UN and all this other stuff. These are effects that if you were picking up a newspaper in the Marvel Universe they’d be talking about it. So, I want to explore how does that history get embedded within the characters who serve throughout these legacies, and we’ll be seeing more of that as the series goes on.
Greg Pak: Yeah, I wanted to riff a bit on what Evan was just saying about no community being a monolith. I’ve always said that diversity within diversity, that’s the real juice, you know what I mean? I remember being on a panel with Steve Orlando years ago and he was talking about writing gay characters and about how exciting it was when he got to write more than one gay character because then he got to write a gay character as a villain. Because you don’t have just one character who has to be a role model somehow and then become boring, so just on a dramatic level, having a variety of people of whatever background means that you just have more room to show a variety of people.
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And I love the fact that in the Marvel Universe there are a bunch of different patriotic heroes, a bunch of different Black heroes who wear the flag and they are all a little different. They’ve all got a different kind of background and it shows a lot of different attitudes about what people think about the country, what it means to them, what their country’s responsibilities are to them. And we’re exploring that in a way that I think is deep and honest and true. All the shades of gray.
Marvel teases a surprise character for Sam Wilson: Captain America
SocioLayers: I will say I did love seeing Patriot back in his suit after he showed up in a Marvel’s Voices one-shot earlier in the year. Will readers get to see more of Patriot and Isaiah as the series goes on?
Greg Pak: Yes. There’s one character who is going to be a big surprise, but who makes total sense to be in there and I’ll say no more. But there’s a giant Issue #2 reveal that for anybody interested, it’s going to hopefully blow your mind.
Evan Narcisse: And I’ll say this much. Even if you guess, there’s still some surprises to be had.
SocioLayers: The book comes out a month before the feature film. What do you hope readers take away from your story who may be coming over from the MCU?
Evan Narcisse: There’s a deep history here. That the executions of the characters on screen tell you a story in 90 minutes, two hours, whatever. If you go to the movie and decide, hey, this Sam Wilson guy seems pretty cool or this Red Hulk character is badass. There’s literally tons of material, good material for you to work through.
If you leave a movie theater or go to a comic shop, there’s going to be an embarrassment of riches, and we just hope that our series is one of the pieces of gold that you’ll pick up at a comic shop if you see the movie before that. But yeah, if your introduction to these characters has come through a movie, welcome to the Marvel Comics Universe where they’ve been living and thriving and being more complicated and multifarious for decades. So that’s what I would say. But also I kind of think we’re pushing the envelope in terms of what a story with Sam Wilson can be.
And if we are able to push the boundaries, like Greg said, it’s just because of the momentum that we’ve been able to carry forward from people who preceded us with these characters.
Greg Pak: Eder Messias is doing the interior line art.
Evan Narcisse: Eder Messias drew that Patriot story that you talked about in the Marvel Voices anthology. So, he’s doing the main story for us in this book. And Eder is great because he gets body language, facial expressions, staging, drama, there’s a lot of intensity and kinetic energy on the page in his work. And we’re doubly blessed to have Valentine De Landro on the backup. Just utterly amazing. I got those layouts. I’m like, “Why are these layouts making me tear up? It’s not even full detail. You’re just sketching stuff out.” Hopefully, we’ll get them for a few more pages in some other sequences as the project goes on.
But we’re so happy with what he did on the backup and it’s just beautifully staged and rendered. Can’t say enough about both of the artists we’re lucky to do this with and similarly, huge high five to our colorist Fer Sifuentes-Sujo who’s doing gorgeous, gorgeous work. It’s got an organic real feel and I love it. And lettering we have Joe Caramagna.
Greg Pak: Our editor, Alanna Smith, is fantastic. Just totally gets it, you know what I mean? Having an editor who gets it, knows what you’re going for, and is nudging you in all the right directions is just solid gold every step of the way.
Buy a lot and please do pre-order with your local shop. Get all your friends to pre-order because who knows? If it does extremely well, maybe we’ll be able to do another series or something like that. Money talks. Feel free to do some talking with your wallet.
Sam Wilson: Captain America #1 goes on sale in January 2025.
