[Criticism Corner] History of Flag-Smasher (Patreon)

I'm trying to take a different direction with my content, making it longer to express more personal opinions about the subject.  I'd love to know what you think.

The Falcon & Winter Soldier series on Disney+ has introduced mainstream audiences to the classic Captain America villain, Flag-Smasher, and wow, she’s REALLY different and doesn’t resemble her comic book counterpart in any way, shape, or form.  Different origin, different motivation, different gender, and different powers... and by that I mean the Flag-Smasher from the comics actually doesn’t have any.

Now don’t get me wrong, even though reading and analyzing comics is my full time job, I’m not one of those dudes that thinks that comic book accuracy is the most important thing for an adaptation, especially because they’re just that, adaptations.  I mean in my personal opinion, if you’re going to change a character THIS MUCH, you might as well make them one hundred percent original, but if I’m going to be completely honest, it’s not like Flag-Smasher is a complex or iconic character.

This dude is pretty straightforward and according to the Marvel Wiki, he’s only made thirty appearances over the years, but wait, that’s actually wrong because I had to go and update it when researching this video since these things are usually inaccurate.

On top of that, a huge chunk of Flag-Smasher’s appearances were just like… brief cameos or entries in guides and handbooks.  Yet despite being underutilized, Flag-Smasher is still an interesting character and left a decent impact on the Captain America series.  So if you want to learn all about it, you’ve come to the right place.  Hello and welcome to Comic Drake, where I talk about comic books and my name is Drake.  Let’s dive in.

Flag-Smasher made his first appearance in Captain America #312 in 1985 and was created by Mark Gruenwald and Paul Neary.  Now Gruenwald is LEGENDARY in the Captain America fandom since he’s been the longest running writer that the series has ever had.  Cap was Mark’s baby for ten years and he created some of its most iconic storylines and characters.  However, Flag-Smasher was one of the first things that Mark had contributed.

Gruenwald thought that in order to breathe new life into the series, Captain America needed to step away from his classic foes and take on a fresh set of bad guys, but Gruenwald though that they shouldn’t just be moustache twirling villains that did evil stuff for the sake of being evil.  No, for a hero like Captain AMERICA who has politics baked right into his DNA, Steve’s adversaries needed to represent ideas.

The concept behind Flag-Smasher was anti-patriotism.  This was a dude that didn’t just hate the United States, he hates the very IDEA of countries.

Now one thing that really bothers me is that while we got to learn a lot about Flag-Smasher and his origin, we never got to know his secret identity.  Like we never got to find out his name in ANY of the comics.  Yeah, we only know that Flag-Smaher’s real name is Karl Morgenthau… from a Deadpool handbook and even then, he didn’t have his own entry.  The name comes from an offhand reference in the section about Domino.  So if you didn’t believe me before about this dude being a minor player in Marvel Comics, I hope you do now.  But okay, enough of my dumb nerdy rambling.  Let’s talk about his in-universe history.

Karl comes from old money, but you wouldn’t really know it.  Instead of living it up in the lap of luxury, his father instead had dreams of world peace and became an ambassador.  Noble as that is, the family constantly had to move from country to country, always packing up and moving before Karl really had time to settle down.

He tried his best to learn the culture and language of each temporary home, but no matter where he went, Karl felt like a foreigner.  The only consistency in his life was prejudice, always getting picked on by the native kids.

While living in Tokyo, Karl took up karate and quickly earned his black belt which put a stop to the bullying pretty quick.  Yet he still felt isolated which was heartbreaking because Karl was instilled with his dad’s strong values of uniting people across national boundaries.  Following in his father’s footsteps, Karl got a degree in political science and decided to become an ambassador as well.

Yet Karl’s life would take a dramatic change when his dad was trampled to death at the Latverian embassy when a demonstration turned into a vicious riot.  This act radicalized Karl in an instant, deciding that in order to achieve his father’s dreams of peace, he would have to do things a bit differently.

Politics and bureaucracy were too slow to allow for meaningful change and his dad’s peaceful ways caused him to figuratively and LITERALLY be walked over.  So using his vast inheritance, Karl decided that he would fund a crusade to force peace on the world by speaking the universal language of violence.  In that moment, he became Flag-Smasher.

I know all that was all pretty serious and heavy, but I’d like to point out that the dude’s weapons of choice are a mace and flying skis.  Having read every appearance of this character and cross referencing with the official Marvel handbooks, there’s no mention of Karl having combat training outside of karate.

Ah yes, the classic karate weapon, medieval mace.  I took karate for many years and the weapons I learned were stuff like nunchucks, bo-staff, swo-OOOOOH, it looks like a flagpole.

Anyway, Flag-Smasher’s first ever appearance featured him flying into frame, smashing flags, making it EXTREMELY clear what he was all about.  Then he flew deeper into the city and destroyed a literal flag company.  He’s nothing, but committed to the bit. (Captain America #312 - 1985)

With these grand statements under his belt, Karl decided to up his game by attacking Captain America during a press conference where he was announcing his hotline, aiming to directly help out the people of America. (Captain America #312 - 1985)  But Flag-Smasher wasn’t interested in hurting Steve.  He just wanted to use the broadcast to get his anti-patriotic message out to the world… and to burn the flag behind Captain America of course.

Flag-Smasher was quickly defeated by Cap, but this wouldn’t be the last that we saw of him.  Clearly the solo act wasn’t going to cut it so Karl took it upon himself to form the terrorist organization, Ultimatum.  In typical Marvel fashion, it’s an acronym.  It stands for *sigh* Underground Liberated Totally Integrated Mobile Army to Unite Mankind. (Captain America #321 - 1986)  Sure, okay.

Now unfortunately, Flag-Smasher wasn’t able to get a WHOLE lot of people on board to join Ultimatum so he had to fill the ranks with mercenaries and out of work Hydra agents. (OHotMU A-Z Update #4 - 2006)  Captain America was able to stop them, but in the process of storming the base, Steve accidentally shot and killed an agent of Ultimatum which seriously messed with him.

As much as I’d like to focus in on that though, Captain America’s murder isn’t TOO relevant to Flag-Smasher.  So let’s get back to him.  Karl would kind of just show up trying to enact various schemes to destabilize stuff like the time that he tried to use a massive EMP to wipe out the world’s tech, hoping that sending the world back to a pre-industrial era would give everyone a common problem to work together towards fixing.

Flag-Smasher ended up leaving Ultimatum when he discovered that one of his financiers was the villainous Red Skull.  I mean Karl’s a terrorist that’s bent on the destruction of modern society, but being funded by a Nazi, even in an attempt to save the world, would be hypocritical.  However, the rest of Ultimatum disagreed and turned on him.

In an attempt to stop his former allies, Flag-Smasher tried to get help from Captain America, but unbeknownst to him, Steve had quit when the U.S. government wanted more control over his actions and was replaced by a man named John Walker.  If you’d like more information, check out my dedicated video all about him. (Captain America #348 - 1988)

Anyway, Flag-Smasher was pissed when he found out that he was dealing with an imposter and took Walker out.  When Steve showed up, now going by just “The Captain”, he explained the Red Skull’s involvement and proposed that they work together.  Together, they were able to stop Ultimatum, albeit at the apparent loss of Steve’s partner, D-Man, but although that’s tragic, it doesn’t have to do much with Flag-Smasher.

After these initial stories, Flag-Smasher’s appearance were much MUCH smaller and all over the place.  I’ll try to make it flow and make as much sense as I can, but please understand that we’re going to be jumping all over the place from here on out.

So Karl was able to regain control of Ultimatum and purge it of the Red Skull’s influence and tried to rustle up dissent by doing stuff like destroying computers at the federal reserve and arming people… including kids.  Naturally, this attracted the attention of heroes like Moon Knight, Ghost Rider, and The Punisher who put a stop to that with Ghost Rider specifically stopping Punisher from killing him. (Ghost Rider Vol 3 #6 - 1990)

Following this, there’s apparently a neat story about how Flag-Smasher found D-Man alive and had a rematch with John Walker who had since become the hero U.S. Agent which all culminated to Karl getting submerged in arctic water for such a long time that he got brain damage, but even though that all happened in Captain America #400, average folks can’t actually read it since Marvel decided to digitally release only twenty one pages of this quote unquote "eighty page 400th issue spectacular" which contains the story.

Despite the brain damage, Flag-Smasher was apparently fine and popped up once again to basically just be used as a test drive against Captain America’s new power armor that he wore for a bit when he wasn’t able to move on his own.  With all the weapons at his disposal, Cap was able to tear through these guys like paper and desperate to get away, Flag-Smasher activated a bomb in his belt, seemingly killing himself, (Captain America #438 - 1995) but once again, he was apparently okay because he appeared shortly thereafter, dealing with members of Ultimatum who turned on him… again.

This time, it’s because a splinter group formed that wanted to destroy the European Union, but Flag-Smasher, thinking that the EU was a step towards global unity, wasn’t about that, leading him to team up with Spider-Man and Sandman to take them down.  Yes, you heard me right, Sandman.  As in the bad guy from Spider-Man 3.  Around this time, he was a good guy and was even a member of The Avengers for a bit.  Neat!

Anyway, with their powers combined (and Flag-Smasher’s mace) the rotten apples were taken down and using the victory as a distraction, Karl tried to blow up Buckingham Palace, but was foiled by the heroes. (Marvel Team Up Vol 2 #3 - 1997)

Then he teamed up with the bad guy Purple Man, dedicated video seen here, but when Karl didn’t exactly go along with the plan, Purple Man used his hypnotic power to have him jump off a cliff. (X-Man #35 - 1998)  But once again, Flag-Smashers survived apparent death and came back to try and destroy the New York Stock Exchange in an attempt to cripple the American Dollar and set the world closer to adopting a global currency.

He was stopped by the X-Men, but in this issue we learn that he’s racist against mutants. (X-Men Unlimited #22 - 1999)

And then… Flag-Smasher got a makeover.  Yeah, he suddenly went from looking like Space Ghost to boy band Hulk.  Remember how I mentioned that he was submerged in arctic water and got brain damage during that storyline that Marvel refuses to digitally release?  Yeah, well even though he appeared in other storylines and showed zero signs of it, Karl’s brain damage made him the perfect candidate to be experimented on by the Roxxon Oil Company to put him under their control and give him super strength so that he could be used to stir up political unrest that Roxxon can exploit. (Captain America Annual 1999)

This didn’t matter too much since he was defeated by Captain America, Roxxon was exposed, and without the constant injection of chemicals, Flag-Smasher turned back to normal, setting up for his final storyline.

So Flag-Smasher teamed up with the Sumerian sun god and started working in unstable countries to try and cause anarky, but he was tracked down by the British hero, Citizen V, who convinced Flag-Smasher that his goals of abolishing countries couldn’t be done by force and definitely wouldn’t happen in his lifetime.  Instead, people needed to be convinced over the course of generations, subtly changing the world’s view.  For that, he would need to abandon his principles and have a platform on the world stage.  The man who hated the idea of countries… would need to run his own country.  Sure, okay. (Citizen v and the V-Battalion: The Everlasting #1 - 2002)

With the help of Citizen V, Flag-Smasher was instilled as the new ruler of the fictional country of Rumekistan and then disappeared from comics to be assassinated b Domino. (Cable & Deadpool #28 - 2006)

And that was the unceremonious end of Flag-Smasher.  He showed up for an issue of Captain America when Sam Wilson took over, but that was just a hyper realistic Life Model Decoy.  Having not read Mark Gruenwald’s Captain America run until recently, Flag-Smasher was a villain that I had never heard of, but I think he really worked in those original stories.

It’s a real shame that he suffered the same fate as so many other characters where Marvel didn’t know what to do with them so they just get shuffled around, leading to an incoherent mess of a history, but upon reading over everything, I honestly think that Flag-Smasher kind of just ran out of things to do as a character.

The lofty goal of trying to destroy the very idea of countries kind of limits everything you can do with him and maybe it’s because I’m not a writer, but I think he had already been stretched kind of thin.  Regardless, I think the unceremonious killing wasn’t the best way to end him off and who knows, maybe Marvel can pass the Flag-Smasher persona onto a new character that can take the idea in a new direction.