MsInterpreted found a very interesting blog post about the bequeathing of the Captain America shield to Stephen Colbert, from a Q&A at Wizard World Chicago with Marvel Comics Editor-in-Chief (and former ‘Colbert Report’ guest) Joe Quesada and Mark Millar logged over at Comic Book Resources.
WWC: CIVIL WAR & REMEMBRANCE PANEL
by Seth Jones, Staff Writer
Posted: August 11, 2007…
A fan asked about Steven Colbert’s acquiring of a Captain America shield.
“He’s a huge fan of comics,” Quesada said. “We had a Cap shield in Brevoorts’ office. It was Brevoort’s, it belonged to [the late] Mark Gruenweld. I sent an e-mail to Colbert… Brevoort was out of the office that day. He was pissed. Gruenwald’s widow wrote a nice bit on Colbert’s blog, saying that if Mark were still alive, he’d be a huge fan of Colbert.”
EDIT: Guenwald’s widow, Catherine Schuller Gruenwald, said this on the comments of ColbertNation.com:
As Captain America’s widow, Cap’s writer for over ten years (longer than Stan Lee) Mark Gruenwald, would have loved how much Cap’s death seems to matter…I mean New York Times coverage? Gru would have loved Colbert, this much I know. I wonder if Cap will have as interesting a homage to his life as I was able to do for Mark….those of you who remember…he wanted to has his ashes put into a comic book and Marvel did him one better…allowing me to smuggle his cremains in and mix them with the ink that wound up in a re release of Squadron Supreme (cover by Alex Ross)…in that respect, I think that using this as an obvious kill ‘em off to bring ‘em back gimmick to auf Cap at a time when patriotism seems even more challenged than another difficult era (Vietnam and the 70’s)…this all seems part media manipulation, part Marvel marketing mavens at work…I think Mark would be blown away and in his best Sally Field’s mocking voice he would have to admit, “Wow, you liked me, you really liked me….or he would be “turning over in his comic book”…can’t you just see all those 5,000 copies of Squadron Supreme doing a little rotisserie act in their protective mylar sleeves? Wherever the real Gru is …right now he is amused, and probably plotting how if he had the ability, would mastermind his being brought back when we need him..the premiere of the Avengers movie…or perhaps the inauguration of Barack Obama several years down the road…
Long live the spirit that inspired Mark Gruenwald, he was the best that whatever America used to stand for, and Cap would agree, had to offer.
Catherine Schuller Gruenwald
Also, this story is a bit of a contrast to a previous story reported here, where Tom Brevoort was quoted as saying, “A replica of Cap’s shield, which I inherited from Mark Gruenwald and has sat in my office for the past decade, is going to occupy a permanent place of prominence on the set of the Colbert Report–how cool is that?” Maybe the first story was some PR guy’s idea.
The stories sound the same. It could still be a replica. I think the point was that the shield was inherited from Gruenweld and it was Brevoort’s. I wonder why he was pissed though? Because he wanted to be the one to give it to Stephen or because he wanted to keep it?
More importantly, is Colbert fandom coming in between co-workers? These guys seem like pretty hard-core fans.
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Poor Brevoort. If someone stole one of my most prized possessions and gave it away to someone else, I’d be pretty pissed too.
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