The Mystery of Captain America’s New Head (Updated!)

?Dear TR readers, the mystery has been solved. As it turns out, this Kotobukiya statue has nothing to do with the Captain America movie at all — as I suspected — but is a variant based on Bryan Hitch’s ’40s-version of Cap in the Rebirth series (it’s clearly inspired by his look in The Ultimates, but it’s NOT from The Ultimates. I promise). So it’s from the comics, but stuff that already happened, not stuff that’s coming up.

While I’m updating this story, I would like to apologize to ComicBookMovie.com. If you’ve been reading the comments from this article, you’ve probably noted that CBM’s editor and several of its readers have been absolutely losing their shit because 1) I used a pic that CBM painstakingly crafted from two of the promo images Kotobukiya sent out to, oh, several hundred nerd sites and online stores, and 2) I didn’t credit their story in the article, although I never saw it and I’ve credited CBM all the other times I’ve found material through them.

To address point #1, I have obviously changed the image to one of the many, many, many promo images sent out by Kotobukiya and found on countless sites throughout the internet. I can’t even imagine how much time and effort it took for CBM to put two pictures next to each other and somehow, as if by magic, produce a single image from them, but obviously my use of it mocks the skills used to create it. My theft was inadvertent — I took it from the Daily POP, which didn’t mention they took it from CBM (a link has since been added) — but I’m going to have to live with the shame of what I’ve done for the rest of my life.

To address point #2, I didn’t see the story. The Daily POP didn’t mention ComicBookMovie in its article, and thus I had no way of knowing that CBM’s story existed, as the Daily POP’s author admits in the comments below (he seems like a reasonable dude, FYI). I can prove that I never saw CBM’s article because, if I had I would have realized the Cap statue couldn’t possibly be from a Cap movie because CBM’s article is so stupid.

You may see their article for yourselves, wherein they make the claim that since Kotobukiya has made many Marvel movie-based statues, perhaps all of their statues are Marvel movie-based. They show the Cap statue along with a Thor statue which are correctly labeled part of a Reborn-themed line — and yet somehow, CBM thinks that these are going to be the costumes for the movies. Look, I’m fuzzy on comics, but even I know that Reborn statues are  based on Marvel’s Reborn comic series, and even if I didn’t, Thor’s had that same fucking outfit for at least two years. The Thor statue is definitely not from the movie, so it stands to reason Cap isn’t either. Had I read CBM’s article, I would have come to that conclusion. But — and here’s the important part — I didn’t.

See, CBM? Proof positive I didn’t read your article. If I had, I would have written a totally different article (the original is after the jump, for posterity), and I also would have credited CBM as I have every other time. Admittedly I would have credited your article as being incredibly fucking stupid, but rest assured it would have been credited. Hope this clears things up! And if next time you have a problem with TR, feel free to assume I have some dark ulterior motive and leave a comment for me beginning “Hey Jackass.” I react really well to that, as you can obviously see.

The original article begins here:
Okay, Captain America doesn’t have a new head, per se, just a new mask/head covering — at least in this upcoming Cap statue from Kotobukiya. It appears that this is classic Cap, which is to say non-Bucky-Cap, since he’s not carrying a gun, the flag design on his chest isn’t triangular, and he’s not really shiny.

So the question is, where the hell did Kotobukiya get this helmet design? I sincerely doubt they made it up themselves. The Daily POP, who found the pic, thinks it could be based on the Cap costume designs for the upcoming movie — not a bad theory, since I imagine Cap’s standard little head wings would be impossible to make work on-screen, and having wings printed on a helmet seems like a smart alternative. On the other hand, why would Kotobukiya be making a statue based on the Captain America movie before anyone’s even been cast? My guess is that when the original Cap returns to the Marvel U — which should be happening pretty soon now — this will be his new costume. I know Marvel’s promotional art for their advance titles show Cap in his standard duds, but I just have to think this is more likely from the comics than the movie.

Oh, and for the record, I dig it. I dig the helmet and I dig the printed wings on the side. The only thing I don’t like are the exposed ears, but Cap has always had those, and I’ve always thought it was a terrible idea that no soldier would accept, even a super-soldier.