8 Creators Who Secretly Defined Your Favourite Heroes

2. Steve Englehart - Captain America

Captain America, in essence, hasn't changed much since his first appearance. Joe Simon and Jack Kirby envisioned the Sentinel of Liberty as a strong anti-fascist symbol to rally a then isolationist America into action against the Axis Powers, and, for the most part, Steve Rogers has continued to do just that - only, as the years went on, the battle lines were less clearly demarcated; the Captain had to adjust to a more modern challenge.

Lee and Kirby's decision to thaw Cap out of the ice in the pages of The Avengers was one of the smartest decisions they ever made, as the WW2 hero has gone on to cement himself as one of Marvel's most important figures. Writers have used Steve to delve into themes surrounding patriotism, American exceptionalism and even corruption, but the modern image of the character was only really articulated in the seventies during the Nixon presidency.

Without delving too deep into the seventies milieu and the delineation between that and other decades' respective zeitgeists, 1974 was a period of discontent for the US. The Vietnam War was finally deescalating, and Richard Nixon had been brought into office off the back of what appeared to be a groundswell of support for New-Right politics. The 'silent majority', as they were known, were pushing back against the sweeping social change the sixties ostensibly wrought.

It would later come to be known as the 'Watergate era', so-called because of the infamous scandal that exposed the level of paranoia that pervaded the Nixon White House, and the divide in trust between the public and government. Writer Steve Englehart decided to use Captain America to address the climate head on in 1974's Secret Empire, which sees Steve not only turn his back on the Captain America identity, but also sees him expose Nixon as the grand architect of the titular secret society.

Cap has continued to adapt to modern challenges in a politically charged manner, but it was Englehart and artist Sal Buscema who paved the way.