When does Captain America actually take place?

[loki_of_sassgaard]

I'm going to preface this by saying that this is not a discussion about how Marvel is an alternate universe. I realise this, because we do not have super powers.

But there have been multiple attempts to try to put Captain America into a cohesive timeline, and it just doesn't work. There was some really weird, really basic knowledge fail somewhere along the line, and none of it makes sense.


Let's start with this, which is what I'd originally been using: http://www.filmbuffonline.com/FBOLNewsreel/wordpress/2012/05/13/a-marvel-cinematic-universe-timeline-2-0/

7 December 1941: The day that will live in infamy. This happens, we assume, as it did. The Japanese bombed Pearl Harbour, and the US ends its neutral stance in the war.

24 December: Bucky enlists.

March 1942: Schmidt finds the Tesseract in Tønsberg, Norway.

14 June 1943: Steve successfully enlists. Finally.

Now, here's where it starts to get really wonky.

15 June 1943: Steve arrives at Lehigh. That's less than twelve hours later. He would have been shipped off quickly, but not THAT quickly. Even if a platoon was going out to Lehigh the very next day, Steve would not have been in that one. He'd have been in the next, whenever that was. He'd have had about two or three days to get his affairs in order before disappearing into the cause.

Not only that, Bucky only just now gets shipped out. That's eighteen months of training. The 107th (which didn't even exist during the war) was infantry. Infantry trained for ten weeks during this time. There were divisions that spent two years in training, but those were experimental divisions, like Airborne. What was Bucky doing Stateside for so long? I really want to know!

21 June: Steve's been at Lehigh for a week when Erskine picks him. That week... really doesn't match up with what we've seen. You don't just go straight into the assault course; you learn how to drill, how to march, how to fold your shirts and make your bed. The first week is when you learn how to follow orders. There would be some basic physical training and evaluation, but no assault courses. No weapons training. What the hell were they doing at Lehigh?

22 June: Steve gets all super-soldiered up. We know this, because the newspaper article we see, with him holding the cab door, is dated 23 June. So, he's undergone a week of training, saves a kid, and then gets the choice to become a lab rat or a dancing monkey. Did Steve even finish basic? I'm not so sure that he did, since the very next thing we see is the USO show.

After this, the time jumps up to

2 November 1943: The 107th goes up against Hydra. Two hundred men go out, fifty come back. First off, no. Not even a timeline thing, but this makes no sense. The 107th, if it were a real thing, would have had about 3000 guys at minimum. Perhaps it was Baker company, first battalion, of the 107th that went out. Still, where's the rest of them?

3 November: Steve and Phillips have an argument about rescuing the people trapped behind enemy lines. Thirty miles behind enemy lines. In Austria. In 1943. That's a lot earlier than we ever got to Austria. We finally made it that far in April 1945. Less than a month later, VE-Day. VJ-Day followed in June, and then the war was over. But this was 1943. Yes, there are superheroes and supervillains, but up until this point, the only super powers were Axis. That should have kept us even further from Austria, rather than letting us rock right up to Hitler's doorstep a year and a half early.

4 November: Steve leads everyone back to the base, wherever it is. Italy? Austria? I don't even know. Then they spend the rest of the war taking down Hydra.


Either way you look at it, it doesn't really add up. Either the Allied forces had some other super soldiers we didn't know about, or Steve and the Howling Commandos won the war in less than a month. One would assume that, since the key dates (Pearl Harbour Day, VE-Day, VJ-Day) are in the comics as they are in real life, then they're the same in the movies. I don't think there's really any way to fix or fanwank this, but it's just really weird that the writers would change so much like this. It seems to me that if they were already that far into Austria when they were, the war was basically won.

As a war movie, Captain America makes absolutely no sense at all. It's a great comic movie, but I don't actually know what's going on in it.

Comments

[mikes_grrl]

Ugh, tell me about it. I had to make the decision early in the planning stages for "More Man than You" whether I was going to *try* to keep to the movie timeline or just kind of handwave.

everybody do the handwave!

As you point out, the length of basic training, while variable, was never less than ten weeks in 1943; they did not start drastically cutting that until later in the war. In the end I decided to toss the given dates and go with logic. Crazy talk, I know.

Dunno, but I think we just have to hang our hats on "fun movie, borked timeline".

OT but urgh I really need some Marvel icons now...

[loki_of_sassgaard]

Yeah, I started really paying attention to it for Midgard Legends, and augh. It's sort of weird when Hellboy is more historically accurate than the thing that started out as actual WWII propaganda.

[melannen]

I assumed that after enlistment he was put right into a special track for people being considered for the supersoldier project? I got the impression that all of the people he was training with were candidates. So they weren't in standard basic, they were being put through exercises to assess their suitability as test subjects. Presumably afterward the ones who weren't chosen went on to regular training. Steve may or may not have ever had some sort of real basic training, though I guess there's probably time in there for him to have done so. (They would have needed a couple months to arrange the USO tour anyway, presumably?)

I cannot help you with anything about Bucky or Europe, though. That all made zero sense to me.

[loki_of_sassgaard]

Well, even a super soldier has to know the basics. They'd still have to know how to follow orders, how you wear the uniform, what all these acronyms mean.

If they'd been there after basic, yeah, then it would be different. And if they were arranging the USO tour, one would assume he'd be right there in the middle of it, especially to get fitted for those tights.

[melannen]

You would think? But, uh, I'm not sure how much evidence there is of movieverse Steve ever learning any of that...

The original plan was to make a whole bunch of supersoldiers, if I understand it correctly? So I assumed they were planning to give them the treatment, and then have them go through basic. Possibly together, since it wouldn't be fair to mix them in with unenhanced soldiers. And then when Erskine was killed everything went all topsy-turvy.

[loki_of_sassgaard]

Whatever they were doing at Lehigh, it seemed pretty dodgy. It makes me wonder what would happen to the guys who didn't cut muster.

[melannen]

Have you read "TRUTH: Red White And Black", the comic-verse miniseries that goes into a lot of detail about what was going on in the supersoldier project that Steve never knew about? It actually had it going so dodgy that I lost suspension of disbelief (like, American soldiers massacring an entire camp of trainees, including their officers and support staff, just to preserve secrecy - that seems like a bit too far even for a wartime US military) but I would still believe it getting pretty damn dodgy.

Honestly the whole concept of 'let's jump right to human tests with this serum and procedure that only one man knows anything about' is pretty dodgy just in itself.

[loki_of_sassgaard]

Wow. That is... yikes. I may have to hunt this one down, just for the wtf factor.

[liviapenn]

Yeah, I always assumed that all the other guys at Lehigh had already been through basic and maybe even already been overseas before being picked out for the super-soldier program, and all the stuff we see them doing (crawling under wire, running, etc.) was just busywork while they were being observed to see who might be the best, in terms of personality/pyschology.

I think this also explains why Steve would get shipped out so quickly, because Erskine knew that this special Super Solder Evaluation Process was going to begin soon, and Steve needed to be there from the start in order to be considered. So he could have pulled some strings to get Steve processed a little quicker.

[kabal42]

I always assumed the same, especially because we see the dude who bullies Steve at Lehigh again later - IIRC in Austria, with the 107th, just for added wtf-ery.

And I might buy that one, too. It does look to me like Erskine is searching for something specific at the Fair. He's looking for not-a-soldier.

[loki_of_sassgaard]

Wait, was he? I hadn't even noticed that!

Somehow, that makes me feel a little bit better, though. Because that means for Hodge to be there, he'd be a replacement, which would mean no-one would like him. And that sort of makes me giggle.

[kabal42]

I'm pretty sure he is. Will watch out for it next time. If it's not Hodge (thanks for mentioning the name, I just couldn't come up with it!), then it's someone who looks a heck of a lot like him!

Heh. Good point and there's a certain gratification to that :)

[loki_of_sassgaard]

I just assumed that he'd be Hodging it up somewhere else. Like in Japan, getting malaria or something.

[robot_iconography]

He is totally there watching the USO show. It's one of a couple of reaction shots he has in the film after Steve's transformation--the other one being when Steve returns with the rescued troops.

[kabal42]

Thanks! I remembered the one when he returns with the troops, but now you mention it, I remember the USO shot too.

[liviapenn]

Not only that, Bucky only just now gets shipped out. That's eighteen months of training. The 107th (which didn't even exist during the war) was infantry. Infantry trained for ten weeks during this time. There were divisions that spent two years in training, but those were experimental divisions, like Airborne. What was Bucky doing Stateside for so long? I really want to know!

This seems like such a weird thing to establish in an official timeline. I mean, there's really no *need* for them to establish that Bucky didn't go overseas after 10 weeks of training as usual, is there? There's no dialogue, etc., where Bucky is like "hey, I just got here!" or anything like that.

(Although I do wonder if Steve would have been so willing to do USO shows if Bucky *had* been already overseas and getting shot at, as opposed to thinking "Well, at least I'm doing something while Bucky is sitting around Brooklyn waiting for some bureaucratic forms to be fully completed before shipping out overseas.")

I wonder what the tie-in comics have to say about this.

[loki_of_sassgaard]

A good chunk of the dates on the timeline come from the comic tie-ins. It wasn't until I really started to look at it that I realised none of it makes any logical sense.

Having not read all the comics, I'm not sure if they explain the weird things a little better. I sort of hope so.

[liviapenn]

Ah, that's why. Yeah, if I were writing movie fic, I wouldn't pay attention to the dates in the comics. Because I don't think they specifically date the end of the war in the movie, do they? And it's plausible to me that it might have lasted slightly longer in movieverse anyway.

[kabal42]

I went back to my tie-in comics and took a look. I just skimmed for dates given, and at least there's an error in the above if it's supposed to be from the comics. The exact date Steve meets Erskine in New York isn't given, but it's stated as being in '42. So that gives us more - and also means Bucky shipped out before we were told above. Not that it saves that one, it still makes no sense he'd be stateside for so long… Also, they're wearing coats in the movie, which makes it look like not-June. Or I might remember that wrong because Steve is wearing one. He might just be cold.

Other than that I was mostly amused at half the story taking place on an "Unnamed island in nazi-occupied Danish straits" - because I'm Danish. I like the comics for the backstory on Peggy, Erskine and Howard, mostly. Those were welcome additions to the movie.
Anyway, I should read them more fully again to see if there's anything else that makes it look more… sane? *G*

[loki_of_sassgaard]

You wore a coat in the 40s. If you didn't have a coat or a jacket, you were under-dressed. It was starting to sort of relax by then, but it wouldn't have been weird to see an adult wearing a coat in the middle of summer.

Keep in mind, the British were only just working out that perhaps wearing layers of wool into combat during the summer, in Africa, was stupid.



But, yeah. I think the writers of this movie should be sent back to re-learn how to count and what WWII was.

[kabal42]

I admit I didn't consider that. Shame on me, I really should know better.
Anyway, in that case it might be presumed that June 1943 is actually June 1942?

Agreed. I love it, but sense it does not make.

[loki_of_sassgaard]

1942 would make a hell of a lot more sense for Bucky. I was actually really shocked to see that it was '43 when Steve managed to enlist. Somehow, five failed attempts doesn't seem quite so desperate. I'd been assuming it was five failed attempts over as many months.

[kabal42]

Yeah, I presumed the same about the months/attempts, so I really was surprised at the timeline with that. I think I'll decide it's '42 and the '43 in the timeline is some kind of error.

But Austria in '43 makes no sense whatsoever! I can only assume they wanted it to be in Europe for reasons and fudged that :-/

[loki_of_sassgaard]

I think we were just getting into Italy around that time, via Africa. But everyone knows that the only European force of the Axis powers were the Nazis. Italy and Russia need not apply.

[kabal42]

I was thinking would have been cool to have set it in Northern Africa, at least partly. Perhaps even have a suitably dramatic push into Italy (I'm thinking you're probably right about the time there). It's really a shame that so much of WWII story telling is focused solely on Europe. That was so far from all that happened.

[loki_of_sassgaard]

Yeah, I know, right? Europe was the final chapter of the war, as it was.

And seriously. Hitler was, as Schmidt put it, digging for trinkets in the desert. Considering all the other supernatural elements going on, why did we not have them in Africa dealing with Hitler finding the Spear of Longinus? There are plenty of rumours about him actually finding that thing.


That could have been awesome. Marvel, why didn't you do that? Get with it, already.

[kabal42]

The Spear would be a classic to have in there. Ohwow, now I REALLY want to see that! Marvel, get on that for a flashback scene in Cap 2! Have them go up against the forces digging around there!

[loki_of_sassgaard]

I guess they were too worried about ripping off Indiana Jones more than once. I mean, Schmidt melting and exploding when he picks up the Tesseract was totally a Lost Ark reference.

[kabal42]

*G* True that. I guess we can hope for another reference next time. Ah, wishful thinking.

[ashen_key]

Um...

But everyone knows that the only European force of the Axis powers were the Nazis. Italy and Russia need not apply.

Russia/USSR need not apply because they were invaded by the Nazis in 1941.

[loki_of_sassgaard]

Yep. Sorry. They were a German ally, and that's not quite the same.

[ashen_key]

Ahah, yeah. Well, an ally until Hitler spun around and invaded them.

[beatrice_otter]

I figure that the map is a lie--I am leery about prop canon in general. And the Hydra base that Bucky et al are being held at is somewhere in northern Italy close to the Italian Alps, or something.

[kabal42]

It's tricky, that's for sure (prop canon). I think I'll mostly buy the locations of Hydra bases that Steve discover. Sending the Howling Commandoes in for behind enemy lines ops makes good sense with what we see happening. So that works, at least.

[todeskun]

If you want to have an extra headache, in the enlistment scene at the start of the movie, there's a guy sitting next to Steve with a newspaper who's headline reads "Nazis retake Zhitomir". If you do a google search of that phrase, you get a newspaper dated November 23, 1943. Which makes absolutely no sense with anything else.

[mikes_grrl]

Yes, I was just going to mention that - it was part of the Battle of Kiev in winter 1943 (which is what I went with for MMtY). But then Steve is reading a newspaper that says "U-Boats Torpedo Ship off Virginia Coast" and that area was mostly heavy with u-boats in summer of '42, although admittedly it could have been later. Still. Mui confusion.

Do we have anyone with a HD copy of the movie can can zero in on those newspapers in that scene, maybe????