Evaluation of Spiderman and Captain America

Everyone likes a good movie with a catching story that captures one's attention and emotions. Heroism is one of the best movie genres that people watch and this paper captures two of the most fascinating heroic movies on all time; Spiderman and Captain America. The interesting factor in these two movies is how the story, characters and setting are developed. The stories capture fiction, technology, science, humour, emotions, suspense, among others, and above all, the sense of heroism. This analysis will thus give a comparison between the two movies, evaluating the similarities and dissimilarities between the two movies based on multiple criteria.

The story of Captain America was set in 1942 when World War II forced America into a verge to protect itself from its enemies. The protagonist is Steve Rodgers who at first is frustrated as he was denied service into the military because of his sickness that has made him a small stature. It appeared that Dr Erskine has a secret project which he named 'Project Rebirth' and he recruited Rodgers for service. Following his incomparable courage and urge to conduct military service, Rodgers undergoes a scientific experiment where he is turned into a super soldier. It follows that Erskine is assassinated a secret service of the Nazis named HYDRA, which was then under the control of Johann Schmidt (Red Skull). He then formed an alliance with Peggy Carter and Bucky Barnes on a war against the HYDRA secret service.

The storyline of Spiderman is centered on Peter Parker whose life is initially miserable; he was an orphan, his weakness was an advantage to his bullies and he would not possibly have the courage to confess an affection for his neighbor Mary Jane Watson. While on a laboratory assignment during one of his regular classes, an escaping, radioactive spider bits his skin. This is when the life of the protagonist began to change when he acquired the traits of a human-spider; he acquires incomparable strength, ability to shoot webs like a spider and a shooting vision (Mulhall, n.p). Just like any other interesting movies, a protagonist needs a villain and thus Norman Osborn takes on an experiment to turn himself to a Green Goblin who wants to kill the Spiderman. The climax of the movie comes in when the Spiderman and the Green Goblin come face to face in a war where only one survives.

Captain America was set in New York; but to embrace the focus of the storyline, there are some sprees of German. Some of the scenes are shot over the ocean and some in outer space. Most of the scenes are however shot in New York City. Just like any other comic movies that require the big city to develop a catching comic story, the city provides to a large extent the needed efficacies for the storyline. The fiction time for the movie is during World War II where countries were fighting each other for a struggle of power. During such times, it is common to expect that a character has enemies and this is how the storyline was glued to the scene. As many participants wanted to come to power, the Nazi's HYDRA was the most profound entity that was committed to gain control at the expense of the good people. Captain America was thus the hero to bring forth peace in the society. Within the big city, it is possible to portray criminal cronies and assemble individuals to cry for saving thus idealizing the realism of the storyline (White, n.p).

Spiderman is also set in New York; the choice of it being the big city that can furnish a high-flying super-character in control. The comic of Spiderman was developed from the inspiration of big cities and amenities, dark places with dangerous lanes as well as the ability to amass and retaliate criminal encounters. The fiction time was set during the embarrassing moments of the protagonist and the storyline used this weakness to develop one of the strongest characters in the big city. The city also reflects a big society whose strength cannot be stopped by such characters as the Green Goblin.

Steve Rodgers dresses on tights with sharp stars and white stripes mounted on a red clothing. The clothing is old fashioned based on the setting of this film but the choice was voracious; based on the fiction, the society required an old-fashion way to remind them of what was to come. Based on his life experiences, Captain America comes in as a solemn character who interprets events literary (Fradkin, pg. 407-415). Rodgers is portrayed as a superhuman developed from own weaknesses. Rodgers fights for the people in a wake to defeat the HYDRA force from taking control out of its selfish ambitions.

Spiderman basically characterizes characters based on their actions. The Green Goblin is seen as the villain after assassinating the Oscorp. As well, Harry is developed as a privileged character as well as clumsy; he feels threatened to lose Mary Jane to the Spider-Man and thus forces his way to her by invading her space. The actions of the Spiderman are heroic in most cases; he saves a child in a burning house, saves the life of Mary Jane thrice, prevents schoolkids from being dropped into the East River and fights the lunatic Green Goblin. Peter (as well as Norman) is also a superhuman as he developed spider-like traits. His heroic actions are knit by his surrogate parents who opted to teach him the responsibilities that come with great power (Casper et al., n.p).

Something I learned while researching Captain America, or Steve Rogers, was that the movie was based off of the Civil War. For me that was very interesting to learn, and something I could relate to on a personal level with my grandpa fighting the same war.

Now to get down to the juicy stuff, everyone has their favorite super hero. Captain America and Spiderman are the two I just can't choose from. The average teenage girl today would probably lean towards Captain America, because of how hot he is. Not everyones prince charming is a Peter Parker. Above I have talked about the settings, clothing, enemies, plots, and even the background of both movies. So now its up to you to decide who wins the battle.

Works Cited

1. Casper, Monica J., et al. "Men In Tights, Women Who Fight: Gender, Race, & Superheroes." (2016).
2. Fradkin, Chris, Gelson Vanderlei Weschenfelder, and Maria Angela Mattar Yunes. "Shared adversities of children and comic superheroes as resources for promoting resilience." Child abuse & neglect 51 (2016): pp. 407-415.
3. Mulhall, Stephen. On film. Routledge, 2015.
4. White, Mark D. The Virtues of Captain America: Modern-Day Lessons on Character from a World War II Superhero. John Wiley & Sons, 2014.

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