#flag-smasher

[comicwaren]

From West Coast Avengers Vol. 4 #005

Art by Danny Kim and Arthur Hesli

Written by Gerry Duggan

[tobiasdrake]

Villain Breakdown - The Flag-Smasher

Karli. Karli, Karli, Karli.

Karli Morgenthau is easily the most sympathetic villain in the entire MCU, to the point of being too sympathetic for her role within the story. The final episode seems to imply that we're meant to take her as the greater evil than the GRC. But. Like. She's trying to feed starving children in refugee camps.

She's evil because she's willing to use violence to prevent ethnic cleansing, while the people talking about committing ethnic cleansing get off with much lighter condemnation. She's blowing up buildings, while they're starving millions of people and abandoning them to die of illnesses. Her violence is committed bluntly and directly against the perpetrators of harm, while their violence is committed through the widespread neglect and systemic oppression of millions of people. Therefore, she's the evil one that must be killed.

I hate it. I genuinely do not understand how this character who seems to have been crafted through episode after episode to tug at the heartstrings and garner sympathy can be so. I don't even know. Was that all accidental? Was this really supposed to be the audience's takeaway this whole time? That she's evil and monstrous and should have just let her people starve?

How do you screw up this badly?

They somehow wrote an antihero when they meant to write a one-dimensional ubervillain, and that is the poison pill that ruins The Falcon and the Winter Soldier on its landing.

So what's my verdict on Karli Morgenthau? Well. She's great.

But apparently not for the reasons that were intended.

[doyouknowmarvelcomiccharacter]

Do you know Earth-61311 Steven Rogers (Flag-Smasher/Captain Krakoa/Captain America)?

I know them extremely well

I know them

I know them, but not well

I've seen them or heard their name, but don't know them

I've never heard of them

Voting ended onApr 10, 2024

[vigilantsycamore]

The Flag-Smasher explains his politics.

[bringbackwendellvaughn]

[dame-morrow]

Me watching the Flag-Smashers using brutal force to achieve their goals:

Why so violent? Don’t you know: ‘‘Violence is not the solution.’‘

Also me:

I want to punch Walker in the face, so bad!

[docgold13]

365 Marvel Villain Paper cut-out; one villain, every day, all year

January 28th - Flag-Smasher

Following the politically motivated killing of his parents, The Flag-Smasher used his family fortune to form a terrorist organization whose goal was the taking down of every government on the planet.  An extreme anti-nationalist, Flag-Smasher believes that the ills of the world are all due to the artificial borders that separate lands into independent countries.  An interesting philosophy, yet the villain has restored to terrorism, violence and murder in his efforts to achieve his goals; and this has brought him into conflict with Captain America, along with Moon Knight, The Punisher, Ghost Rider and others.  Flag-Smasher first appeared in the pages of Captain America Vol. #312.

[marvelman901]

Ghost Rider v2 #5

Ghost Rider was going to stop some weapons-dealing when the Punisher had had the same idea and attacked him. They crashed into the warehouse and faced Flag-Smasher.