Kind of what I was thinking. I think if I want to be charitable he's not saying he can't write at all, or even that he can't write capeshit, but that he can't write from the optimistic perspective that these larger than life symbols can inspire us to do good and be better versions of ourselves. IE: Alan Moore was right all along (what a shock).

What's sad is that it almost seems like his immediate instinct is that he has to phone in and fake that optimism because that's the limits of the genre he's working in. Personally I hope he does some soul searching and realizes that a cynical turn for his voice is entirely acceptable and not necessarily a decline.

What infuriates me is that you're 100% correct.

There'd be SUCH A COMPELLING HOOK in showing one of these capes that the uncritical audience accepts as a flagbearer of Amerikan Exceptionalism-- especially Captain Amerika, since DC's been getting kinda based with Supes(call the volcel vanguard on me 'cause I'd let Latino Superman send me to meet Eddie) lately-- but like, show me Captain Amerika suddenly crippled by such a daunting lack of faith in his own countrymen that it makes him retire and fuck off to some other(lbr probably third-world) country to "soul search".

From there, he's gotta walk through a frankly-Boschian hellscape of countries that Amerika has ruined and left destitute. This would be the start of a renegade Captain Amerika lending his strength to the Brotherhood of Mutants; but it'd never make it past issue #1 because Marvel would have a diarrheal conniption fit at what I did to King Big Dick of the Avengers.