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Captain America Dead at 66
jas_public writes to mention ABC news is reporting that comic book super hero Captain America has apparently tackled his last mission. "It ends a long run for the stars-and-stripes-wearing character, created in 1941 to incarnate patriotic feeling during World War II. Over the years, an estimated 210 million copies of "Captain America" comic books, published by New York-based Marvel Entertainment Inc., have been sold in a total of 75 countries. But resurrections are not unknown in the world of comics, and Marvel Entertainment editor in chief Joe Quesada said a Captain America comeback wasn't impossible."
Dead at 66?
According to the Captain America Wikipedia page (far more in depth than the encyclopedia britannica page I might add!), Steve Rogers was born on July 4, 1917 in the Lower East Side of Manhattan, New York City, to Irish immigrants Sarah and Joseph Rogers.
Anyway, lets hope this original & innovative storyline is as lucrative as the "death of Superman" thing DC ran a while back.
There are shills on slashdot. Apparently, I'm one of them.
That's a fine way to start the day. Log on to the computer and find out Captain America is being killed off? Why don't you shoot my dog too?
Now only Jack Bauer Can save us against the evil that confronts the United States.
I just heard some sad news on cnn. Famed costume advernturer Captain America was found dead in his home at Timely Comics. Even if you are not a comic book fan you probably enjoyed his defeat of the nazis and his relentless persuit of freedom for all americans. Truly an American Icon. He will be missed.
With Captain America dead, the terrorists have won.
Take the cheese to sickbay, the doctor should see it as soon as possible - B'Elanna Torres, "Learning Curve"
Excuse me! There are some of us out here who haven't read Civil War yet! Ugh.
Maybe they could do a back-story series, something along the lines of "The Adventures of 2nd Lieutenant America".
Our sinister plans are coming along just fine.
Without colorfully decked out heroes to inspire patriotic thoughts, America's youth will now turn to video games, skate boards, meaningless text chatter and enormous quantities of junk food to fill the empty hole in their lives.
Hmmm?
Already doing that, are they?
Dang.
Well, perhaps we need to demoralize the younger set. We have an offer to kill Barney the Purple Dinosaur. Kids still like him, right?
Wait, the KIDS want us to kill him?
That's it. I'm going back to Eddoria.
i am wondering if it is to much for me to ask for some semblance of reality injected into the comic industry. With the frequency that characters are killed, resurrected, killed again, cloned, or brought in from another universe, i highly doubt that Cap will make it more than 6 months before someone finds him under a rock somewhere, most likely with amnesia if i had to guess.
09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0
Well, the publishing schedule for Captain America has a two month break after this issue. In the meantime, you get lots of one-off issues of a series called Fallen Soldier chronicling the reaction of other heroes to Cap's "death".
Now, what's also not mentioned is that in another comic released today he seems to still be alive, "fighting for his life" (He was shot in the shoulder and stomach after all, how fatal is THAT in comics?). So, I think it's pretty safe to say he will be back soon enough, that's if he dies at all.
Most popular current theories have this all as a staged stunt, to help Cap disappear underground and re-emerge in a new identity, Ronin, Iron Man, Hawkeye, or US Agent are the front runners. What it certainly is is an elaborate stunt by Marvel comics to sell lots of copies of this issue.
So in short, nothing to see here, move along.
Marvel Database is the best place to read about this kind of stuff. (20,000+ articles)
That's Captain America's point. He stands for what America was, not what it is now. That's why he's been leading the rebel faction throughout Civil War. Captain America's death is symbolic of the death of the American principles and ideals for which he fought for so long. If America has become a monster, then either Captain America must defeat it, or he must die fighting it, because to do otherwise would be to negate his own identity.
Plus, it always shifts a shitload of comics and gets mainstream press attention when you kill off a big name like this. Even if you then just casually bring him back to life a few months later.
Real Daleks don't climb stairs - they level the building.
Its clear the old Captain America doesn't really symbolise what America stands for any more.
I'm picturing a Baron Harkonnen from the Lynch Dune movie, drenched in blood and oil. His superpower would be the ability to fly at 50,000 feet in an invisible plane, and destroy his enemies (along with anyone else who happened to get in the way), with radioactive munitions.
His weakness, which all superheroes have, would be his incredible stupidity.
I gots ta ding a ding dang my dang a long ling long
Or (follow me on this), the storm caused her to be thrown
back in time and across the galaxy (to say 1980 Earth) where she
has adventures on what appears to the the set for CHiPs.
This will be spun into a new series.
That said, Cap will be back. Steve Rogers was not the only Captain America and he won't be the last. William Naslund, Jeff Mace, a "fake" Steve Rogers, and most recently, John Walker briefly took the mantle of "Captain America" from Rogers. I am sure another Marvel hero will assume the role of Captain America in his stead.
As a collector of the series, I am disappointed as Steve Rogers has been the one and only Captain America in my opinion and he can never be replaced, no matter who wears the costume.
We want some answers and all that we get
Some kind of shit about a terrorist threat
- Ministry
66 huh? So we are expected to believe that it's a coincidence that just 1 year after his pension benefits kick in he suddenly dies. I think not. Just a little too convenient...
If brevity is the soul of wit, then how does one explain Twitter?
So, Captain America dies. He, a hero burned in the popular imaginary as a *defender* the multiple freedoms people are naturally entitled (note the operative word there, defender, as in "a fighter who holds out against attack"). He that, even to the ones (like me) that didn't read the comics, is known to portrait the very image of America, the World Police, the Shield of the free world. He that used all his strengths to defend the world against the Nazi and the commies, armed with nothing more than a shield and his will to do the right thing. Dead.
Maybe it is just coincidence that he is dead now, right when the vision of an U.S.A holding the high standards of freedom and fighting the good fights is vanishing every intervention, every occupation, every bad move in the fragile international relationships. (And I say "the vision" because, even U.S.A. making some bad movies between the end of WWII and the fall of The Wall, the fear of the communism was enough to impair the sight of the so called Free World, forgiving every single American mistake on that time, from Indochina to Central America, from Africa to South America).
I doubt the artists behind the comics would be courageous enough to make such a statement, to kill a superhero only to make a point. But the could have done. Captain America doesn't represents U.S.A anymore, America a long time ago gave up of the "land of free and home of brave" motto, gave up the "land of opportunities" ideal to embrace a no holds barred savage capitalism, where companies have the same rights but none of the duties of the natural people and can leverage their immortality to get rich at the expenses of the less favored. If Captain America was a real person in the real world, it would probably be fighting with all his strengths to restore to America everything that was lost in the past 60 years. But he isn't, so he is better off dead.
Jack Bauer is a better hero for U.S. now, anyway. Rest in peace if you can, Captain America, knowing that everything you fought for is about to be thrown away for 30 pieces of silver.
Some folks, those who actually read comics, have been slogging through this particular story arc for the better part of a year. One of those frustrating "cross-over" event stories, that involves every comic on the shelf, so there's no escape.
A Year. A year of waiting and guessing and theorizing about the big ending, which is still a month or so away.
So now, the ONLY people who give a crap just got a big steaming pile of **SPOILER** handed to them thanks to a too-soon press release and an unthinking media that, in spite of a multi-Billion dollar comic book movie market, still thinks no one's reading them enough to care if they ruin entire plots in the headlines.
Jack Bauer Dies on 24 This Season!
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The Cheerleader Dies on Heroes!
Harry Potter Becomes Evil In Final Book!
you'd figure at least here in geek-land, a little more care would be taken.
I'm sure Marvel's already working on a "Return of Captain America" line involving four people all claiming to be Cap - a black man in adamantium body armor, a young boy, a cyborg, and an energy being.
Captian America was a bit different than your gadern variety superhero. He didn't fight super villians, evil geniuses, and/or monsters/aliens. He fought for civil liberty, freedom, and rights. Analogies of those at times, but those were his core reason to fight.
Imagine then the writers dillema when they realize in order for Captian America to fight for those things, he must fight America itself. Instead of be faced with that overwhelming irony, they took the easy way out and killed him off. I would have preferred they make a stand and actually had Captain America turn his shield on the White House for a few issues. Mr. Smith goes to Washington squared.
R.I.P.
Captain America
1941-2007
Crushed by Irony
Personally, I've always liked comic book CHARACTERS, but have never been able to get into comic books as a whole. There's so much cross-referencing, "required" reading, and the volumes are so thin, it's ridiculous. Plus, add to that the "comic book death" syndrome. Nothing is ever permanent. Spider-man will always be around. His villains will always be around. No matter how many times he tries to give up web-slinging, he'll still end up doing it again and again and again.
This is why I do read a lot of manga. It has its bad parts, its own cliches, but death tends to be more "permanent." (Again, not always, but even Goku from DBZ stayed dead and just came back as an angel... thing... after a while) And the word "retcon" has never been applied (Evangelion has an "alternate universe" side-manga, but that's actually quite a good read and is still not "official.") I've noticed a lot of comic books trying to cash in on the popularity of manga by giving older characters a makeover involving giving characters much larger eyes and gravity-defying hair. Unfortunately, this is missing the key reason why manga is probably selling better: More diversity in selection (comics that not only appeal to girls, but are aimed AT them?!), more finality in storylines, and value ($8-10 gets me a book with page numbers in the hundreds, not $4 for 20 pages).
I'm not saying Americans can't do comics, or that all Japanese comics rock (because, let's face it, 95% of any form of media is recycled crap). I'm just saying American comic artists, if they really want to revitalize the industry, need to:
A) Start taking chances. Knock off some big-name heroes and villains. PERMANENTLY. Or maybe even dip into some new genres.
B) This is a little harder, but something needs to be done about the American sentiment that comics are for kids. We need to see some really mature writing, and that doesn't mean gruesome violence. We have plenty of that.
America a long time ago gave up of the "land of free and home of brave" motto
Remember, the last line of the national anthem isn't a motto, it's a question:
"O say, does that star-spangled banner yet wave
o'er the land of the free, and the home of the brave?"
Every generation has to ask themselves the question; every generation has to work to make the answer "yes".
Army Invites Kiefer Sutherland To Give Anti-Torture Speech
Maybe Captain America is just in limbo temporarily because water boarding is not a direction that Marvel comics considers suitable for an American Icon.
Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
That was why I was so pissed off. Jean Grey's death, to me, was the most perfect death of a major super hero. I mean the way she died, why she died, and that little speach that the Watcher did at the end. "... more important, she died human." That was some powerful shit to a 10 year old. Now they plug captain americas ass, big deal.
Jean Grey's death wasn't just a water shed event in the X-Men but the entire marvel universe. So what did they do? Whipped out their dicks and pissed all over it.
Fuck'em
Supporting World Peace Through Nuclear Pacification
You're either an idiot, 10 years old, or just have amnesia. The Democans are just the same as the Republicrats.
Nader was a complete fucking idiot for saying that six years ago, before My Pet Goat, Katrina, Iraq, waterboarding, wiretapping, etc etc. Saying there's no difference now makes Nader, as incredibly stupid as he was at the time, look like a genius by comparison.
Better get out the word that someone might be killing costumed crimefighters.
One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
This is related to the difference between American and Japanese media in general. If you read Japanese comics, you'll notice the production values are lower. Now, I don't mean the artist-related costs; manga are primarily black and white and run in huge weekly tomes containing bits of lots of manga universes by different artists. Then, the creator is the famous one, not the manga itself. So when a story ends, the creator has a fanbase instead of the story itself. The creator then begins a new manga, and has tons of people reading. In the US, there are a ton of comic creators who are unknow while their comics are still famous. I have read [insert qualifier here, such as "astonishing"] X-Men, but I'd be hard pressed to name more than five people who have worked on X-Men, and then only one am I absolutely sure ever had a hand in the comics is Stan Lee. With the exception of a few names (Gaiman, Stan Lee, Miller), the emphasis is on the character and not on the creator.
Japanese television is the same way. While we Americans have an abundance of shows that run nearly 10 seasons (Cheers, Friends, Seinfeld, Family Matters, etc., etc., etc.), Japanese TV shows (sitcoms and such) typically run 13 weekly episodes and then they're over. The emphasis is on the actor and broadcaster instead of on the story, as far as marketing goes. "Oda Yuuji has a new drama out!" Casts also tend to be smaller in Japan (again with the lower production values so there isn't as much of an investment in a show which will end in 4 mos. time).
In Japan, everything serialized (with a few exceptions, such as Dragon Ball and Ranma 1/2) tends to run for a short period of time in which the creator is the famous one, not the work itself. In the US, everything serialized is intended to either be cancelled early on (within a year or two), or run for long time, and the work itself is what becomes famous.
Apparently Captain America no longer symbolised the new American ideals.
Instead, he will be replaced by The Punisher:
"...the Punisher is a vigilante who considers killing, kidnapping, extortion, coercion, threats of violence and torture as acceptable crime-fighting tactics."
[Source: Wikepedia]
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