Captain America is dead. In the comics, he is the victim of a sniper’s bullet as he walks from a courthouse.
Honestly, I don’t think that the circumstances of his death matter much. Instead, I believe the decades-old superhero has fallen victim of the Marvel Comics marketing department. The comic book market is a suffering beast. Video games and other distractions keep kids from reading comics, and few adults read comics, even if the comic books are well written.
So, in an effort to find readers, Marvel Comics has tried quite a few different stunts in the past year, from de-masking Spider-Man to pitting heroes against each other during a fictional “Civil War” to drive sales.
But, this is my concern — Captain America was a hero way back in the 1940s when he battled the Axis powers during World War II.
He kept morale high on the home front with fantastic stories of his adventures against the oppressive Nazi regime. Then, in the late ’50s and early ’60s, Captain America battled communist villains in the pages of his comic.
He was meant, by his creator Joe Simon, to be an image of all that was right with America, fighting the evils of the world. He began as an image of America personified, and he fought our real-world enemies. But, they have done nothing with him concerning terrorism or the current Iraq War, wasting the creative potential that exists in allowing writers and artists to examine our current political situation through the eyes of the “perfect American.”
I can understand not wanting to be too political and risk losing readers who feel strongly one way or another politically. But, it’s a true shame and a missed opportunity not to allow an intelligent, artistic take on current world events with this hero as events unfold.
Instead, he has been murdered in ink and on page, thereby destroying his potential as a creative personification of the American ideal. He was killed for the one thing that Marvel Comics is all too willing to sacrifice its heroes for — the almighty dollar.
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