A Funeral for Captain America

by jordan | July 1, 2007 at 02:26 pm | 952 views | add comment

Captain America is dead: a long-time symbol of not only a nation, but an ideal. He died not at the hands of a super-villain, but was shot down by a sniper on the steps of a courthouse as he fought for justice in a different way. Steve Rogers, rest in peace: the comic-reading world will continue to debate whether your death was as symbolic as your life, as the USA struggles with its own identity in the face of a changing domestic culture and a declining reputation abroad. Indeed, Captain America first arrived by punching Hitler in the face (who wouldn't want to do that?), and later the United States followed suit. More than sixty years later, though, the USA that looked up to Cap treated him as a villain, demanding that he unmask in the name of "national security". Those who champion the unmasking of super-beings are not portrayed as unthinking, Bible-thumping zombies, but as people with a legitimate concern for the safety of their families, and the war is a war of values: not as cut-and-dried as one may presume.

It is a funeral fit for a superhero. In the drizzling rain at Arlington National Cemetery, thousands of grieving patriots solemnly watch as the pallbearers -- Iron Man, the Black Panther, Ben Grimm and Ms Marvel -- carry a casket draped with an American flag.

Yes, Captain America is dead and buried in the latest issue of Marvel Comics's Fallen Son, due on newsstands on July 5. After 66 years of battling villains from Adolf Hitler to the Red Skull, the red, white and blue leader of the Avengers was felled by an assassin's bullet on the steps of a New York federal courthouse.

He was headed to court after refusing to sign the government's Superhero Registration Act, a move that would have revealed his true identity. A sniper who fired from a rooftop escaped, as police and Captain America's military escort were left to cope with chaos in the streets.

But the sniper did not act alone, and did not even fire the shot that killed the captain.

No one knows who killed him -- yet. But writer Jeph Loeb has been busy working through the stages of grief in the most recent issues of Marvel Comics. A book centred on Wolverine dealt with denial; one with the Avengers covered anger; Iron Man, the slain superhero's best friend, struggled with bargaining; and Spider-Man battled depression.