Capped

So after emasculating him in its recent Civil War series, Marvel Comics has now gone ahead and killed off Captain American, one of its most stories creations.

Before the comic shop even opened, national media blurted out the shocker running through the pages of Captain America #25.

(Uttering these lines completely outs me as a comic book geek, but so be it; anyone who didn't know probably suspected it long ago).

I just got back into Cap, thanks to Marvel recruiting Personal Top Five writer Ed Brubaker to chart his course. I'd also come to see Cap had not been portrayed as the stereotypical good soldier who does whatever his country asks. He went rogue in the 70s after exposing a Nixonesque corruption conspiracy in the White House, he refused to tow the line when asked to hunt down superheroes who failed to register with the government.

Even when Cap openly disagreed with his government, his patriotism rarely faltered.

Brubaker produced amazing stories, bringing back characters and story elements others feared to touch for the past four decades. And in telling the death of Captain American, he hits a new emotional high. I mean, this was a character who punched Hitler in the face (albeit only in print) during the 1940s.

I'm no longer naive; anyone character killed in a comic book can return an issue later with a simple, illogical explanation. And Captain American is a symbol as much as a man (Steve Rogers, for the uninitiated); others have worn the costume in Rogers' absence, and someone probably will soon if they choose not to animate him on the morgue slab.

Maybe it was for the best, in a way - there were still good stories to tell, but America had moved on without its captain. These are dark days in real-life America, and the symbol he provides is too easily co-opted by either side. He wouldn't bust heads in Iraq or Afghanistan, anymore than he'd be standing with Cindy Sheehan in front of Bush's Crawford ranch.

Still, for however long he's gone, I'll miss the character.

You can't just shuck off one with 65 years of history behind him.