Requiem for a Super Hero

We can hardly believe it!
Captain America is dead!

Shot by a sniper as he leaves a courthouse in the upcoming issue of the eponymous comic, the striped spandex super hero first introduced in 1941 is headed for comic book afterlife. As reported on Yahoo, it's curtains for the crimefighter.

Though he's always been a second-tier super hero and an action figure most likely to get lost at the bottom of the toy box, he's still had his passionate fans. Perhaps not as many as Batman or Superman or Spider-Man, but a respectable following. A jingoistic figure for American patriotism and a metaphor for the dominance of the U.S., perhaps he had to be taken out. But shooting him? Couldn't they just have sent him to rehab or put him on trial for, say, perjury?

Of course, at least in comic land, death is not necessarily the end, and perhaps they'll find a need to reanimate him in the future. So, don't be sad, kids, Captain America is probably sharing a laugh with Walt Disney right now in that cryogenic no man's land.


-C. Byrne