The Good Captain.

So, they killed Captain America the other day.

It's made the news - Hell, they talked about it on the Colbert Report.



We could discuss the thematic implications, the narrative construction - the whole shmear.

We could.

And it would be all over the map.

I'd rather discuss the necessity of killing Captain America.

I'm an old Cap fan. I have almost the entire Mark Gruenwald run, which spanned 1985-1995. I'm talking from the time I was in grade school through my high school years, I was a Captain America fiend. See, Gruenwald didn't run away from the fact that Captain America was a 'man out of time' - or as Paul Jenkins portrayed him in Frontline #11, a dinosaur who no longer represented the people. Gruenwald played into it. He used Cap as an icon, letting his understanding of the evolving American context reflect in Cap's 'stranger in a strange land'. And when Cap had doubts about that context, he took sabbaticals - some forced, some voluntary. See, the question of working for the government came up before - in the 90s it was all about The Commission and Henry Gyrich. And Cap made clear he fought for the people and, ultimately, the American ideal. And when he had doubts, he'd leave his 'office', so to speak, and get his head together.





And once he hashed shit together, and figured out his place in the modern American narrative, he returned, reinvigored, and fought on. So okay, Civil War. Cap's out of step with public opinion, it seems. He surrenders, walks off in cuffs, because he believes at heart he has failed the American people, yadda yadda. He can be in prison, removed, with the possibility of return. It takes him off the stage, gives time to recycle the character, try new stories - which the Marvel people keep saying is the at the heart of this dramatic move...

But giving him the Jack Ruby?

It smacks of a bad marketing ploy.

And I can't decide if that's necessary for the story.

Discuss.

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