Discussion about the death of Captain America probably won’t die down for awhile, and that’s just how Marvel likes it. But that doesn’t mean we can’t glean all the humor we can out of this event. To that end, in Episode 95 of The Fred Hembeck Show, the cartoonist presents a scenario wherein he sees dead people. Right said, Fred.
"But who will avenge him? If only there were a group of ‘avengers,’ if you will, organized for that purpose."
(Copyright 2007 The Onion)
One of the more interesting comments on Captain America’s passing was this from blogger Ari Emanuel on the Huffington Post:
"It’s hard to be a star-spangled Super Soldier these days. Given the lip-service-only support this administration gives our troops, the patriotic hero would have to fight evil with a substandard red, white, and blue shield, and be stop-lossed into an endless tour of duty.
"The only upside to the good Captain’s death? If he had survived his wounds, he might have been sent to Walter Reed."
But more to the point, this follows what we saw at the end of Civil War. Cap’s side was winning everything but the argument – and that was more demoralizing to him than anything else, that the people didn’t understand his point of view, and were happy to knuckle down to authority.
Cap’s death is relevant because now we get to have a real debate as to who we want as the symbol of our country. Who picks up the mask? Who gets handed the shield? Who will speak for America – and who should?
Expect a big debate on this, here on ComicMix and in the rest of the world at large.
Sources tell us that Joe Simon was interviewed for tonight’s episode of Nightline on ABC about his creation, Captain America. Check your local listings for times.
I got a note from a long time comic book reader on Wednesday. He was incensed that Marvel disgraced themselves by killing Captain America. Worse, they did it sneakily, without telling the retailers this was the issue so it sold out to the fan boys before the general public could see the bloody body for themselves.
Marvel certainly got a nice boost from the coast-to-coast coverage Captain America’s death received.
But, is Captain America – Steve Rogers – really dead?
It used to be that a death to a major character was a major event. Writers would find themselves running out of interesting stories to tell with a character and decided to shake up the title character’s life by killing off a familiar face. Spider-Man writer Gerry Conway has always said that’s why Gwen Stacy had to go.
That happened time and again, at both DC and Marvel and it made the fans uneasy, since you never knew what would happen next. That certainly helped sell comics for a while. Then, killing the title character seemed the next logical step. Jim Shooter and Jim Starlin helped pioneer that with the Death of Captain Marvel graphic novel and then there was the phone in stunt that saw Jason Todd, the second Robin bite the big one.
You’d think that, what with the Libby verdict and the ongoing Walter Reed scandal and the presidential campaign horse race in full swing a year and a half before the general elections, it wouldn’t be that slow a news day.
You’d be wrong.
Everybody who’s anybody in mainstream news out there in the Real World seems to have grabbed onto the "shocking event" that Marvel is planning to kill off Captain America. Here’s the CNN take, complete with a tiny spoiler alert intro which appears about a half inch above the actual revelation. There’s also a pretty thorough Q&A with Joe Quesada about comic character death. Watch out, retailers — this could be the biggest thing to hit the "real" news world since… the death of Superman!
We at ComicMix are dedicated to bringing you as much stuff as we can, but we also know that means sometimes you miss things. We know you want tagging and site feed and comments and that’s all coming down the pike real soon, but in the meantime here’s your handy-dandy guide to the second round of entries by our regular columnists.
Look for Mike every Monday (in fact, his latest should be right below), Denny on Tuesday, me on Wednesday, John on Thursday, and Michael on Friday, and guest features on the weekend. For those of you who, like me, grew up with the Marvel superhero cartoons in the ’60s, that means Mike = Captain America, Denny = the Hulk, me = Iron Man, John = Thor, and Michael = Namor. (Hey, don’t knock it, that’s how I first discovered that Thursday was named after Thor!)
We also gave you a special "mother and child reunion" pair of featured columns this past weekend:
And our latest podcasts, hosted by Mellifluous Mike Raub, continue:
Happy reading and listening!
There was a great deal of hand-wringing and gnashing of teeth when word leaked out of Hollywood that Joss Whedon had left the Wonder Woman film project and David Goyer would no longer write and direct a Flash film. Similarly, people reacted in horror at the notion of Joel Schumacher having anything to do with a Sandman movie.
Here’s the thing: none of this is shocking. Disappointing, yes, but we long time fans have gotten our hopes raised and dashed countless times through the years.
For those less familiar with Hollywood’s inner workings, the studios are always looking for the next great thing, uncertain of what it might be and where they may find it. So, in addition to buying original stories from screenwriters or ideas from producers and stars then assigning the stories to screenwriters, Hollywood goes shopping. They will receive yet-to-be-published books in galley form, they will scour the news for stories to dramatize, and they will see what their kids are listening to, and so on.
Our third Podcast is now available for your downloading pleasure.
This time around, Mike Raub reveals how Action Comics ends its 69 year streak, talks about more cool action figures, denotes the cinematic meeting of Ghost Rider and Captain America (!!!) and has a revealing interview with… ummm… me, where I get to rat out ComicMix’s own Glenn Hauman and Brian Alvey.
Plus — can the sound of Tiffany’s voice cure cataracts? You can find out on our third podcast simply by simply hitting the play button:
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