Last week Marvel did some ridiculous shit and killed Captain America. He was nailed by a sniper. I've been meaning to write about this but haven't had any time. This is why I'm kinda pissed at Marvel right now.
So here's the deal - for the last year or so there's been an ongoing, universe-spanning storyline involving in fighting between two factions of Marvel superheroes. A "Civil War," if you will. This was an awesome idea that really could have had a serious impact on every character in the Marvel Universe. Basically, heroes were forced to either register their identities or be arrested after some younger heroes filming a reality show botched a villain fight and blew up a school.
This was great because some heroes you'd expect to stay straight went rogue, Captain America being one of them, and there was this cool showdown that was set up - Iron Man and his peeps vs. Cap and the rebels, who included Spider-Man, Daredevil, the Punisher, and pretty much every other marketable character, except the X-Men, who they wrote out because it's clear that the X-line of books is now almost completely autonomous save Wolverine's appearance in every title Marvel publishes. Well, they didn't write them out completely, but their storyline was so marginal and unnecessary that they should have. So it was clear which side the audience was supposed to root for. It was made interesting when Iron Man recruited villains to capture the rebel superheros, like Venom, Green Goblin, Bullseye, etc.
Well, the series played out and the climactic battle ended with Cap's side winning the fight against the pussy heroes and the villains, but then Cap realized that Oh my God, look and all the damage we're doing, we're not helping people, blah blah blah, and then he surrenders, basically throwing away a year's worth of posturing and drama in a matter of two panels. Oh, and all of those heroes that were fighting with Cap? Pardoned. Amnesty. Gay.
After all of these publishing delays and huge publicity and some really great scripts and art, we're left with everything pretty much the same except a little different. Now every state has it's own government sponsored hero team, which will be brought up only when convenient since the teams are made up up with brand new no-names or D-listers.
Follow me over here. There are two character rules that Marvel seems to have been adhering to since the Modern Age began. 1) Magneto is never really dead, and 2) Bucky is dead for real. Now Ed Brubaker, the writer who is on the Captain America book right now, has done some great things with it. He's turned Captain America around from cheeseball to ball-crushingly cool. He also broke what I thought was the cardinal rule of Marvel and destroyed any faith in the permanency of any storyline decision that Joe Quesada (Editor-In-Chief) allows. He brought back Bucky - Captain America's dead sidekick from WWII - as the Winter Soldier, an ex-KBG genetically enhanced cyborg amnesia victim who Cap had to rescue from the brink of evil and madness. This is a very cool way to bring back the only character who nobody has touched in over fifty years, but still a controversial decision and one I was willing to live with.
But now, NOW! two years later he decides to kill Marvel's flagship character and they say it's for real but they lost all credibility when they brought back Bucky and don't you see!? It's going to happen again. They're saying "Steve Rogers is dead," and they've already got teaser panels on their website that say "Is this the new Captain America?" and in another year or two when the new Captain America bombs and everyone hates him then Holy Shit! here comes Steve Rogers again to save the day and it's ok everyone I was just um... in stasis or frozen in ice again or in Jamaica or whatever.
This is all just crap filler to keep readership between the pathetic anticlimactic end to what could have been an industry changing event and World War Hulk, what should be just a gruesome bloodbath but will probably be a year-long fist fight between the Hulk and a bunch of pussies I'm not interested in anymore. And when all the dust settles and the Hulk gives everyone a big hug on Oprah and everything is the same as it was except maybe the Hulk is, I don't know... blue now, don't say I didn't warn you.
UPDATE: I can understand why nobody's commented on this. Jamie's statement tonight summed it up -
"Captain America died? When?"
...
"Who's Captain America?"
DOUBLE KICKASS UPDATE: HE'S RED! THE HULK IS FUCKING RED! AHAHAHA I CALLED IT, JOE QUESADA, YOU FUCKING CHUMP! GET SOME TALENT!
