He'll Be Back!

~ Nathan Bechtold “The Movie Guy”
www.myspace.com/GraphicFantasy

So, Cap is Dead? In the latest Captain America comic, Cap is killed in a lackluster and unfitting way, as a sniper shoots our hero down, while he is leaving a courthouse… And so ends the long run of Captain America. Really???

Created in 1941, some 210 million copies of Captain America comic books have been sold in 75 countries.

We’re talking about a guy who spent 50 years frozen in a block of ice, only to be found, thawed out, and lead the Avengers.

While death in comics is anything but final, and resurrections are as common as apples, for now, Captain America is dead… BUT so were Green Arrow, Hal Jordan, Superman, Catwoman, Jason Todd, Bucky Barnes, Jean Grey, Aunt May (multiple times), and countless others from every imaginable comics universe in any time-spanning reality.

He’ll be back. Whether it’s in a wheelchair like Oracle ala` Batgirl, or with a cybernetic body like the Vision or Ultron (both of whom had an Avenger’s consciousness transferred into their robotic shells-Wonder Man’s and Hank Pym’s, respectively,) or with a collective conscious like the myriad Doombots, who all seem to be continuously updated with Doom’s consciousness, he’ll be back.

He’ll be back, because they’ll (shudder) clone him. Or God will send him back. Or he’ll make a deal with Mephisto in exchange for a chance to right some horrendous atrocity. Or Scarlet Witch will realize everything wrong she has done, and SNAP, “change” the past couple years! Again.

He’ll be back… Dead isn’t dead in comic books. As long as it’ll sell issues, he’ll be dead. When that changes, we’ll see the resurrection under amazing circumstances, and/or learn that it was an impostor or clone who died, and the real Cap has been in hiding out. For a while, the Punisher or Winter Soldier or the Falcon, or whoever is convenient and suits Marvel’s Mighty Marketing Needs might take his place, but when it serves their financial purposes (probably shortly before a Captain America movie is released,) he’ll be back.

To leave him dead would be to treat his character with more dignity and respect than we’re used to seeing from a comics company, but perhaps with less humanity than this iconic character deserves.

He’ll be back.