Death in comic books is not generally a big thing.  With all of the resurrections and the alternate timelines and the amount of retconning[1] that goes on in the comic book sphere, fans of a particular superhero generally don’t worry about the hero dying.  At best, it will be just a temporary plot device, serving some greater purpose.  Superman has died before and come back to tell the tale, so have several other major superheroes in the Marvel and DC universes.   The death of Captain America has caused quite a stir both in and out of the comic books world. The timing of Captain America #25 (March 2007) will forever be remembered as a lasting social commentary on post 9/11 events such as the war in Iraq and the Patriot Act (Robinson).

Captain America has long been held as a national icon, a symbol of national pride.   His whole creation has been one long patriotic run.  His first appearance in 1941 was as a super soldier fighting Nazis, a superhero embodying American patriotism.   His red, white, and blue costume was a representation of the ideals America was fighting for in World War II; freedom, justice, democracy, and the American way.   He faded out in the 1960’s when patriotism and the simple truths that Captain America stood for were put on the shelf as Americans started to reevaluate their politics, country, and lifestyles.  The civil rights movement and the Vietnam War caused heroes, as well as the rest of the nation to lose the innocence they’d had before  (Robinson).

Heroes could no longer afford to be squeaky clean good, models of good manners and pure to a certain extent. They all had flaws, in some cases very serious ones (like Tony Stark’s alcoholism) or minor ones (Hank Pym’s (Ant-man) scatterbrained tendencies).  The X-Men were foils for the civil rights movement, Spider-Man worries about finding his own identity, balancing both a normal life and his superhero life.

Captain America was brought back forty years later for the controversial multi-series story arch, Civil War.  He was essentially a man out of time and place.  Many regarded him to be the “perfect superhero.”  This has been seen as his fatal flaw by some.  Marvel Editor-in-Chief Joe Quesada has been quoted as saying that “He [Captain America] hasn’t been living in the modern world and the world does move” (Holmes, O’Beirne and Perreira). This could partially explain why Captain America was chosen to die at the climax of the Civil War arch.

The Civil War story arch parallels 9/11 and the subsequent events happening afterwards.   Set after the events of House of M[2] and Avengers Disassembled[3], it begins with an accidental explosion in Stamford, Connecticut, an explosion that was caused by superheroes.  Thousands of innocent people were killed, which prompted the government to enact the Superhuman Registration Act.    This act called for the registration of all the superheroes with the government, giving up their anonymity and revealing their secret identities.  The punishment for not registering was imprisonment in the Negative Zone (an alternative dimension where all matter is negatively charged).

It caused a great divide between the superheroes.  The pro-registration side was headed up by Tony Stark (Iron Man), one of Captain America’s best friends.  Their position was that registration was best for everyone’s safety and that the government was correct in their insistence for all superheroes to be registered. He also quietly orchestrated a campaign that created conditions to scare and mislead the public and government officials into supporting the act and all the programs that it entailed.    The anti-registration side, headed up by Captain America, claimed that the Act violated their civil liberties.    He became the leader of a group of now-rogue superheroes after refusing to help Tony Stark and the S.H.I.E.L.D. agency in enforcing the new Patriot Act parallel.   This led to the two sides fighting bitterly against each other.

Captain America ended up surrendering, giving himself up once he realized what it would truly cost to “win” this war.  He was assassinated on the steps of a courthouse on the day of his arraignment.   This highly symbolic move was no accident.    Captain America’s alter ego, Steve Rogers was a super serum enhanced soldier fighting right alongside the common soldiers in World War II.  Even after he’d left the army and joined the Avengers working with S.H.I.E.L.D, he was still identified as a soldier, a hero who’d fought Nazis while protecting the American ideals.   Killing Steve Rogers in the manner that they did (two shots from a sniper rifle), the writers of the comic were making a strong statement.

His death came as something of a shock to one of his co-creators, Joe Simon. “”We really need him now,” the 93 year old told the Associated Press (Holmes, O’Beirne and Perreira). Comic books have long been held as a type of social commentary, but the Civil War story arch took it farther than other comic books have gone before (with the notable exception of Alan Moore’s Watchmen).

Post 9/11 Americans have been faced with the decision whether they value their personal freedoms or their own security more.  Just like the superheroes in the Civil War story arch must choose between keeping their secret identities and heroic intrigue and joining in with the safer, larger, and nameless forces of the government.  Everyday Americans are still weighing the pros and cons of freedom versus security.  Marvel declared a loser with the highly symbolic death of Captain America who embodied the ideals of freedom and civil rights.   His costume and shield have been taken up by another.  So in a sense, Captain America isn’t dead, but what he stood for and the ideals he fought for are.

Bibliography

Holmes, Larry, Jonathan O’Beirne and Glenn Perreira. “Shocking event for Captain America – CNN.com.” 07 March 2007. CNN.com. 28 September 2008 <http://www.cnn.com/2007/SHOWBIZ/books/03/07/captain.america/index.html>.

Robinson, Bryan. “ABC News: What the Death of Captain America Really Means.” 8 March 2007. ABC News. 28 September 2008 <http://abcnews.go.com/US/Story?id=2934283&page=1>.

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[1] To retroactively change the continuity of a character or title, often used in comic books.

[2] A follow-up to the events of the Avengers Disassembled storyline, in which the mutant superhero Scarlet Witch suffered a mental breakdown and tried to alter the fabric of reality to recreate her lost children. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_of_M

[3] Avengers Disassembled, referred to in some participating series as Disassembled, is a crossover event between several Marvel Comics series. The general idea is that the major heroes (the Avengers, Spider-Man, and the Fantastic Four) are assaulted, not just physically, but emotionally. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avengers_Disassembled