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Underground > Comic Books >

Captain America in the news (spoilers)

  
  

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rakker
15:19 / 07.03.07
The "exclusive" top story over at the New York Daily News right now. Also quoted on AP (spoilers for #25), CNN, Yahoo, Fox and Forbes:

http://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/story/503132p-424376c.html
 
 
FinderWolf
15:24 / 07.03.07
MORE SPOILER SPACE ****





*** seriously now, spoilers.... ****









Theories abound; of course he won't be 'gone' for long.



One good theory posits that Bucky aka The Winter Soldier will take on the Cap costume/mantle in Steve's absence. And Steve of course will be back.

Is this Cap & Nick Fury faking Cap's death so that Cap can operate underground? Or is he really 'dead' (as dead as a comics superhero icon can be, a la The Death of Superman) and he will be revived (via the Super-Solider Serum, perhaps) in about 8 months?

Brubaker has written a very good Cap, though, and on the whole I trust Bru's writing. So time will tell....
 
 
Shiny: Well Over Thirty
15:27 / 07.03.07
Hmmmm. I believe something very similar happened to another character at the beginning of Brubaker's run. how that turned out combined with Brubaker's comments about the whole Foggy Nelson thing makes me think this won't even be taking short to medium term, let alone in the long term.
 
 
Mario
15:52 / 07.03.07
If I understand the spoilers correctly, he's already been revealed as surviving in another book that's out this week.
 
 
Alex's Grandma
15:54 / 07.03.07
Well I imagine the Red Skull will be gutted, in any case; two years of careful planning, and look where it's got him. Beaten to the punch like a rank amateur.

Ed Brubaker must be wishing he'd shown up for a few more of those meetings now. In fact if I was lucky enough to be writing for the house of ideas at the moment, I'm not sure I'd be doing anything else.
 
 
Regrettable Juvenilia
15:57 / 07.03.07
Mario - if you're talking about The Confession, I think that might be intended to take place beforehand.

Alex - was the Red Skull definitely not behind this, then?
 
 
Mario
15:58 / 07.03.07
According to one report... the Skull is the one who hired the gunman.
 
 
Mario
15:59 / 07.03.07
Flyboy: No, I'm talking about Civil War: The Initiative, which reportedly has a scene between Spider-Woman & Ms. Marvel that describes Cap as a) alive, & b) on life support.

But I have not read the scene in question, so I'm taking it with a grain of salt.
 
 
Aha! I am Klarion
16:19 / 07.03.07
This is a copy of my newsarama post:

Dude, it is the same ploy they used in the movie Eraser...misdirection.

My bet is the bullet and blood is a squib and Cap and Iron Man are faking his death so they can either
A) Lull a villian into a false sense of secruity
B) Draw a villian out into the open

Kuddos if marvel actually has the balls to go through with it and make the death a death, though. And the whole JFK angle of the story is just so great! Where's Donald Sutherland when you need him.

P.S.
No arm bands this time, please.
 
 
Eloi Tsabaoth
16:29 / 07.03.07
Didn't Aunt May get shot too? Is Mister Code back again? Please please please.
 
 
osymandus
18:18 / 07.03.07
Such a huge waste of valuable paper .
Now the people who commissioned Civil War , the writer and editor in chief being shot that i would read.
(only fictional of course im not really that cruel)

On the having balls to follow through hi really wish their would kill off a main villain . Must be a few cops wanting to off Green Goblin, Venom anyone ??
 
 
Shiny: Well Over Thirty
18:28 / 07.03.07
Yeah, I really wouldn't mind seeing Norman Osborne properly, permanently dead-ified again. I think his coming back was the ressurection that started the change from a situation from one wherby characters very rarely stayed dead to a situation in which absolutely nobody ever stays properly dead ever. Not that I mind ressurections really - there's so many poorly though out deaths in mainstream comics these days that poorly though-out ressurections are a natural antidote. Broadly speaking, so long as the ressurection story is as good or better than the death then I'm happy.
 
 
Alex's Grandma
00:09 / 08.03.07
Alex - was the Red Skull definitely not behind this, then?

Surely if the Red Skull had just wanted to shoot Steve in the chest and the stomach he'd have done it ages ago.

Wasn't the plan to undermine everything Captain America stood for, and then publicly humiliate him, and then ... Oh, right, I see.

But that would mean the Red Skull, at least in part, was behind 'Civil War'!?!

Frankly, I'm not sure how much more excitement the old ticker can take, at this point.
 
 
Imaginary Mongoose Solutions
00:15 / 08.03.07
Cap getting shot is the cap to the whole Red Skull/Dr Faustus plot that Bru's had going for the last six months or so. Crossbones distracted everyone with the sniper attack and Sharon Carter did the deed herself, acting on the mental implants that she's been getting from Faustus.

(And of course, Marvel has finally revealed the Fallen Son mini title to be Fallen Son: the Death of Captain America.)

While I figure it's really only temporary, Brubaker said it changed none of his plans for the character and given how this issue has a "all the pieces fall together" feel to it... I'd say that this may have been in the works pre-civil war.

We'll probably get some Winter Soldier action and from Civil War and the Punisher War Journal solicits, we're definitely going to get some Frank Castle: Captain America action, for a little while.

But as a regular Cap Reader, this didn't seem at all obtrusive or out of place in Bru's "deconstruct cap" storyarc.
 
 
Robert B
03:14 / 08.03.07
I agree IMS. Brubaker's Cap has been great and seemed to be heading to something big. I think Civil War just provided the reason to pull the trigger... so to speak. I'm all for more Winter Soldier but not to sure about the Frank Castle as Cap rumors. Maybe I'm jaded by the MAX Punisher.
 
 
wicker woman
07:30 / 08.03.07
Gods... I cannot see this "Kill Cap" thing as anything other than the Marvel heads going "Oh crap... despite the sales, people are starting to realize how much hackneyed crap Civil War was! We have to do somethin' shocking!"
 
 
Regrettable Juvenilia
07:45 / 08.03.07
I would put good money on the people being negative about this not being regular readers of Brubaker's run on the title. Since that's really the only reason I give a crap about Steve Rogers, I'm happy for Brubaker to kill him off if that's where he wants to take things. If I read this issue and it's a noticeable drop in quality from the previous ones, maybe I'll change my tune - I doubt I'll start demanding the death of teh Marvel suits, though, because that is for silly little children.
 
 
ONLY NICE THINGS
08:12 / 08.03.07
Article in the Metro about this this morning.

Since Steve Rogers is obviously not going to stay dead - Christ, Hawkeye won't stay down, nd he got killed twice in a year - the point is really how this is handled before it gets reset. I'm not interested in reading Captain America because Steve Rogers has temporarily been killed off, but it has led to discussion of Brubaker's work which hs piqued my interest in the title somewhat.

So, what hs Brubaker's run been like so far? Key elements? Quality?
 
 
Regrettable Juvenilia
08:18 / 08.03.07
Interview with Brubaker at ComicBookResources. Key bit:

CBR: Mark Millar is quoted as saying Marvel wanted to kill off a major character in "Civil War," but he refused – much to Goliath's detriment. Was this something you wanted to do or was it dictated from the higher-ups?

Brubaker: Millar also said Eminem was going to star in "Wanted," so I'd take that with a grain of salt. No version of "Civil War" I ever heard of had Cap or Iron Man dying in it, and I was in the room for three days while the last act of "Civil War" got hammered out. The reason this is happening in the book now, right on the heels of "Civil War," is because "Civil War" left me with a few options, but most of them I felt had explored already in "Captain America" or in other recent books - such as my own first arc of "Daredevil." So, since I didn't want to do a "Cap gets on a motorcycle and finds America" story, or a "Cap behind bars" story, I decided to bump up the timeline on my big "Red Skull Strikes Back" story instead, and go straight for the jugular. The basic idea of this arc – "The Death of the Dream" – is something I've been building towards since issue #1. Some of the beats and the way it goes down, of course, have been altered since this follows "Civil War's" ending so closely.
 
 
Chew On Fat
11:07 / 08.03.07
I've just started reading Brubaker's run of Captain America as they are being reprinted in Marvel Legends in the UK. They start with Captain America #1. So it looks like I'm two years behind!

I should probably buy the trades of the Thor, Iron Man and Cap stories in there, which would save me money in the long run, but I kinda like waiting to see how things turn out in the serial format. This is one grim n gritty star-spangeled Avenger. I'd echo Haus's query about how Brubaker handles the book over the first 25 issues. Should I keep on getting it? Without giving too much of the plot away.

I was Tradewaiting Civil War too to enjoy it all in a sitting, but most of that has been SPOILED for me by now. I generally try to avoid spoilers of stories I haven't read but spoilers splashed all over the Metro paper like this is not something I was expecting.

Its crazy to think of Metro's few million readers ruminating on the death of Captain America on their way to work.

I remember having a pub conversation with two cousins a while back. They generally only read the comics I lend them so they know the Marvel universe well enough but aren't avid fanboys. I wondered aloud what a Captain America movie might be like and suggested that Kevin Costner in his younger days might have made a good Cap, being earnest and as American as Mom's apple pie and all that.

They basically laughed me out of it, saying that a Captain America movie today couldn't really be taken seriously at all because the character hmself could only be seen as ludicrous. They imagined it would involve Cap going around the world coshing innocent arabs on the back of the head and shipping them off, drugged, bound and gagged, to Syria to be tortured. These guys aren't even very political and wouldn't know Noam Chomsky from a hole in the head of the latest superhero to be blown away. I guess that's what the US stands for to them and probably a lot of other people in the street on this side of the Atlantic.

Obviously, Americans tend to be a lot less cynical. Perhaps this news story will be quite big in the US because they do seem to hold to an innocence that they see as constantly under threat. As Joe Q says, the image of the flag-draped soldier/hero bloodied and dying is a very potent one at the moment.
 
 
Fraser C
12:04 / 08.03.07
I've just been reading about Jeph Loeb's planned reaction follow up to Cap's death "Fallen Son" on newsarama.

A very slick idea - 5 books, each one centering around one of the 5 stages of grief.

Will Civil War ever truly end? When can I put my wallet away? I have children!
 
 
Mario
12:08 / 08.03.07
So, to sum up... Cap's death has nothing to do with Civil War, but Marvel is treating it as such, because otherwise they are stuck with a cruddy ending.
 
 
MattShepherd: I WEDDED KALI!
12:11 / 08.03.07
The five stages of Marvel Grief:

Denial (this isn't happening to me!)
Anger (why is this happening to me?)
Bargaining (I promise I'll be a better person if...)
Depression (I don't care anymore)
Oh hey you're back (Let's forget this ever happened)
 
 
Regrettable Juvenilia
12:31 / 08.03.07
SPOILERS for Brubaker's run on the title to date follow...






Haus: the key element has been the introduction of The Winter Soldier, or rather re-introduction, since he's Bucky Barnes. The premise is that Bucky, minus an arm, was picked up by a Soviet submarine after his apparent death (Nazi rocket go boom), and then kept in cold storage for the next 60 odd years, being defrosted every now and then, initially to be brainwashed and have a robot arm bolted on, and then to carry out a series of assassinations etc. on behalf of the USSR. The Winter Soldier was the pet project of some crazy Russian general with a specific grudge against the USA. Said general also had an adopted orphan protege called Alexander Lukin, who is the main antagonist so far. Lukin had the Red Skull killed in issue #1, except that the Red Skull used the Cosmic Cube to transfer his mind into Lukin's over the phone. Srsly. Since then he has slowly been taking control.

Anyway, to cut a long story short The Winter Soldier now has his memories back and wandered around for a bit angsting and being followed by Cap, who just wanted to talk. There's been various scrapes involving AIM and Crossbones (including a very disturbing issue in which Crossbones 'deprograms' the Red Skull's daughter via torture, until she remembers that she's Sin), but all of that seems like McGuffin, basically. The Winter Soldier is now working for a gone-underground Nick Fury - oh, and Rogers has rekindled his relationship with Sharon Carter a.k.a. Agent 13.

(There was also some weirdness involving the details of Rogers' memories of WWII being changed. This floated around during the first six issues or so and has not really been mentioned again - it was strongly implied that this had something to do with the Cosmic Cube. This could just be a joke about the nature of retcons, but I wonder if there's something bigger going on...)

In terms of how Brubaker writes the main character, he's basically characterised as constantly very hard on himself and very driven - Brubaker plays up the 'man out of time' stuff, but rather than it being about culture clash he makes it about so many of his old friends being dead, and Cap carrying a lot of guilt around for this. Obviously this goes into overdrive once Bucky shows up again. Initially I thought perhaps Brubaker was deliberately sidestepping the issue of "what are Captain America's politics?", but in fact I think he lays a lot of the groundwork for one of the good things to come out of Civil War, i.e. Steve Rogers as a credible anti-authoritarian figure. Cap keeps being frustrated by the fact that Lukin is a wealthy corporate mogul whose base of operations is on foreign soil, and so he is often out of reach due to RED TAPE, etc...
 
 
FinderWolf
13:31 / 08.03.07
Let me add my voice to those who enjoy Brubaker's work on Cap - so far, they've well-done, intelligent (but hardly *brilliant*; don't go looking for Alan Moore-style work here - they're just fun, episodic Captain America comics, along the lines of the Mark Waid runs years back) adventure stories with a strong grasp of who Cap is and what makes him work. I did skip buying & reading all the Civil War tie-ins (as well as the House of M 'alternate reality' tie-in issue) because they just annoyed me for the most part, though I did skim them in the store to keep up on the general jist of things.

Bru convinced me that 'bring Bucky back' as a story could be done well, for one thing.

Sharon Carter mind-controlled to assisinate Cap? A bit much, but this is comics, and I suppose it's far more dramatic for the [secondary] assassin to be someone so close to Cap.

Hey, Bru has also got the 'head in his torso/must be a cousin to MODOK' Arnim Zola in his stories. He should get points on that for chutzpah alone; who would seriously put Arnim Zola in any modern story and not expect to get laughed out of the room a la MODOK in Nextwave? Bru's Red Skull/Cosmic Cube story was fun as well. It seems that his Crossbones/Syn story appeals to fans of 1980s Cap when the book was all Crossbones, Taskmaster, Serpent Society, etc.

This bit from a recent Newsarama interview made the 'death' idea seem more logical to me, given their story options coming out of Civil War...

>> BRUBAKER: . . . the way this idea evolved into what it is now came from looking at my options on Cap as Civil War was ending, and seeing what they were. The two obvious options -- a) Cap resigns, gets on his motorcycle and goes to find America, and b) Cap is in jail and on trial -- were things I felt had been done, either in Cap, or in other comics -- notably, I'd just finished a run on Daredevil where Matt was in prison. So, since I didn't want to do either of those stories, I looked at my outline for the next few years that I'd been plotting out, and decided to push up my big "Red Skull Strikes Back" storyline a bit, and tweak it to coincide with Civil War and its fallout and ramifications.
 
 
FinderWolf
13:42 / 08.03.07
also, as to perceptions of Cap's politics, Brubaker had this to offer (in a blurb in the Daily News) :

>> "What I found is that all the really hard-core left-wing fans want Cap to be standing out on and giving speeches on the streetcorner against the Bush administration, and all the really right-wing [fans] all want him to be over in the streets of Baghdad, punching out Saddam," Brubaker said. [presumably this quote was before Hussein's execution - Ed.]
 
 
FinderWolf
13:43 / 08.03.07
[unintentional smiley face there created by a colon and parenthesis getting a little too close for comfort, by the way]
 
 
Phex: Dorset Doom
14:44 / 08.03.07
Incidentally, did anyone read Civil War: The Initiative? There's something said in there that just might be significant... Like massively, hugely significant. I won't spoilerise it just yet, but interested parties may want to pick the book up.

Oh, and the identity of the new Mr. Captain Canada Guy in Omega Flight is revealed...and it's monumentally stupid true believers!
 
 
Regrettable Juvenilia
14:50 / 08.03.07
Marvel have said the conversation in The Initiative includes a character lying. Steve Rogers is dead.
 
 
FinderWolf
14:52 / 08.03.07
As for those Initiative spoilers, Marvel released a statement yesterday:

---------------
Asked for comment by Newsarama about the apparent death of Captain America in this week’s Captain America #25, the publisher issued the following statement which reinforced the hero’s current status, as well as revealed for the first time the full title of Fallen Son:

"Captain America will continue to be published despite the very real death of Steve Rogers.

Next week, Civil War: The Confession features the final moments of his life.

In April & May, Fallen Son: Death of Captain America will follow the Marvel Universe’s reaction to this tragedy.
Also in May, Captain America #26 is where the aftermath of his death must be faced, beginning with the autopsy of his body. [Brubaker has talked about #26 featuring the autopsy performed as well - eeewww! -FinderWolf.]

Comments from Ms. Marvel in this week’s Civil War: The Initiative, which seemed to indicate that Captain America is still alive, and being held prisoner by the Pro-Registration forces may not have been exactly what they seemed on the surface, and events related to those comments will play out in upcoming issues of New Avengers.

So, yes, Captain America, Steve Rogers, is dead."

END OF OFFICIAL MARVEL STATEMENT
-----------------------------------------------------

So basically, Cap will be medically dead, just like Superman was medically dead (well, sorta, since his Kryptonian cells regenerated after time or whatever), we will hopefully get lots of cool, dramatic stories where all the other characters react to his death....before he is resurrected about 1 year from now, just in time for the Captain America movie to leave development hell in Hollywood.

(although I doubt those 'cool, dramatic stories' will be the ones written by Jeph Loeb in the Fallen Son miniseries, since Loeb used to be all about character back when he wrote Superman For All Seasons, and soon became 'half-character-emphasis/half-convoluted plot guy' in the Batman: Long Halloween minis, then reinforced his 'convoluted plot that goes nowhere' status with Hush, lost almost all character emphasis along the way, and now has become 'trying-to-be-high concept guy but mostly just being bad writer who writes silly fight scenes' (his last arcs of Superman/Batman, Onslaught: Reborn, his Wolverine arc in stores now, most likely his upcoming Ultimates 3 series drawn by Joe Maduiera, etc.).
 
 
Regrettable Juvenilia
15:01 / 08.03.07
Since the 'Death of The Dream' arc is apparently nine issues long, we might even see him back before the end of this story...

I agree that Loeb tends to be mediocre, I've never read a comic by him that didn't bore me.
 
 
Mario
16:56 / 08.03.07
At this point, I just wonder if his return will be mystical, biological, or political...

Mystical: Steve is brought back by the Spirit of America, when Bucky America is captured by the Red Skull, who tries to destroy The Shield.

Biological: Clone.

Political: He was held prisoner by the Red Skull/Hydra/whomever, and they buried a fake body.

I'm pretty sure it'll be one of those.
 
 
FinderWolf
16:59 / 08.03.07
Don't forget:

- The Cosmic Cube, which can pretty much rewrite reality and has been a major part of the Brubaker series

- Apparently Dr. Doom showed up in the monthly Cap book and lent The Red Skull a small time machine

- and also apparently, this new 'updated for 2007' Arnim Zola (but still with a head on his torso) had something to do with attempting to create clones of Steve Rogers a while back....
 
 
Alex's Grandma
17:31 / 08.03.07
As a side note this (and 'The Initiative') was sold out where I usually go as of this evening, so it seems to have worked out as a marketing strategy, if nothing else.

There still lots of copies of 'The Mighty Avengers' left though.
 
 
This Sunday
18:47 / 08.03.07
Didn't Cap already die? Mark Waid brought him back with Evil Nazi Clone Blood.

I liked the early bits of the current CA run, but I just kinda stopped reading it at some point and I didn't even notice, so...

What's interesting is that Cap can be done politically, it's just that, I think the politcal issues ought to be centered around very broad ideals, such as the last issue of the initial Waid/Garney run where Sharon and Cappy A are running through fields of slaves, government/crimey stooges machinegunning at them and he stops - despite Sharon Carter's insistance that they're chained because it's the law and the politics of the country, blah blah blah - and starts freeing people before insisting Nick Fury let all of them onto the SHIELD helicarrier. That's a political act. Going to another country and saying 'This is wrong' and doing something about it, is always going to be a political act. Looking at your own country and saying the same? Political act.

Playing with children and eating apple pie... being a generally sexist and demeaning field leader... refusing to be drafted... expatriation... choosing to respect Doctor goddamn Doom's sovereignty inside the borders of Latveria... going back to the lead the Anvengers basically every time a woman is in charge... trying to keep a kid from getting himself killed while you're all post-traumatic and decades from the last moment you remember: all political acts.

The problem, as I see it, and the thing that makes most people see Captain America as something should be bypassed and forgotten, a hero and concept with no teeth or purpose, is that these things are rarely treated as political. The recognition isn't there.

Then again, maybe that's what Brubaker's been doing for the past year or so, and I've missed it.

But, y'know? That thing Cap, where somebody's giving him a hard time about not watching reality TV or watching a youtube video of some guy getting hit in the crotch? (Where was that, anyway: I've only seen images posted online, that I've noticed)

Not only does that insult every American, and Captain America himself, but it could be used to spawn a roadtrip to discover... something. Seriously. Cap and whomever he's dating at the moment - Carter, Diamondback, Wilson - in a big-ass car that moves gas through it at something like two miles a gallon, getting into adventures, wandering the land, and generally being something between 'Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas' and 'Pulp Fiction'. But with scaly-mail armored tights and the Sons of the Serpent or something. If it can't be written by Gore Vidal without fanboy's suiciding, have Dwayne McDuffie or Larry Hama write it so it'll be light enough to be digested by the average comics reader and go, go, go...!
 
  

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