Well, of course he didn't stay dead.

[Rabulias]

The Order of the Stick has a subtle nod: Giant In the Playground Games

 

[Mouseferatu]

The Order of the Stick has a subtle nod: Giant In the Playground Games

Oh, nice! I missed that the first time through.

 

[megamania]

Captain America died.

Captain America returns.

It is comicbooks.


What makes it fun to read is the HOW. I have not been buying the original books but I have been picking up the TPBs and this "return" is different. It deals with the heroes / friends of Cap and his villians whom are as emotionally attached to him as his friends.

Its been a good read. Breaking down the mystery and the emotions behind it have been good. From Tony Stark's torn emotions to the whole thing to Bucky's torn emotions at becoming the new Cap.



As for the heroes reacting to Bucky being Cap. the recent New Avengers summed it up most. Spider-man is stunned because Bucky SHOTS a villian in the head to stop from killing a hostage. Yes- all know that the armored helmet would block a fatal shot but this is Captain America using a gun in a possibly fatal shooting.

I knew Cap would return but not how and I am enjoying it as it unravels.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

As for the heroes reacting to Bucky being Cap. the recent New Avengers summed it up most. Spider-man is stunned because Bucky SHOTS a villian in the head to stop from killing a hostage. Yes- all know that the armored helmet would block a fatal shot but this is Captain America using a gun in a possibly fatal shooting.

I knew Cap would return but not how and I am enjoying it as it unravels.

I'm personally surprised that anyone who knew Cap would be surprised. Sure, he's a "boyscout"...but he was a soldier before he was Cap. I'm sure he was involved in more than one fatal shooting.

Yes, hostage vs War is different in all ways (situation, time, pressure, morals, etc.), but still, the point remains that the original had it within him to kill.

 

[Mouseferatu]

Yes, hostage vs War is different in all ways (situation, time, pressure, morals, etc.), but still, the point remains that the original had it within him to kill.

Indeed, I remember back when I was collecting--many years ago--the organization ULTIMATUM has hijacked a plane and were holding the passengers hostage. Cap infiltrated the base, at one point dressing in an ULTIMATUM uniform. He found the hostages, and took out one of the guards with his shield, but the other began firing at the crowd.

Cap took him down with the Uzi he was carrying as part of the disguise, without hesitation. He felt awful afterward and set about trying to redeem himself, but he absolutely didn't hesitate to use lethal force when there was absolutely no other option.

 

[coyote6]

Jack7, you don't seem to know jack about Captain America. To start -- he has shot people before, as Mouseferatu noted (and ISTR Golden Age Cap comics not being terribly concerned with the lives of Nazi soldiers). Cap's changed a lot, but since it's an ongoing serial story, the changes are cyclical, so he tends to come back to similar positions over time.

I won't comment on your apparent visions of "leader" and "heroic", though.

 

[Felon]

Indeed, I remember back when I was collecting--many years ago--the organization ULTIMATUM has hijacked a plane and were holding the passengers hostage. Cap infiltrated the base, at one point dressing in an ULTIMATUM uniform. He found the hostages, and took out one of the guards with his shield, but the other began firing at the crowd.

Cap took him down with the Uzi he was carrying as part of the disguise, without hesitation. He felt awful afterward and set about trying to redeem himself, but he absolutely didn't hesitate to use lethal force when there was absolutely no other option.

This was during Mark Gruenwald's (longish) tenure on the comic. He was the definitive Cap writer for me, and a lot of the folks who are fans of him today base their notions of Cap on Gruenwald's version, even though many don't know it. It is somewhat painful for me to say the name to someone who claims to be a Cap fan and they're like "who?" Except for perhaps John Ostrander, he's the most underrated of prolific comic storytellers, and that's a shame in an age when comics are overrun with a cult-of-personality mentality directed towards obnoxious, unremittingly-negative, fan-exploiting writers who produce as many misses as hits.

My ambivalence on Cap's resurrection has to do with my desire to see the Marvel and DC canons move in a new direction--you know, evolve. Torches get passed, stories end and begin. It's not just an endless time warp perpetually staggering characters through time. Iron Man was in the Korean War...no, make that make that the Vietnam Conflict...no make that Desert Storm....And Cap? Cap was in ice for twenty years...no, thirty...no, fifty....

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Eh, there were about 6 different versions of Superman by the 1990's...not including the original evil one. (That one didn't sell well, so the character was rewritten as a hero...the rest is history.)

Its just something comic book companies do.

 

[Jeremy Ackerman-Yost]

The problem with passing the torch is that it fails miserably with flagship characters.

You can pass the torch with Green Lantern and the Flash, because they are actually second string. But any attempt to do so with Superman or Batman alienates people... some of them not even current readers. You can bounce the Beast and Iceman around between teams, retcon their history to heck and back, but changes to Spider-man and Captain America freak out large segments of the population.

Personally, I wish they would just start over completely every 5 years. Wipe the continuity clean for real. But continuity wipes drive teh hardcorez collectors bat-guano loco. It is as if knowing a cumbersome, impenetrable, often contradictory and frequently silly continuity makes them special, and the removal of that barrier to entry is a sin against them.

I think it would be the best solution, however, as you can always be a bit more risky with a specific version of a "mythic" character that has a 5-year lifespan. And it allows comic book writers to actually plot and tell stories that have a beginning, middle, and end. This is why "Elseworlds" style graphic novels often rock on toast.... creative freedom. Inject some of that into the actual comics.

Whenever they do a "continuity wipe" they always set right about reintroducing the entire rogue's gallery and muddying the waters right back up. A real reset with some simpler, cleaner storytelling for a few years would be something to see.

 

[Felon]

The problem with passing the torch is that it fails miserably with flagship characters.

You can pass the torch with Green Lantern and the Flash, because they are actually second string. But any attempt to do so with Superman or Batman alienates people...

Like anything else, it's all in the execution. You make some arbitrary exceptions for Green Lantern and Flash, but in actuality the former torch-passing was far more divisive than the latter because of the difference in how it was handled.

Bucky was unfit to receive the torch because just prior to that he was a mentally-manipulated assassin, terrorist, and mass murderer. This is "One More Day" magic-wand-waving at its worst.

Personally, I wish they would just start over completely every 5 years. Wipe the continuity clean for real. But continuity wipes drive teh hardcorez collectors bat-guano loco. It is as if knowing a cumbersome, impenetrable, often contradictory and frequently silly continuity makes them special, and the removal of that barrier to entry is a sin against them.

I agree that a periodic reboot is what comics really need. Every couple of generations, do what DC did with the transition from the golden to silver age. Again, the fans will accept or reject based on quality. I don't think it's unreasonable that fans feel their buy-in is an important element.