Anyone ever see the movie "Bandits" with Bruce Willis and Billy Bob Thornton?

So, we'll have four Captain Americas after this one, the Tomb will be empty, and...

Oh, for fuck's sake. I can't even snark about it. It's just so bad, it goes beyond insulting. Can we skip ahead a year for him to be resurrected please and avoid the intervening issues of excruciating writing?

The News outlined Cap's history up to the point of Civil War, quoting current Cap writer Ed Brubaker as saying:

"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.

I really really hope they were wanting this before Saddam was hanged, and not still. Though if the latter is true, I'd buy that for a dollar!

As someone whose political beliefs fall somewhere between Rockafeller Republican and anarcho-syndicalist, I don't have a problem with Brubaker portraying him in either of these seeming extremes, as long as its true to the character's nature. And maybe it's wrong, but I don't see why he couldn't do both. Ed?

Wait - only NOW the shark has been jumped? I could have sworn that I saw Quesada in the Fonzi jacket years ago on the motorcycle with the skis attached.

It won't stick. I doubt it will last a year. Heck, I even suspect its just a head fake just to get the character in question into a new identity.

Meanwhile, "Agent Quesada" was shot on Heroes this week.

Marvel hates us.

Well, now, I hate them. So it's even.

If I wasn't looking forward to World War Hulk I would be dropping a lot of Marvel titles for a while. The editors and writers insistence that Captain America is out of touch with America is ludicrous in the face of many of the stories written by Gruenwald. Even his use by Bendis in Alias suggested that Cap was very much in touch with modern America.

In the past when the American reality and the American dream were in conflict, the writers had Steve Rogers step in some way to be an example. It's telling that the current writing teams would rather kill him and stick their own character under the mask than reinvent the existing character to better fit the times.

Joe Simon, Jack Kirby, Stan Lee and Mark Gruenwald were and are giants. Unfortunately giants are often taken down
by ants. Change may be good but this is one change I cannot agree with.

" I could have sworn that I saw Quesada in the Fonzi jacket years ago on the motorcycle with the skis attached."

I believe they saw Quesada like that on the street outside the Marvel offices, ran out, and offered him his current job.

The new Captain America will be a NASCAR driver with a Myspace account.

The new Captain America will be a NASCAR-driving busty barely-legal female Venom with a Myspace account. Drawn by Liefeld.

Well, we still have the (always late) Ultimate Cap. We also may get Colonel America again in Marvel Zombies prequel coming out this week. Did America cry wolf when President America was beheaded in the Marvel Manga series? I think not! I call shenanagins. Captain American Lives!

Next week, Sue Reed will be raped, Spiderman will become a pedophile, Black Panther's country will turn into another Darfur situation, and the Punisher...oddly enough...will open a day care. Because Marvel Hates Us.

And we're all reacting exactly the way Quesada wants us too. Unless of course, they are just as clueless now as they were during the Spider-Clone fiasco.

But yes, this does show an extreme disrespect for the character.

When can we expect the "Captain America Died for our Sins" t-shirt?

Chris is right. We're playing right into their hands. Quesada and his team seem to be painting themselves into a corner by building an unworkable Marvel Universe so we'll all get up in arms. The they'll pull off something (which at the moment sounds like it will be World War Hulk) to bring back the previous status quo, or something close to it.

Whether they can pull this off, of course, is a whole other issue. But I think we're way jumping the gun to think that what we see now is the world they want to play in for the next several years.

And by the way, has anybody actually read the new Cap yet?

"We're playing right into their hands."

Only if we buy Quesada's extruded comic product.

"We're playing right into their hands."

Only if we buy Quesada's extruded comic product.

True enough. It only works if people step up to the counter with their dollars, but stoking the controversy is great promotion for Marvel and probably gets others to buy it. They didn't put these events into motion without intending to piss a lot of people off and make them--love it or hate it--shell out to see what happens next.

So Cap is dead/in a new identity? So what? Wait a year or three and the status quo will be back. Until then anyone who doesn't like it gets to save money.

So much moaning over this ... nothing?

If you get worked up about Cap being dead-forever-and-ever-and-for-real-this-time or hate this and keep giving Marvel money, I can muster no sympathy whatsoever for said moaning. You deserve to get fleeced and be aggravated.

It's just a silly story of no consequence at all. What amazes me is that people get worked up about these things over and over and over.

Ralf, you've obviously never had a family member who was a substance abuser. Sometimes you know you should stop caring, but you can't turn off a lifetime of care and even passion the way you can give up on an old TV set with a slightly crapped out tube and throw it out.

I mean, you're right, I know you're right, I don't buy any Marvel comics besides Slott's She-Hulk and haven't for several years, but I admit it: Shit like Civil War and this thing with Cap never fail to get me worked up. And worked up people vent. Still, I don't see this as meaning that Quesada has "won."

They "won" because three of my non-comics reading friends had already separately e-mailed me this story before I got into work this morning. :-)

Okay, well, they've won that battle, you're right. But I'm still holding out hope that they'll lose the war. :-)

Which I guess raises the question of what, from a chagrined fan's perspective, would be the result that one would like to see come out of this whole mess? Marvel re-bankrupt? Quesada fired (along with several writers)? Marvel taking a huge hit in reader numbers? The entire Marvel Universe rebooted along the lines of what became the DC Universe's reboot in the later 50's/early 60's?

So, let me get this straight...

Bucky is alive, and Captain America is dead.

OooooooK.

[Personally, I'm amused at Quesada's riffing around the idea of resurrecting Cap given that all three of the Marvel canonical "can't be resurrected" are currently wandering around the MU [Bucky, Captain Mar-Vell, and Uncle Ben. Admittedly Ben's from a parallel Earth]

Anyway, based on the last Marvel hero to be shot on a courthouse steps during Civil War, Steve Rogers will be back in a new id, named Masochist, and need to wear a bondage costume with spikes to activate his abilities.

Tom: and thus is balance restored to the Force. You knew, once Bucky and Uncle Ben came back, someone else had to die....

I like that Chris M. has correctly identified the remaining comics fandom as enablers and co-dependents. I can't argue with that.

"Ralf, you've obviously never had a family member who was a substance abuser."

Tough love, Chris. Sometimes it's the only answer: change the locks on the doors and on your car, hang up on them unless the first words out of their mouth are "I'm in rehab," and call every business in the neighborhood to tell them that you won't pay for what the abuser steals any more.

In this case--just don't buy anything Marvel prints. I mean, if you're that outraged by this. Speak with your checkbook.

Isn't it possible to think an idea is stupid without really feeling much outrage or fury over it? I mean, I think it's dumb to kill Cap off this way, but I'm hardly frothing at the mouth over it. Yet another dumb idea from the House of Radioactive Spider Jizz. If people want to spend their money on it that's their business.

Dudes, Doug's right. It's another publicity stunt. Read the bit at the bottom of the linked article about how Quesada "wouldn't rule out the shield-throwing champion's eventual return."

(Terence: Yes, the Death of Superman/Reign of Supermen was the first thing that occurred to me as well. Before I'd even finished reading the first paragraph. If the storyline takes longer than two years to bring Cap back, I'll be amazed; on past evidence I flat out refuse to believe that the a story arc of that nature could run it's course for anything longer than half a decade before hitting the reset button. We'll need a brief period of mourning and squabbling over his legacy, plus a period of someone filling in as the new Cap, then an arc where the original comes back.)

Okay, I'll admit that there were a few moments back when I first read the scenes with Sally ranting at Cap about NASCAR and Myspace that I was =this close= to pronouncing Discontinuity on the whole fetid pile of dingo's kidneys. But then I though, feh, it's an Event driven piece of Idiot Plot to create controversy.

Let's review the situation, shall we? As per Chris M's previous article here on Howling Curmudgeons we are now in the midst of the Event Age, where 'must read' stories are put out that 'change forever' long standing characters - usually second- and third-stringers, but in this case they're going for one of the iconic big names - and then repeat for as long as the fans are willing to shell out for this much hyped stuff. (How lucky for Cap - he's a first-stringer, so eventually he'll get his original status quo back.)

Bottom line: I don't think Marvel hates us. I *do* think Marvel has contempt for our intelligence. There's a difference, but I'm damned if I'm prepared to chose one as being preferable over the other.

(And running off on a thematically related direction: Jim: This is a comic book universe. OF COURSE Saddam can still be an active menace to the heroes after he's been hanged. His brain engrams will have been transferred to a cloned head-inna-jar, and he'll be directing hordes of clones ninja Al-Qedea assassins from an orbital platform with a mind control ray. Just like Adolf Hitler. Never underestimate the ability of pop culture to reduce a serious problem to it's most divorced-from-reality rest state.)

Matt, of course you're not frothing-at-the-mouth about it. That's my shtick.

Chris: lol! Not exactly where I was going with that, but when you put it that way I can't argue with it either. :-)

Jess: Hey man, I've been on the "don't buy lame comics" bandwagon for years now, encouraging people to drop anything and everything that just ain't gettin' the job done.

Your scorched earth approach is something that would normally be right up my alley, but here's the conundrum: The only Marvel title I buy is Dan Slott's She-Hulk. Slott's not a high-profile, hotshot writer like Millar or Johns or Bendis (even if he is better than the lot of 'em). Should I penalize Slott, and Slott's numbers, by dropping his book just to make it a clean sweep of Marvel books? I don't think I want to do that.

But, I most certainly and vociferously encourage all the rest of you to drop all Marvel titles (including the Ultimate titles -- they're crap too, you're just kidding yourselves) immediately and only buy She-Hulk. It's the right thing to do and a tasty way to do it! :-)

F COURSE Saddam can still be an active menace to the heroes after he's been hanged. His brain engrams will have been transferred to a cloned head-inna-jar, and he'll be directing hordes of clones ninja Al-Qedea assassins from an orbital platform with a mind control ray. Just like Adolf Hitler. Never underestimate the ability of pop culture to reduce a serious problem to it's most divorced-from-reality rest state.

Ya know, with the right writer (possibly even you) this could be *dynamite*!!

I related my comment to my retailer. He said, "Hey, they've got that new Marvel Zombie book. Zombie Cap could fight Zombie Saddam!"

I related my comment to my retailer. He said, "Hey, they've got that new Marvel Zombie book. Zombie Cap could fight Zombie Saddam!"

Hey, that was going to be my line! It can be the lead-off feature in a revived Captain America's Weird Tales.

Obviously, the disembodied brain of Saddam has one rightful place: installed in a wimpy android go-fer servant that is at the beck and call of an android with Hitler's brain.

"Yet another dumb idea from the House of Radioactive Spider Jizz. "

And anyway, according to comic-book logic, shouldn't radioactive spider jizz have given MJ the powers of a sperm?

One point to be made: Marvel really screwed their retailers here. Captain America #25 was printed as if it were any other issue of the comic and retailers weren't told anything unusual was coming, and then there was the press blitz upon the issue being published. But no retailer knew to have ordered more issues of the book, and Marvel doesn't even HAVE more issues of the book to SELL. So they basically unleashed a media blitz that no one could take advantage of.

Jon H 4 teh win!! Okay, but would she be Sperm-Woman, Spider-Sperm, or Spider-Sperm Woman?

And Matt, that's an excellent point. So why wouldn't Marvel try to milk this the way DC did the oh-so-permanent death of Superman. "They're just stupid" is the obvious answer, but could there be an actually-coherent plan at work that we're not aware of? (Sure, I don't believe that either, but I felt like someone should ask for the sake of posterity.)

I have it on reliable authority that the shark is suing Marvel for damages.

I actually just read the fourth She-Hulk collection and don't think that book measures up to its former self. It used to be more whimsical, and Bobillo's art is missed. If the next one is similar, I probably won't get a prospective sixth one.

Matt, as far as the didn't-tell-retailers thing, I can see Marvel's perspective in not trusting retailers to keep their mouths shut on a "shocker" ending. I probably wouldn't trust them either. But if they knew they were getting articles in such high profile sources, they should have taken measures to have a very, very significant overprint so that retailers caught with their pants down today could immediately have their reorders filled. "Order more, trust us" messages from two weeks ago don't even remotely cut it.

"Isn't it possible to think an idea is stupid without really feeling much outrage or fury over it?"

Absolutely! I wish more people that reaction.

Chris M. writes: "Jon H 4 teh win!! Okay, but would she be Sperm-Woman, Spider-Sperm, or Spider-Sperm Woman?"

Or the totemic manifestation of all the world's sperm? Maybe she'd run into a massive congealing glob of semen clinging to the side of Avengers Tower. Come to think of it, Stark lives there, so that'd probably be old hat by now.

Powers: super-competitiveness, egg-seeking, swimming in dark places. Powers charge up over time, but must be discharged fairly regularly.

Weaknesses: Latex, lambskin, socks.

"Isn't it possible to think an idea is stupid without really feeling much outrage or fury over it?"

Now, come on. This is blog-fury, which is to fury what 'Medieval Times' is to the Crusaders' sack of Constantinople.

"Totemic manifestation of all the world's sperm" -- dude, you are killing me! :-)

I think my anger and fury stems from a couple of causes. One is that this, I agree, isn't about Marvel hating us - it's about them insulting our intelligence and trying to make us think this is some big change in the status quo (Quesada's coy disclaimer notwithstanding). And it's not even an original move, since DC got there 14 years ago, and at least DC had the presence of mind to capitalize on it.

Another is that I want to grab Marvel editorial by the lapels and yell, "You used to do good stuff! Why are you doing this? Why? Why? Why?" At Comic-Con, somebody should watch me to make sure I don't do just that. For example, I used to like Brubaker's writing, and I even thought the Bucky/Winter Soldier thing was better than the concept deserved. But, reading the comments from the writers and editors at Marvel today is like listening to someone you used to know after they've joined some weird religious cult. Who are these guys? Where are the pods?

Of course, I know the answer: because it allegedly sells. I'm just not convinced that it's at all true, and frankly, if Marvel didn't put aside larger print runs for this, it's stupid on their part anyway.

Another direction of anger is at anybody who is actually buying all this stuff. I stopped buying Marvel's regular titles long ago, and am sticking generally to TPBs of their old stuff (Champions was the last one I bought).

It's all just so stupid. And it's running stuff I used to love into the ground. That's why I'm frustrated, and angry. I want to be able to read Marvel comics and enjoy them again, and the ones I do enjoy can be counted on half a handful of fingers.

I listen to a radio show out of Washington DC called the Don & Mike show. They spoke to Brubaker today; here's how they wrote it up on their show's website:

Don is crushed, Captain America is dead. He was killed off in the latest comic. Mike is making fun of Don...he might have to leave the room. Don is looking for someone to explain if this is just a ploy, or did they really kill him. Now the guys are arguing about what constitutes animation. Mike is expressing his condolences to Don. Our friend Patton Oswalt is huge comic book fan, maybe we can get him on the phone to help clear this all up. Don had a letter published in a Batman comic, and he was trying to buy it on Ebay, and he was getting outbid. Lets welcome Patton Oswalt to the show. Patton out nerded us, he called the guy who writes the Captain America comics to get the info. Now Don and Patton have gone deep into the basement of the science building on us. Patton says that you can't kill off Captain America. Thanks for your time Patton.

[...]

We have the number of the guy who writes the Captain America comics, so we are going to talk to Ed Brubaker. Ed says that Captain America is a dead man. Don is promising to help him sell crap loads of comics, but he doesn't want see him die. Ed says that he is a big Captain America fan. Don is getting a little "Annie Wilkes" like...he is going to tie this guy up in his cabin, and make him re-write the story. Ed tells us that Captain America has been killed off and came back before. Don is just not going to let this go. Thanks so much for your time Ed. Don is going to running out right after the show to get his copy. Now some ass is calling to tell us Captain America gets shot by a sniper. Now all the nerds are galloping to the phone to relate their Captain America stories.

Not much info there, but I thought I would share.

In terms of dropping all Marvel titles except She-Hulk: I am almost there; I'm also buying Peter David's X-Factor, which is not as good as She-Hulk but is pretty good nonetheless. And as of last week I am dropping Eternals (unless they get Neil Gaiman back to write more).

Well now that I've read the book in question, it wasn't a bad story, it's not even that bad of an idea. Putting someone else into the Captain America role isn't new idea though. It's been at least 20 years since the retcon that showed all the different heroes who wore the flag suit between Steve Rogers disappearance and his "return" in Avengers #4.

I don't know if the current group at Marvel is likely to bring back Steve Rogers or not. Brubaker has fooled me already with the "death" of Foggy Nelson. However, considering that they brought Captain Marvel back when noone was clamoring for it I can easily see Steve Rogers back in action before the end of the year. I can just as easily see them leaving him moldering in the grave if sales go up and stay up.

I still stand by my earlier statement that Lee, Kirby, Simon, or Gruenwald would be telling different and better story, though.

On a slightly different Marvel-related topic, I thought the second issue of McDuffie's FF run (out yesterday) was really good and a nice way to deal with the fall-out of You-Know-What (which I still haven't read, except in scanned and parodied form), establishing a new status quo while reassuring us that said sq is definitely temporary. In a way that's actually satisfying. JMS had driven me away from the FF; I'm glad I came back for McDuffie. See, that's the way to do it--no need to kill anyone, no need to claim "nothing will ever be the same," just a nice story that opens up the possibility for other stories. Hmm, I guess I did tie it directly into the Cap topic.

And yeah, She-Hulk is pretty much the only "616" book I get too.

It pains me to admit it, but the identity of the replacements for Reed and Sue combined with my local store's rumor that Frank Castle will be picking up the stars-and-stripes shield actually struck me as novel, fun concepts... It's too bad they arise from such a shoddy storyline.

I don't really see why Marvel is going public with this death the very week the comic comes out. If they wanted a big publicity push wouldn't they have started mentioning this a few weeks in advance so stores would order lots of books (it seems to me that's what happened with Superman's death, with people lining up the day the issue was released). Now it's too late for that because all the retailers under-ordered.

So instead we have what would have at least been a truly shocking comic book moment spoiled by internet buzz, to nobody's benefit (besides ebay).

I miss the days when the stories mattered first, and the big moments (and hype) followed naturally. Like Thunderbolts #1, which had a shock ending that worked because it was an actual clever twist nicely executed. Or X-Men #137 which had all this emotional resonance because no one saw Jean's death coming but everything was set up for it (actually, that's a bad example, as technically the creative team didn't see Jean's death coming either, but the story still worked).

Now the big two don't have to work to make the stories momentous because it's enough to simply announce they're momentous.

I'm gonna go read Fell.

Dhole: I can appreciate the sentiment, but Thunderbolts #1 is a bad example, as I remember internet buzz having pretty much deciphered the big surprise way before it was officially revealed...

Heretical Opinion: We might actually enjoy comics more if we retained the ability to willingly suspend our cynicism and take the stories at something closer to face value.

Well, I can say that Thunderbolts #1 took me by surprise. After twenty years of cover copy that promised the story would shock me, I was rather pleased to finally get one that did.

(And that sort of thing is why I try to avoid buzz of any kind about upcoming stuff. Let me know it exists, but don't spoil it for me....)

It's too bad they arise from such a shoddy storyline.

I've been mulling an idea of "bad art which leads to good art". Marvel has, to the best of my knowledge, never published an "event" as bad as House of M, but in its wake, the X-Books are generally better than they've been in twenty years. Nothing now is as good as Morrison's New X-Men, of course, but lots of good stuff including Mike Carey's X-Men, Wisdom, and the story by David Hine that has run through District X, Mutopia X, X-Men: The 198, Son of M, and now Silent War. And both Whedon's Astonishing and Brubaker's adjectiveless are good books. All of these--well, the Brubaker least of them--are deeply caught up in the changes wrought by House of M.

I guess one of the points is that it doesn't take much talent to shake up the status quo; what matters is the talent brought to the new situation. The wake of Civil War might be intermittently interesting, but that says nothing about the quality of thought which went into Civil War itself.