It is a funeral fit for a superhero. In the drizzling rain at Arlington National Cemetery, thousands of grieving patriots solemnly watch as the pallbearers — Iron Man, the Black Panther, Ben Grimm and Ms Marvel — carry a casket draped with an American flag.
Yes, Captain America is dead and buried in the latest issue of Marvel Comics’s Fallen Son, due on newsstands on July 5. After 66 years of battling villains from Adolf Hitler to the Red Skull, the red, white and blue leader of the Avengers was felled by an assassin’s bullet on the steps of a New York federal courthouse.
He was headed to court after refusing to sign the government’s Superhero Registration Act, a move that would have revealed his true identity. A sniper who fired from a rooftop escaped, as police and Captain America’s military escort were left to cope with chaos in the streets.
But the sniper did not act alone, and did not even fire the shot that killed the captain.
No one knows who killed him — yet. But writer Jeph Loeb has been busy working through the stages of grief in the most recent issues of Marvel Comics. A book centred on Wolverine dealt with denial; one with the Avengers covered anger; Iron Man, the slain superhero’s best friend, struggled with bargaining; and Spider-Man battled depression.
With the story line so relevant to present-day politics, and the timing of the latest issue so precise, it is hard not to think the whole thing is a criticism of the United States government.
”Part of it grew out of the fact that we are a country that’s at war; we are being perceived differently in the world,” Loeb said. ”He wears the flag and he is assassinated — it’s impossible not to have it at least be a metaphor for the complications of the present day.”
But Loeb says he was working with more personal material: the death of his 17-year-old son from cancer. ”So many people have lost their sons and daughters over the years, for the greater good or to cancer or other horrible things,” said Loeb, an executive producer for NBC’s Heroes. ”I wanted this to be something people would identify with.”
Captain America, whose secret identity was Steve Rogers, was an early member of the pantheon of comic-book heroes that began with Superman in the 1930s. He landed on newsstands in March 1941 — nine months before Pearl Harbour — delivering a punch to Hitler on the cover of his first issue, a reminder that there was a war on and the US was not involved.
Since then, Marvel Entertainment has sold more than 200-million copies of Captain America magazine in 75 countries. In the most recent story line, he became involved in a superhero ”civil war”, taking up sides against Iron Man in the registration controversy, climaxed by his arrest and assassination.
Marvel says you never know what will happen. He may make it back from the dead after all, although Loeb says that question is not really important right now.
”The question is: How does the world continue without this hero?” he said. ”If that story of his return gets told further down the line, great. But everyone’s still been dealing with his loss.”
In the final panels of the book, the Falcon delivers a eulogy asking superheroes old and young to stand up and honour Captain America. Loeb did a similar thing at his son’s funeral.
”It was this moment where I realised that we were all different, but this boy, my son, made us all connected,” he said. ”It was powerful.” — Sapa-AP