By all rights, being the science-fiction-loving computer geek that I am, I should be a comics fan. But I’m not, and need not be to know that Captain America is … [spoiler alert!] … dead.
As The New York Times reports:
Captain America, a Marvel Entertainment superhero, is fatally shot by a sniper in the 25th issue of his eponymous comic, which arrived in stores yesterday. The assassination ends the sentinel of liberty’s fight for right, which began in 1941.
And that fight for liberty was most recently told in Civil War, which my friend Matt (an actual comics fan) writes about on his blog:
My affinity for Cap was re-energized when Marvel launched its Civil War storyline last year, with its thinly veiled reflections of both McCarthyism and the post-9/11 erosion of civil liberties. When I first heard the Marvel heroes were going to become polarized by the enactment of a “Superhero Registration Act,” I figured Captain America would be first in line to take the loyalty oath. After all, he’s the uber-patriot, the ever-faithful Nazi-bashing champion of American Values. He actually wears the American flag as his costume, for crying out loud.
Nope. Instead, Cap became Marvel’s leading champion of privacy rights and civil liberties, and the outlaw leader of the anti-Registration faction of heroes, squaring off against that fascist bastard Iron Man. Because he’s really an FDR-era patriot, not a W-era jingoist.
As I read this and pondered the death of Cap and what he stood for, I wondered if he has an equivalent when it comes to defending the environment? And if it not, isn’t it time for one?
