R.I.P. Captain America

As I mentioned a few days back, Captain America is dead. Well, his alter-ego, Steve Rogers, is anyway. He was gunned down in his own title by assassin(s). This has to do with Marvel's gigantic Civil War crossover event, which is still playing out throughout basically all the titles.

Marvel's first big crossover event was back in The Day and is actually what got me into comics hardcore... well, in a manner of speaking. See, I received a present from Sears: a box of 50 assorted Marvel comics and that, as they say, was that. But amongst these was Uncanny X-Men 210, one of the first tie-in issues in the Mutant Massacre. The Mutant Massacre wove its way throughout practically all the Marvel titles being published at that time and was actually a lot of fun. The stories were hit and miss and I understand that many of the writers felt put-upon to work their title into it - especially those that really had little or nothing to do with mutants, in general (Avengers, Captain America, etc.).

But the Mutant Massacre was a commercial hit, boosting sales on basically all titles across the board. Marvel had done something similar a few years earlier - twice actually - with the Secret Wars bit, but Secret Wars (I and II) was actually its own mini-series. The Mutant Massacre and similar events that played annually from then on had no mini-series; they were simply plotlines that went through all the titles.

I'm not positive, but I'm pretty certain this Civil War thing has/had a mini-series that started things off and is now continuing throughout many of the titles. I have numerous checklists, but as it's coming to a close (well, I advance order, so technically, it's probably just now in full-swing) and you can find the checklist on the Marvel site, I'll leave it to you to track down.

Still, Cap's death seems to have really struck a nerve with many people - even those who are not normally comics fans. I've noticed spots in the news, people talking about it on MySpace, and more. I don't know exactly why this is because Cap hasn't been a big-seller since the 1960s, but perhaps it has to do with the modern political climate and everything that's going on in the world around us today. Maybe the symbolism of Captain America - what he stands for and [people think] he means - is what people are responding to. I'm not sure.