Captain America Lives Again

It's common knowledge by now that superheroes never really die. Superhero death and resurrection is at this point completely meaningless. It's so common place that's it the source of constant jokes in the comics industry.

A couple of years ago Marvel Comics decided to kill off Captain America on a slow news day and it turned into a big event for them. But Marvel doesn't trust retailers for some strange reason so nobody knew in advance to order enough copies to meet the demand at the time. What could have been a huge payoff for everybody was quickly lost by poor planning 0n Marvel's part.

Well Marvel is trying to create buzz again with the latest issue of Captain America - issue #600 and once again they didn't trust the retailers to know what they were planning. (Robot 6) Just the standard memo "Trust us, order lots, there will be a national news announcement." Marvel is even allowing comic stores to sell the comic (for additional shipping charges) early on Monday June 15, 2009 when the "news" breaks instead of the standard comic day Wednesday but only if retailers had managed to jump through all of Marvel's magic hoops and were paying attention when they briefly solicited it. More than a few didn't bother to take Marvel up on it.

So the big announcement is that Captain America is coming back to life. (Robot 6) But this time there's actually news going on in the world and nobody really cares. Life is always less interesting than death in the news. My favorite is CNN's take. "Perhaps he should be called Captain Phoenix?"


But there already is a new Captain America - former Cap sidekick Bucky and I guess he's going to get moved to the sidelines. He currently runs around in a shiny Captain America costume with a handgun and the shield. And truth be told he makes a far more interesting Captain America than Steve Rogers ever did. Sure the handgun seems a little controversial but then it's not like Cap never carried a gun before.