so...

It has been a week, so I feel that I have a little distance and can talk about the death of Captain America.

When I first read the issue, my initial thought was that I wanted to have fifteen minutes alone with Joe Quesada in a locked room. Now that it's been a week, I still want that, but not because Captain America was killed.

In truth, Captain America isn't dead. He can't be. It's just impossible.

That's because he was never alive. He was nothing more than ink lines on paper. So, no matter how hard someone tries to kill a comic book character, they will never succeed. Someone, somewhere, at some time, will bring that character back. Well, if it matters, they will bring that character back.

And I do think that Steve Rogers matters. And that is why I want to spend time with J.Q. in a locked room.

Quesada has openly stated that he thinks that Steve Rogers was an outdated character. That he, and I am paraphrasing here, was no longer an accurate reflection of America. In fact, in Civil War Frontline, Rogers was confronted and told as much, indicating that because he didn't have a My Space page, or that he couldn't name the finalists from American Idol, he no longer was truly showing what it was to be American. God help us if either of those things become a true indication of what it means to be American. But again, that isn't the point.

The point is that it becomes incredibly obvious with those statements that Joe Quesada has no idea the true identity Captain America. He isn't now, nor really has he ever been, a reflection of America. He is a reflection of the American ideal. What we would all like to be, or what, as a country, we would at least like to represent.

When I was a child comics played a very important role in my life. They helped me to understand the difference between right and wrong. They gave me an idea of morals, and what it was to try to live up to ideals. You might not ever get there, but it was a goal worth having. And at the pinnacle of that goal was Captain America. He always did the right thing, understanding that sometimes the things that you do have a price to pay. And he was always able to overcome those odds to win.

In today's comic attitude, he is outdated. Stated as much by the current Editor-in-Chief, Joe Quesada. But then comics have been having moral issues for about a decade and a half--but that's another post. The sad thing is that Quesada and his cronies don't care about that, which is sad. The happy part is that Joe Quesada's actual title is CURRENT Editor-in-Chief. His time will pass.

And eventually, possibly sooner than later, Steve Rogers will be back. Captain America will once again be representing everything that America strives to be. Everything that is best in a comic character. The American dream. After all, he always overcomes even the worst of odds.

And he really isn't dead. You can't kill ink lines. Or a dream.