news-record.com

Skip to the site menu
Skip to search

BLOGS

Advertisement | Advertise with Us

Culture Shock

« Return to blog

Captain America, back from the dead ... yawn

I love Captain America.

I'm not ashamed of it.

I've been reading the comic since I was a kid - even when it was really lousy.

But I'm having a lot of trouble getting excited about Steve Rogers, the original Captain America, coming back from the dead this week.

And can you blame me?

The list of Marvel and DC superheroes and supervillains who have "died" only to come back from the dead is, at this point, a hell of a lot longer than the list of Marvel and DC superheroes and villains that I still find interesting.

Some years ago, comics writer Grant Morrison wrote a memo about reviving interest in the X-Men. There was a list of things the company had been doing to bore or anger readers for decades and he suggested avoiding them. As I recall one of the ones with which I agreed most was killing characters off just to bring them back again. It may be true that Morrison has broken his own rule on this one -- but I still think it's a good rule. How are we supposed to be at all affected by the death of major or even minor characters if we know they're just having a rest and will be back shortly?