Captain America, 66, shot to death

The superhero who charged onto the scene to fight the Nazis is felled by a sniper in New York.

By ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published March 11, 2007

NEW YORK - Captain America is dead!

Assassinated, in fact, as he walks into a federal courthouse in New York, under arrest and in handcuffs, headed to his arraignment for refusing to sign the government's Superhero Registration Act and forcibly revealing his true identity.

It all happens in the latest edition of the Marvel comic, which hit newsstands last week.

A sniper, firing a high-powered rifle from a rooftop, hits the famed red, white and blue leader of the Avengers with three bullets and escapes the scene, leaving the weapon behind, as police and Captain America's military escort cope with chaos in the streets.

What does this mean? Can the pulverizing patriot really be dead, shot down on the courthouse steps after 66 years of battling villains from Adolf Hitler to the Red Skull? Will the killer or killers be captured?

The only way to find out, says Dan Buckley, president and publisher of Marvel Entertainment, is to "read the book."

Buckley will not divulge details of what he describes as "really cool plot twists," but he does not rule out the possibility that Captain America is not really dead or is somehow resurrected.

"When you live in a world of make-believe, a lot of things are possible," he said in a telephone interview.

Captain America was an early member of the pantheon of comic book heroes that began with Superman in the 1930s.

His first issue landed on newsstands in March 1941, nine months before Pearl Harbor. Captain America delivers a punch to Hitler on the cover, a sock-in-the-jaw reminder that there was a war on and the United States was not involved.

Since then, Marvel Entertainment has sold more than 200-million copies of Captain America in 75 countries. In the most recent story line, he became involved in a superhero "civil war," taking up sides against former buddy Iron Man in the registration controversy, climaxed by his arrest and assassination.

The publisher said the theme was seriously debated in staff meetings with the decision that the assassination was "kind of logical in a very compelling story."

[Last modified March 11, 2007, 00:33:38]