Captain America is dead. This has a big impact on a lot of people, and Spider-Man is one of them. Today, quick looks at comics about Cap’s death featuring our beleaguered hero. First up, we look at bits & pieces of Fallen Son: The Death of Captain America. This was the first but faaaaar from the last time Marvel had to solicit a product it couldn’t describe. They wouldn’t tell you its name or what it was about, just that you should really get it, so as not to spoil his death 4 months in advance. Each of the 5 issues was about a person or group dealing with Cap’s death. They’re all written by Jeph Loeb, with a who’s who of in-demand artists of the age: Leinil Yu on Wolverine, Ed McGuiness on the Avengers, John Romita, Jr. on an intriguing issue about Captain America, David Finch on Spider-Man, and John Cassaday on Iron Man. But Spider-Man isn’t just in the Spider-Man one, so a quick tour of the series. Wolverine and Bucky have a chat before he hooks up with Daredevil and Dr. Strange to infiltrate the helicarrier and question Crossbones. Logan & DD learn Crossbones didn’t actually kill Cap, but don’t learn who does. Strange has them under a cloaking spell that is going to wear off.
I bet he doesn’t!
So, there’s now 2 Avengers teams, the registered and unregistered. We saw the registered roster at the end of Civil War 7. They now star in a comic called Mighty Avengers, while the underground team is still in New Avengers. This comic juggles both of them. We find the reg team going on a mission, while Ben Grimm is going to see Dr. Strange. But Strange is wrapping up from last issue, and Iron Man is telling Carol what happened.
When did Spider-Man have time to go play poker? Was it before or after he went to Ryker’s? Nonsense. The Mighty team keeps fighting monsters and Tigershark while the New team plays cards and Spider-Man tries to hold it together. If he was upset about Aunt May, that’d make sense, but he’s upset about Cap. Then Patriot and Hawyeke (Kate Bishop) magically appear in the poker game to announce they’re leaving to go on patrol. Weird that they weren’t shown before that. Fighting and cards continue.
Namor stops the Mighty Avengers fight and tells everyone to leave on one page, while on the next…
Home, he says. Where, to the hospital room? The way all these issues interact is actually quite clever. In the 3rd one, the John Romita, Jr. one, Iron Man goes to the ruins of Avengers Mansion, where he learns Hawkeye (Clint Barton) is definitively alive.
Tony knocked out Clint (With a punch that should’ve killed him) to take him back to SHIELD had have him looked over, to confirm it’s really him. When he’s up and around again, Tony brings him to Cap’s shield, and asks him if he wants to take it for a spin. So he does, and Tony is impressed, because 77 SHIELD agents tried throwing it, and either put themselves in the hospital or just sucked at it. But Clint is Hawkeye the Marksman, and he’s used the shield before, he’s different.
So, then, we find Patriot & Hawkeye (Kate Bishop) fighting that idiot Firebrand, remember that idiot Firebrand?, after leaving the poker game. And so do Iron Man and Hawkeye (Clint Barton, I’m amusing myself). Iron Man tells Clint who they are as they take out Firebrand, and then descends on them.
Since the 90s, Romita, Jr. has drawn Iron Man like it’s a suit of armor with a person inside instead of a guy who looks like a suit of armor. You know? Iron Man always has roughly normal human proportions despite being encased in metal. Same size head as a person standing next to him and like that. Not on JR’s watch! I haven’t been able to make this a JRJR fan blog in a minute, but nothing can stop me! That arrow was an EMP, putting out the lights and neutralizing Iron Man so the kids can make a run for it. But then they get stopped by the ricocheting shield of Captain America.
Nobody draws rain like Romita, Jr. A fun conversation. Clint convinces Tony to let them go, just this once, then rejects Tony and being the new Cap and registration and the whole nine, giving him back the shield and leaving. Tony says, “If you return to them… Luke and Peter and the rest… I WILL come after you.” But that wouldn’t mean anything to Clint, Tony named 2 people who expressly were not Avengers when Clint was alive. Anyway.
He’s so sad! Not about his Aunt, tho, about this. Peter has come to Uncle Ben’s grave to tell him he’s so sick with grief he doesn’t think he can do this anymore. Not about May, tho, about Captain America. I mean, come ON. This is absurd. Then his Spider Sense goes off, and poor Rhino trying to visit his own loved one turns into a fight. WHICH, it should be noted, isn’t how the Spider Sense works. Rhino is not a danger to Spider-Man when he, too, is blubbering at a tombstone. But Loeb sure wouldn’t be the first to screw that up, so it’s fightin’ time.
All they had to do was put him in the red & blues and we coulda pretended he did this before May was shot. That’s all. Well, that’s Rhino’s mother’s tombstone they just wrecked, so Rhino is now in a killing frenzy. And Spider-Man feels bad about it, but he can’t diver his thoughts from how sad he is that Cap died and not, you know, the impending death of his own mother. This is all so stupid. As the fight continues, we see Wolverine, who said he’s shadow Spider-Man in the Avengers one, is watching and waiting to get involved.
Footage not found. Spidey beats up Rhino as the Captain America in his memory beats up Hulk, and they both win, which makes NO sense. Cap just punched out Hulk! That’s impossible!
How is Logan keeping up with Spider-Man? Is he getting in a cab and saying “Follow that superhero?” After years as a well-loved writer, Jeph Loeb was really making a ton of terrible comics in this period. One of them is going to cause me some problems in a while. Anyway, Peter isn’t yelling “you don’t know what I’m going through” because of his dying Aunt May, it’s because he’s remembering Gwen died once. Logan does a bad job as a grief counselor for a few pages, and Spider-Man asks him when the pain goes away. The pain of Captain America dying, not the pain of his Aunt on her deathbed, mind.
Well, I guess Spider-Man’s off “home.” Wherever THAT is meant to be!
Finally, we have the Iron Man one, which opens with Cap’s funeral. Tony is a pallbearer, which seems in poor taste, but who could stop him?
Sam’s eulogy continues for most of the book, interspersed with splashes of various points in Cap’s life.
Then it’s 3 days later, and Iron Man, Wasp and Yellowjacket are burying Steve in the Arctic. Janet asks if the thing in the coffin before was an LMD, and Tony says “Something like that,” which is weird. Then he gives his own little eulogy.
Weird ending! Especially since it doesn’t, like, go anywhere. And I’vebeen sitting on this “From an idea by J. Michael Straczynski” credit the whole time, it’s in all 5 issues, but can you believe that? He’s the reason Spider-Man couldn’t possibly be in this!! He made his book an airtight story with no room for anything else! Ugh, that friggin guy!! Well, there it is. Captain America is dead, for real and forever. Maybe. Probably. Finally, right to the source, Captain America 26, the aftermath of Cap’s death from the folks what done it.
Ed Brubaker continues to write as Steve Epting and Mike Perkins share pencil duty. They somehow forgot a credits page, so I don’t know who inks, but Frank D’Armata colors. This issue expertly flashes through several bits of fallout from Steve’s death, like, for example, new SHIELD Director Tony Stark showing Sharon Carter that something weird is happening to his body…
… then a wake for Steve, featuring folks like Falcon, Caron Danvers, Wonder Man and Rick Jones. Throughout all this, Sharon struggles with her suppressed memory of having shot Steve. Falcon flies around and sees a vigil for Captain America. We get a look at what the Red Skull and his gang are up to now that they’ve killed their most important foe. But what we’re here for this:
Hey, Ronin! Unlike most people, Ed or Steve remembered Ronin! Well, that Peter sure didn’t seem like he was in a fit of rage and/or a depression. The last scene is Sam going to find Bucky, who’s decided to kill Tony Stark. Get in line, buddy! Well, that was diverting. Now we’ll see how Friendly Neighborhood is trying to justify its existence.