This goes over the character limit apparently, so I'll put it in two posts.
Ah, the old 'Cap's death on the news' thing. What a controversy. I'm Welsh, see; over here, unless you can find yourself a good comics shop you're stuck buying the Marvel Panini 'four-issues-in-one' comics that are a good three years behind the current Marvel timeline: we've just finished House of M. Seriously. That's how far behind we are. When Cap was killed, in order to maximise the effectiveness of the stunt it was put on every news station in the world, it seems - including the BBC. As I say, we've just finished House of M here. Civil War is a long, long way into the horizon yet. My housemates and I were all sitting around having tea and biscuits when suddenly our TV was giving us terrible spoilers for our incredibly nerdy past-time that NEVER OTHERWISE GETS TV COVERAGE.
We were less than impressed.
The good news is, we managed to hurl ourselves at the off button before my spoiler-loathing boyfriend strolled in around three seconds later. Nonetheless, I read all of Civil War knowing Cap was going to die and just waiting for it to happen, whilst banning my boyfriend from every website that might mention it. This is no easy feat when that includes the BBC. It's even less easy when it doesn't happen in an actual Civil War comic, so we got to the end of our painstakingly collected TPBs and found that Cap was still alive and well, and the only TPB that actually had the story in it was called... wait for it...
'The Death Of Captain America'.
Precisely how was I meant to read that as a proper story? In what way was Steve's death an awe-inspiring climax to the kind of complex and beautiful narrative that makes you weep for the pure joy of reading it? Once I finally tracked down the relevant issue to read through, I found it sorely anti-climactic. Above and beyond anything else, it was poorly-written. If you're going to kill off a major character you do it at the end of a properly-dedicated story-arc in which the death is the jaw-dropping finale that will have a resounding impact on the readers; you don't do it a third of the way into a comic and then fill the rest with the supporting cast twittering about the place and then wandering vaguely off to find some villains. The whole thing left me sitting staring at the back page wondering if Steve really was dead; not out of shock that they'd killed Captain America, but because they'd done it so blandly. It's a good job I didn't blink at the relevant part, or I'd have completely missed it.
no subject
Ah, the old 'Cap's death on the news' thing. What a controversy. I'm Welsh, see; over here, unless you can find yourself a good comics shop you're stuck buying the Marvel Panini 'four-issues-in-one' comics that are a good three years behind the current Marvel timeline: we've just finished House of M. Seriously. That's how far behind we are. When Cap was killed, in order to maximise the effectiveness of the stunt it was put on every news station in the world, it seems - including the BBC. As I say, we've just finished House of M here. Civil War is a long, long way into the horizon yet. My housemates and I were all sitting around having tea and biscuits when suddenly our TV was giving us terrible spoilers for our incredibly nerdy past-time that NEVER OTHERWISE GETS TV COVERAGE.
We were less than impressed.
The good news is, we managed to hurl ourselves at the off button before my spoiler-loathing boyfriend strolled in around three seconds later. Nonetheless, I read all of Civil War knowing Cap was going to die and just waiting for it to happen, whilst banning my boyfriend from every website that might mention it. This is no easy feat when that includes the BBC. It's even less easy when it doesn't happen in an actual Civil War comic, so we got to the end of our painstakingly collected TPBs and found that Cap was still alive and well, and the only TPB that actually had the story in it was called... wait for it...
'The Death Of Captain America'.
Precisely how was I meant to read that as a proper story? In what way was Steve's death an awe-inspiring climax to the kind of complex and beautiful narrative that makes you weep for the pure joy of reading it? Once I finally tracked down the relevant issue to read through, I found it sorely anti-climactic. Above and beyond anything else, it was poorly-written. If you're going to kill off a major character you do it at the end of a properly-dedicated story-arc in which the death is the jaw-dropping finale that will have a resounding impact on the readers; you don't do it a third of the way into a comic and then fill the rest with the supporting cast twittering about the place and then wandering vaguely off to find some villains. The whole thing left me sitting staring at the back page wondering if Steve really was dead; not out of shock that they'd killed Captain America, but because they'd done it so blandly. It's a good job I didn't blink at the relevant part, or I'd have completely missed it.