Captain America is dead. Long live the American Dream.

At least, that was the big news of last week. Reuters picked up the story and reported on how one of the oldest superheroes in the past century (first appearance in 1941) has finally bit the dust and kicked the bucket. Back home last Wednesday, Life! gave the whole of page 4 to the Reuters story and also printed a blurb at the top of the main paper. It’s reassuring and rather vindicating for a Captain America fan like myself to know that there’s a big real-world reaction to this most shocking and tragic event.

Of course, a lot of the media’s interest comes from the political subtext that could be read from such a literary device. The representation of the American Dream of justice, peace, freedom and human rights has died, killed by the combination of Evil Personified and a brainwashed US intelligence agent. Not to mention that said icon was also involved in a self proclaimed “Civil War” against those fighting for national security, a War which ended when the “right to privacy” surrendered to the “right to safety”.

But for me, a fan of Captain America for the past decade, it’s just a huge tragedy. A tragedy that a man was forced to evolve into a symbol, to grow beyond all human limitations, to represent an ideal that few people still buy into. Because at the end of the day, what writer Ed Brubaker was really doing was returning Captain America back to his status as a human being in a world gone crazy. So it is ironic, then, that when Cap (the man) faces his own mortality, it is all that he stands for that is called into question in the real world.

I guess, in my long-winded way, I’m saying that even though he was a comic book character, as a person, Cap meant more to me than as the personification of an ideal. He was a young man who wanted to fight for his country in World War II but was medically unfit. Still, he persevered and underwent a secret experiment that turned him into a Super Soldier. Then, while fighting one battle after another, he befriended a younger man nicknamed Bucky and together, they became one of the biggest legends of the War. Cap’s story is unique because it is a path we can all follow. No one else comes as close to the Marvel Everyman like Steve Rogers, Captain America.

And now he is dead.