All Our Heroes Are Dead

*Picture Courtesy marymactavish of flickr.com under creative commons.

Alright, I may be exaggerating a wee bit there are plenty of heroes left out there for the average person to believe in. But, the two trademark heroes for DC and Marvel Comics are now dead.

Captain America died in 2007. He was an American hero managing to uphold his own American ideals constantly despite the changing political landscape. In 2007 this changed and he not only became a fugitive hiding from the government of the country he so believed in, he was also hunted down like an animal by various masked villains hired by the same government to make sure he didn't start a true rebellion. For those who did not follow the story when it happened, this series of events began with an act passed by the government in the Marvel world, forcing all caped crusaders to give up their secret identities and to work for the government. The Captain of course was against this knowing that while supers should be responsible for their actions, their unanimity is the only thing keeping their families and loved ones safe from the rouge galleries that all of the heroes have gathered over the years.

The irony in the Captain's death is that the first event to take place leading up to it was a reality show going horribly wrong. Imagine if dog the bounty hunter had superpowers. Now set him and a team of teenagers in a situation where they bust into a super villain hideout. Add the obligatory epic chase scene occur and have it culminate with a mutant with the power to cause massive explosions being chased right next to an elementary school full of kids in the playground. In the end 612 civilians 60 of which were children died. What does it say about our culture when the hero representing our standards is killed by a series of events starting with a reality show?

A final note the Captain himself died in police captivity on his way to his court trial. He was killed by a sniper's bullet. Yeah, America was killed by a sniper.

I said earlier that Batman was also dead, and this is true in a way. He died earlier this year, but he didn't quite make it into the newspapers like the captain did. I find it funny that Spiderman unmasking himself made front page news. Captain America dying was on every news channel for days. I guess now that Batman was killed the world just does not have time for comic book news. We're going through too much of a failing economy to notice that the caped crusader is dead. This is not something I think should have gone the way it has, I mean Batman himself has been great for the economy, his newest film The Dark Knight becoming one of the highest grossing films of all time.

This leads to the question, "how did the caped crusader die?" This one is simple, during a world shattering event he was killed by a God that he coincidentally killed at the same time. Batman Killed Darkseid a villain who took center stage during the recent culmination of Final Crisis events in the DC universe. Going against his ideals and using a gun with a special God killing bullet Batman did the impossible. However at the instant of the bullet's impact he was hit with an Omega Sanction. Technically he is not “Dead” but cursed to have his consciousness constantly travel through parallel worlds each worse then the last for the rest of eternity. To finish cementing his death, a charred corpse was recovered by Superman. This neatly brings me to my final point.

Superman has been dead before. He was also a great hero and was killed in the past and eventually resurrected and has been doing the superhero thing excellently ever since. On the one hand this could be seen as a possible parallel to the currently dead heroes, in fact, a series paralleling the now Classic “Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow?” is currently being released under the title “Whatever Happened to the Caped Crusader?” One thing to remember however is that at the end of the day both Captain America and Batman were ordinary men doing extraordinary things while Superman himself is something entirely different. I guess that means its time to place bets, will the heroes come back or is this the end of the average man shining among super powered beings?

I promise that we will lay off the superheroes for a bit.