Thoughts on Hydra Cap and the Death of Spider-Man or "Why Comics are Dumb"

I don't feel like I can do any sort of justice to the Hydra Cap story. Most of what needs to be said has been said. I'll mention that I whole-heartedly support the fans that feel betrayed by this and they are right to be upset. Here's a great article that I think says what needs to be said from a perspective I hadn't even begun to consider when I was initially outraged: On Steve Rogers 1: Antisemitism and Publicity Stunts

So what will I be talking about? I want to address comic books in general and the characters in them.


I don't think it's a stretch to say that the characters are bigger than the stories they are appearing in. It's why the image above can have weight to you even entirely out of context and even though these are Earth-1610 versions of the characters you know and love, not the original Earth-616. Don't get me wrong, each character can have amazing stories, but they become something that exists independently of their stories. If you identify someone as Captain America or Superman, the entire world now has an opinion on what that means. That's not a bad thing.

It means that even out of context, characters and stories can have true emotional impact (although negatively, this is what lets companies do the click-bait crap that prompted this article).
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