I read online today that Captain America’s funeral is this week. No, I’m not delusional and think this is a real life event. The comic book that features the event comes out on Thursday. It might be the first comic book I buy in about four years. And yes, I am comfortable enough in my comic book geekiness to refer to it as a comic book. Only comic book geeks in denial refer to them as graphic novels.
My first reaction to hearing that they killed off the Captain was shock. How could they do this? That’s a cardinal sin, killing off an icon of the comic book world. You just don’t do that. It was also my second and third reaction. And it’s still my reaction.
You see, there are these unwritten rules that comic book geeks demand be adhered to. It’s hard to explain, but after all the years that get invested in following a storyline, the reader takes on some ownership to the title, like it’s something they’ve been involved in and not just reading. So, there are expectations. Rules.
For those who may not be familiar with these rules, I’ll list some here, but I don’t have the time or energy to delve into all the expectations we, I mean, those darn comic book geeks demand.
1. You can kill the sidekick, you can kill a member of a team or a secondary character, but you can’t touch the icons. We’ll be upset when the Robins and Colossus’s of the comic book world pass, but we’ll get over it. If you kill Superman, you’ll just end up having to write really bad plots about how he comes back.
2. If you do kill a character, he or she should either stay dead or have a damn good reason and explanation why he or she came back. No one just shows up in the shower like nothing happened. Even worse, don’t give us the amnesia thing where the character doesn’t remember how he came back, saving your from having to come up with something acceptable.
3. In casting the movie adaptations of our favorite titles, you stick as closely to the comic version as possible. No changing names or genders. No making a villain a good guy or vice versa. And just know for a fact that we will complain about whoever you cast, but doesn’t mean you have a free pass to be throwing Michael Clarke Duncan into your movies.
4. Have a reason for two icon figures to team up. And that reason can never be “’Cause it’ll sell a buttload of comics.”
5. Stay true to the rules of the universe you created. There’s no way Wolverine could be in the 43 places you have him showing up in the course of one month.
6. Don’t think we’ll forget. We remember the Spider-Man clone, the replacement Captain America, the further mutation of the Thing, etc. It’s better that you make fun of yourself and acknowledge these poor choices than to leave it up to us.
Despite his disregard for the rules, I can’t help but admire Ed Brubaker for writing this storyline. If anyone knows the staunch rules that comic book geeks demand from the writers, it’s a comic book writer. Okay, maybe the guy at the register of the comic book shop who has to endure hours upon hours of rants about how unjust the world is because Batman’s back was broken or Spider-Man publicly removed his mask knows just as well. But the point is, he knew we’d freak out. He knew some of the more obsessive fans would go so far as to call him a murderer (which is more than just a little unhealthy of a viewpoint). He knew that there was not one fan out there that would say, “Hey, good choice.”
But he wrote it anyway.
That’s courageous writing. To take chances in a short stories or even a novel, well, people are only reading that novel. No one reads the same storyline of a novel for 50 years. Well, it may take some people that long, but you’d never have to worry that they’re writing you bad reviews or hate mail.
He did what a writer should do. He took his story in the direction he saw it needed to go without fear of what you or I would think about it. He knew we wouldn’t like it, but had confidence enough to know he could tell the story well enough that we’d come to understand or accept it. He took his reader to uncomfortable places that we never wanted to see. As weird as it may sound when talking about comic books, that’s real. Sometimes, the bad guys win, the day isn’t saved, and people rarely live happily ever after. To quote the genius Dante (The Quik Stop clerk, not the poet), “That’s what life is, a series of down endings.”
And I don’t just like down endings. That isn’t what impresses me. I like stories that take you somewhere you didn’t expect.
For example, one of my favorite upbeat, happy endings comes from Harry Crews. The reason I didn’t see it coming? Well, Crews isn’t exactly the happy ending type of guy. I’m referring to writing here. I have no idea what kind of massages he gets.
Anyway, Crews is morbid and dark, so when I read this upbeat, optimistic ending, it through me for a loop. I won’t tell you what book it was because then you will see it coming. What he wrote in that book, though, might have disappointed fans that had come to expect dark and morbid. But he wrote it anyway.
I know in my own writing, I back down sometimes, worrying about what this person or that person will think when they read my story. What will my family say when they read this story where they guy describes adult movies? What will my dad think if he reads the story about a childhood accident eerily similar to my own in which the father doesn’t come off as a very nice guy? Will people think I’m racist because I wrote a story about a guy who is a skinhead? I find that I regularly have to tell myself to shut up in order to write what is real or true to my characters or stories.
A story can’t always go where the majority thinks it should go. It definitely can’t go where the majority expects it to go. And that takes the kind of courage that Ed Brubaker had when writing the death of Captain America. He’s still a bastard for doing it, though.
