Captain America's shooting culminates an allegorical post 9/11 storyline that has seen him leading the resistance against an edict requiring people with superpowers to register with, and be regulated by, the federal government. Those who refuse are designated "unlawful combatants" and disappeared without trial into secret prisons. "Am I even in America?" gasps one young hero as he is being led away.
That's something many of us have asked in these last years of government sanctioned torture, secret surveillance and Patriot actions.
Captain America has, since his creation in 1941, served as a mirror of American moods, fears and aspirations. In the '40s, he reflected American determination to defeat the Axis powers, in the '50s, American preoccupation with communism, in the '70s, American disillusionment.
It is a stark sign of our times, then, to see him led to court for defying the federal government. For 66 years, Captain America has been the conscience and moral center of the universe he inhabits, the good soldier, the decent American, the one who did the right thing. Now he lies bleeding out on courthouse steps, having tried and failed to stop the federal government from betraying core American values. The symbol of freedom lies dying with handcuffs on.
