Massive Marvel Comics spoilers (oh God, I'm afraid to look at the rest of the internet)

[elspethdixon]

So, this morning I got up at 7:30, spent the entire morning rushing my way through four books on politics and propaganda during WWI and WWII, then spent until 4:30 writing a paper on American propaganda and the demonizing of the enemy during the World Wars. This involved, among other things, spending about an hour looking at photographs the WWII Censorship bureau had barred from publication, most of them depicting the mutilated corpses of WWII soldiers.

Then I walked a mile through the snow to the comicbook store and bought the last issue in stock of Captain America #25.

Then I read it outside in the snow while walking back through campus, with the university clock bell tolling in the background.

Then I stood on the History building steps in the snow making incoherent keening noises for about ten minutes, the kind you make when you're too keyed up to actually shed tears but are crying anyway.


For those couple-three people on my flist who probably also spent about ten minutes of today crying hysterically, I have a music download:
Bang the Drum Slowly by Emmylou Harris.

(Click on the link, and it will take you to yousendit, where you will click on another link--You might have to sign up for an account with yousendit to download, but it verifies very quickly and is free).

Comments

[elspethdixon.livejournal.com]

Well, Quesada may not think Tony was wrong, but a not-insignificant number of other Marvel characters do (ex: Jessica Drew telling Carol that she refused to join up with the Avengers because Tony was responsible for Steve's death), and in their eyes, he's going to need some sort of redemption. People like Luke Cage and Spiderman aren't going to come in from the cold while they still think of Tony as a power-hungry traitor to superhuman-kind.

He needs redemption in his own eyes, too. At this point he's thrown away everything he ever cared about and lost two of his oldest and closest friends (Happy & Steve) through circumstances that are at least partially his fault--Happy was attacked by villains trying to get to Tony, and though Tony didn't have anything at all to do with Red Skull's assassination scheme, his side of the war inadvertantly gave Red Skull the opportunity. He did everything because he thought he had too, but that doesn't necessarily mean he doesn't hate himself for the price it cost.