Fallen Son: A reaction.

Just read Fallen Son: The Death of Captain America, and it occurred to me how beloved a fictional character can be. In fact, how much more beloved a fictional character can be versus a living, breathing, person. But in a sense, Captain America isn’t ‘just another’ fictional character. He was the embodiment of a dream, an ideal; a model, a symbol, something to look towards.

Awe. This is a brilliantly written comic. The last chapter is morose, understated, and has a clear message running through it. Captain America is dead, and now the torch is passed to you, the reader, to go and be that dream. To live that dream. It’s inspirational.

What is the dream? Part of the romance of the American Dream is precisely because it is unquantifiable; it can mean anything, or everything, to any number of people. Or it can mean nothing. Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness are vague concepts at best. And that is precisely why the Dream is so powerful. It is romantic, it is inspirational, and it is by nature, always just beyond the grasp of man, yet eminently almost attainable.

In a curious way, it takes the ‘death’ of a beloved character to drive that home. Nothing is as final as death, except maybe in comics. But I think that bringing back Captain America would be selling out, he deserves better than that. The Dream that he embodied deserves better than that.

I’m not for a Pax Americana, but I believe in the American Dream. In the sense of what that Dream espouses. In its purest sense, the American Dream isn’t solely American. It’s the human dream. A better tomorrow, to be free, to live fully. That’s my interpretation.

And it’s worth fighting for. It’s worth dying for.