The Pendragon's Hall

The media world is abuzz with the news that comic book hero "Captain America" is dead. The latest issue on the superhero featured his death at the hands of a sniper as he left a courtroom, where he was sentenced to prison time for protesting government attacks on citizens' rights. The media is having a field day, noting that the hero, who was created in 1941 to fight the Nazis, lasted through three wars against evil but couldn't survive the war on terror. The Pendragon himself is sorry to hear of the hero's death, which many are claiming is a commentary on the war on terror. Agreed. Captain America represented a people that knew the meaning of sacrifice and the meaning of good and evil. He stood for the American way against the awful horrors of Nazi Totalitarianism and against Communist expansion in the 1960s and 70s. This was when we had a stomach to contest evil foot for foot. Those days are no more. The American people think 3000 deaths in three-and-a-half years is Armageddon and refuse to support the war effort until the end. Such a people cannot count on superheroes to save them. They have given up what made them unique in the eyes of the world--their willingness to take blows for what they believed in. And when the enemy doesn't lie down and play dead right away, the American people demand withdrawal. Whatever he thought of civil rights, it is small wonder that Captain America would not have been comfortable in such a world.