talewt asked you:
So this has had me tilting my head in confusion for a year now. I read the last handful of issues of the Dan Jurgens Captain America run. The whole thing just ends with Cap being defeated by elderly Red Skull lookalikes. Then there’s a funeral. And then, as far as I can tell, the comics start a new run that just ignores the whole thing? I read part of the first issue of that, but it was so heavy I couldn’t get through it at the time. So what’s the deal? Did he die? Then what? Thanks.
Oh man, it’s like Forensic Accounting up in here.
I looked up the dates for Jurgens’ run on Cap, then checked the Marvel Wiki for those issues. Dan Jurgens carried Captain America through the end of “Volume 3”, which would be the second reboot (despite a reboot in the sixties that means he theoretically has a Volume 0, Cap was technically Volume 1 all the way up until Heroes Reborn, which was the abortive Volume 2 that nobody likes to talk about because Liefeld did a lot of the illustration, and that rebooted very quickly into V3).
Sorry about all this “volume” talk by the way, but it’s not really my fault that Marvel’s counting system is like none other on Earth. Even DC isn’t as effed up as Marvel when it comes to numbering.
So V3 #49, written by Dan Jurgens, which was published in January of 2002, involves Steve and Sharon fighting a bunch of sumo ninjas (no, for reals) and then rekindling their romantic relationship, surrounded by the unconscious bodies of the sumo ninjas (seriously). V3 #50 is the last issue before the reboot, and I don’t actually have a copy of it, though I’m pretty sure I’ve read it.
There’s a gap which I can’t account for, and then V4 picks up in June of 2002 with a new writer, and no indication of a funeral.
So I did a little digging back into what happened in V3 #50, which I believe is the part that’s confusing you. I honestly didn’t have a clear recollection of it at first, but now I’m all “Ohhh yeah, I remember thinking it was weird to end a volume on an AU.”
Apparently V3 basically “ends” with #49, and then #50 is either totally AU or some kind of ultimately fruitless attempt to control the segue into V4. V4 #1 ignores V3 #50 completely.
There’s a post here that discusses #50 a little and essentially says what you said – what the hell, funeral and then no resolution. (I don’t know Wondygirl personally, but I like their style.)
Now, it’s possible that Jurgens wanted to go out with a bang and wrote something he knew would be “hard rebooted” – the change from V3 to V4 was a hard reboot, whereas the reshuffle we had just recently from V6 to V7 was a “soft” reboot where they acknowledged what had gone before and then introduced changes. Hard reboots just ignore past history, at least until they inevitably need to bring it up for a plot point.
It’s also possible that #50 was some kind of shenanigan where Marvel wanted to retire Cap – Jurgens, it should be noted, also worked on The Death Of Superman ten years prior – and then Editorial changed their minds and brought him back without bothering to reference the funeral. It’s possible fannish outcry was involved, but that’s just idle speculation on my part. In 2002 I was writing Discworld fanfic.
Anyway, the upshot is that what you’ve found is one of those rare little easter eggs where an event is outwardly canon and yet everyone, everywhere, including the editors of the book, agree it never happened (like Highlander 2).
Treasure it; it’s like finding an old baseball card with a printing error, where the inaccuracy increases the intrinsic value.
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