Exit Captain America

Light Refractions by Lucien Rajakarunanayake

We believed he was immortal, this hero of our teens. We may have forgotten him as the years kept piling on us, but never expected to read his obituary. But the sad news of yesterday was that the great American hero with the Silver Star blazing on his chest, who was there to battle the worst enemies of America, is no more.

He had to go the way he lived. Captain America was killed after being shot on the steps of a courthouse in New York. With Captain Marvel and Superman, Captain America was a super hero of American comics.

Much against the warnings and admonitions, and six of the best by teachers, against reading comics, for fear of spoiling of English, Captain America and other comics heroes were always with us. We carried Captain America in our schoolbags; we had him hidden in our desks; we read of his heroic escapades to avoid the boredom of the classroom, and forgot many a good lesson as we were secretly followed his daring and bravado while in class.

Captain America was sixty years old when he was killed in the latest issue of the comic book series. He was born nine months before the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbour, and was brought to life to bring raise the level of patriotism in America, as Nazi power was on the march in Europe.

The cover of the first issue of the comic showed him punching Hitler. And his daredevil punching and downing of the baddies who threatened America and the Great American Dream, went on till we were weaned of the interest in his heroism, to the satisfaction of our teachers as we took to reading "better" stuff. Dammit, the comics never spoilt our English; they only gave us more words and added colour to our language.

Co-creator Joe Simon of Captain America has told the New York Daily News: "It's a hell of a time for him to go, we really need him now." Well, it is a hell of a time for him to go, indeed. But, it just may be that America is not in the mood for him any more.

Even though the patriotism of the Americans may need no boost with the exploits of Captain America, even the super hero may seem irrelevant in the bloody quagmire of Iraq, which is heralding what appears to be the end of the Great American Century.

There is precious little that even a super hero from the comic books can do in the battle against Weapons of Mass Destruction that have never been found. Not all the heroism of Captain America can match the strategy of Osama bin Laden, that oil-rich Saudi Arabian who was trained by the CIA.

Captain America would have been helpless and felt irrelevant as the horrors of Abu Ghraib unfolded, and must have felt even worse about all those Human Rights violations at Guantanamo.

Captain America, if he is to be the real patriotic hero would have had to punch both President George W. Bush and his VP Dick Cheney on their faces if he is to be relevant in the rising mood in America today.

There is no record of Captain America giving a knock-out blow to Donald Rumsfeld. That was left to the American voters. But, the publishers would obviously not have any such thing. So he had to go.

And what better way than on the steps of a court house, the victim of a sniper's bullet. Once again an epitome of American crime today, when even some courts are bending backwards to please Bush & Co; and the gun lobby is having a whale of a time despite all those savage killings in schools and shopping malls.

Kapithan Lanka

It is strange that with all the terror, crime and corruption that are threatening our own society, and the hold that our own comic books or Chithra Katha has on our Sri Lankan readers, there has been no Captain Lanka born in our midst so far.

Is it that Camillus and those other wizards of the Chithra Kathava over here have not seen the possibilities, or are we so divided already that if there is such a character it will have to be a duo named Kapithan Lanka and a "Captain Eelam"? Prabhakaran lurks there as the ideal symbol of evil, giving cartoonists and illustrators plenty of material for our own super hero, who battles the terror of the new millennium.

Yet, it could be that our own homegrown super hero may have much more relevance to reality, and resonance with the people, if his battles are waged against politicians who sit atop huge mounds of corruption, while claiming to show us the way to better days ahead.

If Captain America has an incarnation in Sri Lanka today, under whatever name, his first battle will be with those behind the ubiquitous, unnumbered white vans that apparently go about with impunity picking up people waiting to be abducted. He will be battling it all the way from Colombo to Kilinochchi, but my guess is he may be as clueless as the police in catching the culprits.

He will be an instant hero with our people if he makes patriotism more relevant by punching in the face those politicians bloated with the corruption of power and office, and give the people the feeling that even through such a comic book hero they can come to terms with their real oppressors.

No doubt American Ambassador Blake, who is apparently held in high esteem by the LTTE, will step in to fund the test-tube birth of our own Captain America. But will he have to get Prabhakaran's good wishes first?

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