10 Incredible Comic Book Panels That Changed Everything
10. The Death Of Captain America
2007 was a pretty dramatic year for Marvel. Not only had the ludicrously overrated Civil War storyline reached its end, but Captain America scribe Ed Brubaker decided (not on a whim, imaginably), to kill off Steve Rogers too.
The world was sent a fluster, Brubaker received death threats aplenty, and Rupert Murdoch's Fox News shat itself for approximately 24 hours. The storm blew over soon after, but there's plenty to dissect regarding the way the onetime man with a plan perished - ostensibly - during that year.
Indeed, Michael Lark's sketch of the wounded Rogers probably did a lot to stoke the media storm that followed, with a remorseful Sharon Carter holding her partner who, noticeably bloodied, lent a visceral edge to the page.
It bears the echo of JFK's '63 assassination all too deliberately, and the visual of Cap dying a thoroughly undignified and all-too-real death further reiterated Brubaker's message of an American dream turned sour. Bucky would later take up the mantle of course, but Brubaker's death-arc certainly beats whatever the heck Secret Empire is.