Captain America Punished
First, a personal flashback. . .
Years ago, I was involved in a fantasy role playing game. In this game, my character was part of a party of heroes where were marginally employed by the King as a sort of secret service. The kingdom was facing a nebulous threat from a cult but couldn't gather enough evidence or even good intelligence to take any action. There may have been conspirators within the royal court. We were therefore the mercenary outsiders who were going to figure it all out.
Except we couldn't. Oh, we killed a few cultists and gleaned some slight information by scrying the corpses but, all in all, we weren't very successful. Then, all hell broke loose. The crown prince, while making a public appearance was mortally struck by an arrow fired from a distant rooftop. The royal guards attempted to chase down the assassin but he was able to escape into the crowd. He left behind a clue, however, a cloak with a badge that identified him as a member of a minor religion that, up until this point, was only suspected of being complicit in this cult.
Enraged at this affront, the kingdom leapt into action. Soldiers kicked in doors, rounded up cultists left and right, executed the leaders and put a stop to the conspiracy.
Except, that it was me up on the roof and the "mortally" wounded Crown Prince was wearing a hidden breastplate with fake blood packs. Since we couldn't get solid evidence, we dressed up our flimsy evidence in a faked assassination attempt and gave the King the excuse he needed for his pogrom.
Flash forward to when I heard that Captain America had been shot by a sniper at the end of the Civil War mega-series of comics. I had honestly lost interest in the whole Civil War plotline after J. Michael Straczynski stopped writing for Spider-Man and Fantastic Four and so hadn't been paying much attention anymore. Even so, aside from knowing that no one ever permanently dies in comic books, I knew there had to be a spin.
The Punisher.
I remember flipping through a comic on the comic shop shelves and saw that Frank Castle, The Punisher, had joined the rebellion with Captain America. It all fell into place. I'm betting that Frank put three bullets into Cap and left the rifle behind just as I had put an arrow into the Crown Prince and left the cloak and badge behind. It's a set-up. A professional assassin wouldn't be stupid enough to leave behind the rifle. I have no doubt that the trail of evidence leading back from that rifle will not lead back to the man who actually pulled the trigger. It will lead to someone else and only after that plot has revealed itself and justice is mettled out to the true villain will it be revealed that Steve Rogers has been convalescing in some undisclosed location and returns to reestablish justice.
OK, so that's my prediction. The Punisher shot Captain America. Cap isn't dead. Someone else is being set-up. Marvel will probably take a year to sort out that mess before bringing Captain America back.
Check back in 2008 to see if I was right.
