Captain America dies after eating his mighty shield while getting assassinated in a strange Civil War

Yep, Captain America will never throw his mighty shield again.

Marvel Comics, in an effort to create some buzz in the middle of the 2007 March Madness bracket battles, killed Captain America. Yep, they're THAT desperate to steal the young men of the nation from the silly scuffles going on in this season's NCAA College Basketball tournament.

Steve Rogers, better known to comic geeks like yours truly as the star-spangled Captain America, did not die after eating his shield though. And no, Anna Nicole Smith didn't force cap to join her in the afterlife in exchange for sex either.

Apparently, Marvel Comics has this series going on called ''Civil War'' where superheroes of the world have to follow this ''Superhuman Registration Act.'' Captain America, being the egotistical pompous ass that he is, violates it, prosecuted for violating it, and gets assassinated when he was on his way to a federal courthouse.

Writer Jeph Loeb, who'll be part of this comic book series where they will detail Captain America's death into five parts, said, ''When we first started talking about 'The Death of Captain America' and decided to do the 'Fallen Son' story, it was J. Michael Straczynski who had the brilliant idea of breaking the issues into the five stages of grief; denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance.''

(Ohmigod... what a fucking geek...)

''Because I unfortunately have had recent experience with this concept (NOTE: In June of 2005 Jeph lost his 17 year old son, Sam, a fledgling comic book writer himself, to cancer), it all fell into place in my head.''

''I'm hoping to tell a compelling story about what happens after someone close to you dies and still have some grand adventure that will also celebrate the LIFE of Captain America. Each of these books tries to match that goal.''

NEWS FLASH Mr. Loeb, this is comics, not real life. I knew I should've kept on reading the daily adventures of Mr. Archie Andrews. Sheesh...

Captain America Marvel Comics