Captain America

was the obvious choice for an end-of-beach Saturday evening movie, so last night we checked it out. After two weeks of doing almost nothing, you don't want a serious film that aims to illuminate the human condition. No, you want action-packed fun.

Captain America delivered both the action and the fun. I very much liked it.

Director Joe Johnston wisely kept both the look and the story focused squarely on the original, 1940s, Nazi-fighting Cap, so we could always cheer unreservedly for the good guys and equally unreservedly boo the bad ones. The movie covered a great deal of ground in its two hours and five minutes, but at no point would anyone, even those completely unfamiliar with the source comic books (as several in our group were), be likely to get confused about what was happening. Each small action or relationship-building sequence stood well on its own, and the collection formed a coherent and fast-paced whole.

The lead actors all chewed just the right amount of scenery, with Chris Evans, as Captain America, to my surprise delivering the most nuanced performance.

Definitely stay all the way to the end of the credits on this one, because the sneak peek at Joss Whedon's summer 2012 blockbuster, The Avengers, is well worth watching.

I very much recommend Captain America to anyone who wants an action-packed good time.

Captain America

I love comic books. I have somewhere around 40,000 of them, which I cannot bring myself to sell even though I haven't actively collected comics in over 15 years. Every now and then, I read a few comics. Someday, I'd like to write a comic series; Jon & Lobo on the pages of a graphic novel would rock.

So it was that when, a bit ago, I learned that Marvel would be killing Captain America, I felt more than a tinge of sadness. Sure, Cap was never the brightest star in the Marvel universe, but I read him both as a kid and for a while as an adult, both in solo adventures and with the Avengers, and I have to admit that I'll miss him.

My reaction also reminded me of the power of series fiction, graphic or prose or video or radio. A single book can inspire you to change your life--I really do believe that--but a series can take up residence in your heart.

If you hate this particular series, go ahead and laugh now, but when John D. MacDonald died and I internalized that I'd never again get to read a real Travis McGee story, I was bummed for several days. When as a seventh grader I finished The Return of the King and there was no more, I ached. I could name many, many more examples, but you get the point.

None of this is to say, by the way, that I think series are better than standalones. I most definitely do not. I also don't try to say whether a perfectly cooked piece of Kobe beef is better than a flawlessly seared bit of prime foie gras; they're both wonderful.

I do, however, get annoyed at those who decry series fiction as inherently worthless. Those folks obviously didn't feel awestruck by The Prisoner on their first viewing, or yearn to fight alongside Spidey or the Avengers, or wish Spade or Marlowe would need their help, or wonder if Slippery Jim would ever lose his touch.

Or feel the loss of Captain America. RIP, Cap.