This article contains spoilers about Steve Rogers: Captain America 1.

Steve Rogers: Captain America 1 dropped today to much ballyhoo and bellyaching. Previous to this, poor Steve had been reduced to being a physically old person, instead of just an old one frozen in ice and thawed out decades later. Now, due to events that unfolded, we have Steve back as Captain America, complete with a new look. Problem is that he’s a Hydra super-soldier.

I know, I know, how dare Marvel and as an old comic fan getting ready to start my 40s, I should roll up my newspaper and tell them to get off my lawn with this nonsense. But, as comic readers, haven’t we been down this road before? Didn’t Spider-Man close out the last century as a clone, pissing off the old fans, only to have the story play out and have Peter revealed as the one, true Spider-Man? The biggest of them all is Superman dying in battle Doomsday and coming back soon after. Batman got broke in two by Bane to only to come back. Do you see where this is going?

All these things have themes in common, such as the titular character being temporarily moved on and replaced. Cap has been replaced with sidekick Sam Wilson, the Falcon, taking up the shield of Captain America. 4 Supermen showed up when Clark Kent fell. Azrael became Batman. Ben Reilly, the Spider-Clone..honestly, pick a character and we can do this. It’s common.

Fans were furious. People burned those Spider-Man books. Reader swore off Superman and Batman and the gimmicky books of the 90s…but to no ones surprise, the characters returned and the readers had not gone far enough to miss them in the first place.

Very rarely do these things last but there are a few exceptions. Barry Allen, the silver age version of the Flash, died saving the multiverse from the Anti-Monitor back in the 1980s during Crisis On Infinite Earths. He was written so he could be brought back as a plot device whenever needed> He took so many trips into the future that he could step away when needed in the current, eventually, returned to good during Flash: Rebirth. Hal Jordan, the one most associated with being Green Lantern, went rogue and wiped out the Green Lantern Corps. He too, ended up dead, only to return years later in Green Lantern: Rebirth.

Green Lantern’s case was a bigger ordeal but one that feels similar to what Cap is going through. People were vehement with DC, turning Hal into a villain, murdering brothers and sisters for his own short-sighted goal, which was to restore his hometown of Coast City to life. He lacked the power but only because the Guardians wouldn’t give it to him. Fans created things like H.E.A.T. (Hal’s Emerald Advancement Team) to bring attention to this. DC’s next ringbearer, Kyle Raynor, just couldn’t catch on with these GL fans. It didn’t matter if Kyle had great adventures and we saw someone go from nothing to something or that it was time for some housecleaning with GL.

My point is, people get up in arms about anything that counters the status quo in comics. No matter the direction, people want their hero to be just that. It doesn’t matter if plot devices such as the hero-gone-wrong generates plausible stories, if that, or if a creator has a long-term plan that starts with the implausible.

The one thing that I think in this particular case that gets missed is that these things get people talking and people that get talking most likely seek out the topic at hand. Does this help sell a new title? Possible. Already, my social media feeds are filled with non-comic readers discussing comic book characters and scenarios. Most likely, a few of these people I know are heading to a shop to get this or buying a digital copy.

Knowing Marvel, they timed this to coincide with DC Universe Rebirth, the newest launch pad for DC Comics. While there are still people talking about that, it’s taken a backpage to this Captain America news.

There was talk among the comic rumor sites that Marvel was going to drop some sort of bombshell to counter DC’s Rebirth news. Some thought it would end up with a gay Captain America, something that trended for quite a few hours and also filled my social media streams. In the end, it was nothing of the sort and that Steve Rogers entire past had some sort of Hydra manipulation.

Look, in a year tops, Steve Rogers will go back to the Steve Rogers people know and love. No one gives writers the benefit of the doubt when stories like this rise. While I can’t speak on the quality of the story, I do feel like series writer Nick Spencer is trying to do something different with the character, maybe something no one else has done. Keep in mind, Cap has been around since World War II. People need to shake characters up. You can either throw your arms in the air and demand answers or a boycott. Or, you could tune in and in the not too distant future, you’ll have your Cap back and in his more traditional garb.