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From the July 4 edition of The Oklahoman:

By Matthew Price
Assistant Features Editor

As the United States celebrates its independence, Marvel Comics has released a collection of a popular “Captain America” story.

When Captain America was killed in Marvel’s line of comic books in 2007, the character received more publicity than ever. “Captain America: The Chosen” is a miniseries written by The New York Times best-selling author and Rambo creator David Morrell, with art by Mitch Breitweiser. It sold out its first issue nationwide. “Chosen” now is available in a hardcover collection from Marvel.

“Captain America: The Chosen” is part of Marvel’s “Marvel Knights” line. The line explores alternate and more sophisticated versions of the characters, as in recent miniseries “Spider-Man: Reign” and “Silver Surfer: Requiem.” In “Chosen,” an aged Captain America is dying, but Cpl. James Newman, deployed to Afghanistan, thinks he sees the captain alive and well, and helping Newman escape from scrapes.

Breitweiser, from Arkansas, told The Oklahoman in a phone interview that the death of Captain America probably helped the sales of “Chosen,” but that he had no advance knowledge of the plan.

“Marvel’s more secret than the CIA,” Breitweiser said. “I didn’t know about the death of Cap that day, when it happened. I called (Marvel’s) office, and they didn’t expect the amount of media coverage they were going to get from that.”

Breitweiser said the commotion about Captain America’s death inspired him to improve his art even further.

“Cap meant a lot to a lot of people, even those that weren’t reading comics, as an American icon, and I think that hit a chord with the public consciousness,” Breitweiser said. “I was still finishing the book up at the time, and that inspired me even more to just knock it out of the park.”

Morrell talked about the series on his Web site, www.davidmorrell.net, at the time of the first issue’s release:

“Throughout the story, these words function as a constant refrain: ‘Courage, honor, loyalty, sacrifice.’ Those are the military virtues, and in my opinion, the world would be a better place if all civilians practiced them.”

Captain America (and the Falcon) #194 is the second part of the “Madbomb!” story, which marked Jack Kirby’s return to the character he co-created.

The 18-page story is called “The Trojan Horde,” and Kirby packs in quite a bit of action into the 18 pages.

This February 1976 issue marks the first appearance of “Captain Steven Rogers,” the modern Captain America’s ancestor who fought in the Revolutionary War against the Brits. Falcon reacts somewhat negatively to Captain America’s praise of his ancestor, saying, he probably owned slaves. Steve says there’s no record of that, but Falcon seems like he doesn’t totally buy that.

In this issue, it’s revealed that Rogers killed Sir William Taurey in the Revolutionary War — his descendant has now sworn to kill the descendant of Rogers, who Taurey has found out was a weakling who was 4-F in World War II. (The story being in 1976, even without Cap’s ice-capades, he’d only have been roughly 56 years old, as opposed to the 86 he would be now.)

Coinicidentally, Taurey also seems to be behind the A-plot — his group of elitists want to overthrow American society using the Madbomb. One Madbomb has already been set off, driving a city crazy. Cap and Falcon must track down the rest, including the “Big Daddy” which threatens society as we know it.

Cap and Falc open the issue being innundated by Madbomb waves from SHIELD, to increase their tolerance for the rays.

The plan is for Cap and Falcon to get captured, in civilian clothes by the bad Madbombers and figure out what’s going on.

Cap finds out that captured SHIELD agents are getting turned into mad, raging powerhouses, and decides they can’t wait any longer — he and the Falcon must spring into action!

There’s so much happening in this issue, that even though it’s wacky and a little hard to believe, the amount of ideas and energy crackling from the page make it great fun for Cap and Kirby fans.

The whole “Madbomb” storyline is available in trade paperback format.

– Matt Price

Blog @ Newsarama reports that the upcoming “Captain America” film will be a period piece set in World War II.

Marvel Studios President Kevin Feige also confirmed that the mysterious object in the “Iron Man” film was in fact Captain America’s shield.

He also confirmed that a large portion of the upcoming “Thor” film would be set in Asgard.

I think this is good news on the “Captain America” front — first film during World War II, then revive him in the “Avengers” movie.  I’d also recommend the “Adventures of Captain America” by Fabian Nicieza and Kevin Maguire, as a good starting point for a movie storyline.

– Matt Price

Some eagle-eyed film viewers are pointing out an Easter egg of sorts in “Iron Man” — in a scene in Tony’s workshop, there’s a disc-shaped object that could be the shield of Captain America.

Superhero Times has the screen capture.

– Matt Price

Diamond Select brings James “Bucky” Barnes, the former Winter Soldier, to life as an action figure, in this September release in the “Marvel Select” line.

The figure is sculpted by Sam Greenwell and features 14 points of articulation. The 7” figure comes with a gargoyle rooftop base for display.  Greenwell has sculpted several figures in the Marvel Select line, including Ultimate Hulk, Ultimate Thor and Ultimate Wolverine.

The figure is based on the designs by Alex Ross and the character costume debuted in ”Captain America” No. 34.  

– Matt Price

Well, here’s hoping this is just idle speculation, but CinemaBlend reports that Matthew McConaughey may be among the contenders to play “Captain America” in the just-announced 2011 film.

I think Captain America will be a very tough role to cast — and, fans often react poorly at first to unconventional choices, only to later be won over (see: Michael Keaton), but my first response to this as a Captain America fan is, I hope this isn’t the direction they end up going.

– Matt Price 

According to Marvel’s first-quarter financial report received by Newsarama, Marvel has slated an “Iron Man”sequel and a ”Thor” film for 2010, and two “Avenger-themed” movies in summer 2011: “Captain America” in May and “The Avengers” in July.

 – Matt Price

One of my favorite writers is Mark Gruenwald, who wrote “Squadron Supreme” for Marvel and handled the adventures of Captain America for over 100 issues.   I’m sure part of why he’s my favorite stems from his being the writer of my favorite character when I was a youngster, but I think a lot of his writing holds up, and, sadly, is for the most part not available in trade paperback format. 

Gruenwald died in 1996 at age 43 from a heart attack.  Marvel has a page about Gruenwald’s accomplishments at Marvel.com.

My favorite storyline by Gruenwald — and one of my favorite storylines of all time — is the “President Fires Cap” storyline from “Captain America” 332-350 (with seeds to the storyline going back as far, perhaps, as issue No. 321.)

Gruenwald talked about this storyline with “Amazing Heroes” in 1988, in issue No. 146.  (This is one of the issues I was most excited to get from my fanzine find at Planet Comicon.)   He talks about the only surefire “gimmicks” to revive interest in an ongoing superhero comic.

“Number one, kill somebody important in the book, preferably the lead character.  That’ll get the book looked at.   Short of that change the character dramatically. A new uniform might do it. Or get him out of uniform and replace him.  Or change his life in some other major way: Get him married off or whatever.  So, I did three of the above.”

It was interesting to read that, because it’s very similar to what Ed Brubaker did with his run on the book as well, which succeeded in bringing lots of interest to the character.  Brubaker had written 24 pretty great issues of “Captain America,” but when he killed Cap off in issue No. 25, sales skyrocketed.

“Why is the book being read by fairly significant numbers of new readers?  Once they started looking again, they must have liked something they’d seen, because they kept up with it,” Gruenwald said in the interview.

Gruenwald said he got hate mail from people who didn’t read the book complaining about the changes he made.

“And I say if you’re not a regular reader, that’s why we replaced him.  Just so you’d be a regular reader.”

– Matt Price

]”Captain America” continues to be one of the best comic books on the stands, and Act Three of Ed Brubaker’s “Death of Captain America” story begins with “Captain America” No. 37.  Issue No. 37 goes on sale April 16.

From Marvel:

Acclaimed artists Steve Epting and Jackson Guice join Brubaker for Captain America #37, as the Red Skull targets the very soul of America with his latest gambit! As James “Bucky” Barnes must adjust to the new mantle once worn by his mentor, he must also search for the kidnapped Sharon Carter—whose jaw dropping discovery last issue may change the entire direction of Captain America!

Probably the biggest news out of this weekend’s Wizard World Los Angeles convention was that artist Tim Sale was returning to Marvel, with his first project “Captain America: White” with frequent collaborator Jeph Loeb.

Loeb and Sale worked together on “Daredevil: Yellow,” “Spider-Man: Blue” and “Hulk: Gray” for Marvel, as well as “Batman: The Long Halloween,” “Batman: Dark Victory” and “Superman for All Seasons” for DC Comics.

Comic Book Resources talked to Loeb and Sale about the project.

“Captain America: White” takes its heroes to Europe during the beginning of American involvement in World War II. “Not everyone was crazy about the Americans coming over to save them — it was a matter of national pride,” Loeb said. “At the same time, the Nazis had to be stopped. It’s one of the central points of our story.”

“I’ve never done a war comic before,” Sale told CBR. “I’ve never done something that takes place in a setting quite like this; where people, their ideals and experiences, are forged through such extreme circumstances. That’s very intriguing to me.”

And for more from Tim Sale, check out Vaneta Rogers’ interview with the artist at Newsarama.

– Matt Price