In this feature we examine comic book stories and ideas that were not only abandoned, but also had the stories/plots specifically "overturned" by a later writer (as if they were a legal precedent). Click here for an archive of all the previous editions of The Abandoned An' Forsaked. Feel free to e-mail me at bcronin@comicbookresources.com if you have any suggestions for future editions of this feature.

Today, based on a suggestion by Manuel V., we look at the time Thor talked to the spirit of Captain America when Captain America wasn't actually dead...

Right after the end of Civil War, in Captain America #25 (by Ed Brubaker and Steve Epting), Steve Rogers is shot and killed (tragically, it's by his own brainwashed girlfriend, Sharon Carter!)...







So a year later, in Thor #11 by J. Michael Straczynski, Olivier Coipel and a host of inkers, Thor decides to pay tribute to his old friend, Captain America, since he died when Thor, too, was dead (Thor had been brought back from the dead at the start of JMS' run). Thor reveals a little-used ability of Mjolnir. It can summon from the dead people who have sworn an oath over it. I dunno when Cap did that, exactly, but it's not that weird to presume that he did at one point or another...









After they talked, Thor did a touching tribute by using his powers to basically FORCE the world into a moment of silence for Cap...



This was all well and good, of course, except for one problem...Cap wasn't actually dead. Go to the next page to see what ACTUALLY happened to Cap...

After her role in seemingly killing Cap, Sharon was captured by the Red Skull later on but escaped, although with her head all messed up so she couldn't remember what went on with her time with Skull. Eventually she slowly recovered and went out of her way to find the gun that "killed" Cap. She did and brought it to the Avengers, specifically Hank Pym, who realizes that the gun has some sort of time travel ability (all of this is from Captain America Reborn, by Ed Brubaker, Bryan Hitch and Butch Guice)...







You see, then, that their plan involved her shooting Cap with a gun made by Doctor Doom that could send Cap through time and then they intended to retrieve him later, as Arnim Zola explains to Norman Osborn later in the issue, except Sharon screwed things up...







Basically, the plan by the bad guys was to have Cap disappear and then bring his body back at a time of their own choosing but for Red Skull to take over the body (the Red Skull was essentially non-corporeal at the time) and then have Cap "heroically" return but then, like, kill the President or something like that. Doctor Doom helps them out again to find the time-displaced Captain America and their plan is back on target...





But Cap obviously eventually breaks free from Skull's control and Steve Rogers was back.

Of course, though, since he was never actually dead, his dead spirit couldn't have visited Thor.

This is, naturally enough, a common problem for stories with dead characters. Although, here it was a bit of an odder situation, as you would have thought someone would have told JMS not to do the story. Not a lot of time had passed and the same writer who killed Cap, Ed Brubaker, was still writing the book.

Anyhow, thanks for the suggestion, Miguel!

If anyone ELSE has a suggestion for a future edition of Abandoned an' Forsaked, let me know!