In Drawing Crazy Patterns, I spotlight at least five scenes/moments from within comic book stories that fit under a specific theme (basically, stuff that happens frequently in comics). Note that these lists are inherently not exhaustive. They are a list of five examples (occasionally I'll be nice and toss in a sixth). So no instance is "missing" if it is not listed. It's just one of the five examples that I chose.

Due to it breaking all sorts of viewership records on YouTube, I suspect that most of you have checked out the newly released teaser trailer for Avengers Endgame.

If so, then I'm sure you noticed the scene where Captain America (Chris Evans) is shown to be shedding a tear, likely due to, you know, half of the universe suddenly dying at once.

The scene is obviously meant to get across just how dire things are. "Oh man, if CAP is crying, then how the heck can any of us handle this?" That sort of thing. And obviously, Cap is not known to cry a lot. However, he HAS shed some tears in the comics in the past. We'll take a look at five examples (do note that Rich Johnston had this same idea as soon as the trailer came out - but I still have a few different examples here, plus some context for the scenes).

First up is Avengers #277 (by Roger Stern, John Buscema and Tom Palmer). This is the conclusion to the classic "Under Siege" storyline. In that story, Baron Zemo (the son of the original Baron Zemo who had formed the original Masters of Evil) formed the largest and most powerful Masters of Evil ever. He then studied the Avengers for weeks to discover their weaknesses and then he struck all at once and took over Avengers Mansion. Captain America and Black Knight were held hostage while the villains beat the Avengers' butler, Edwin Jarvis, nearly to death in front of them. Cap was impressively steely as Zemo taunted him by tearing up all of Cap's possessions as well as, you know, abusing Jarvis in front of him. Eventually, the one Avenger who managed to avoid capture, the Wasp, put together a new team of heroes and they fought back and got the mansion back. Once the battle was over and Zemo was seemingly killed, Captain America finally broke down over all the memories he had stolen from him...

Fast forward a few decades and we come to Civil War, where Captain America and a group of heroes have become outlaws in protest over a new Superhuman Registration Act where superheroes have to register with the government to be active superheroes. Cap and his fellow heroes believe that it is a violation of their liberties while Iron Man and a bunch of other heroes believe that it is a fair price to be paid for security. So they battle throughout the series until they have one final battle in the middle of New York City in Civil War #7 (by Mark Millar, Steve McNiven and Dexter Vines). Cap and his forces seem to have the upper hand, but then Cap is shocked to learn that the populace aren't on his side!

They are sick of superhero fights tearing up their cities and endangering people and Cap realizes that the fight is no longer worth it and he sheds some tears as he comes to this realization...

In the crossover event, Age of Ultron, the villainous robot Ultron traveled into the recent past to conquer the Earth, so now the "present" has been altered so that Ultron is in charge and everything is terrible. A few superheroes escaped capture, but when Hawkeye asks whether they have a plan for taking Ultron down, everyone notes that they don't, because Captain America is so dejected that he is just in a corner crying next to his broken shield (I actually don't recall if they explained how Ultron broke it)...

Page 2: [valnet-url-page page=2 paginated=0 text='Cap has a hard time during Rick Remender's Captain America run!']

Rick Remender relaunched Captain America's series a bit before Age of Ultron started, but it is set at a different point in time. Captain America ends up in another dimension, one ruled by Arnim Zola, and Cap is stuck there for a decade. During that time, he raises a young boy to become his partner and, essentially, Cap's son.

In Captain America #10 (by Rick Remender, John Romita Jr., Klaus Janson, Tom Palmer, Scott Hanna, Dean White and Rachelle Rosenberg), Sharon Carter shows up to save Cap and stop Zola. She seemingly dies killing Zola, which, in turn, sends Cap back to the present (along with Zola's daughter, who Cap has also seen grow up over the last decade). When Cap arrives back in his dimension, he loses it over Sharon's death...

However, two issues later (by Rick Remender, Carlos Pacheco, Klaus Janson and Dean White), we see that Cap is having a lot more trouble than just dealing with Sharon's apparent death. You see, he already had to get used to the fact that he was a man out of time when he was frozen during World War II and ended up alive decades later. But now, he has lost ANOTHER decade and the whole thing is just way too much for him, as he cries while explaining it to his best friend, Sam Wilson...

Wow, Cap sure does cry a lot, huh?

If anyone has an idea for a future Drawing Crazy Patterns, drop me a line at brianc@cbr.com!