NEW YORK - Holy homicide, Batman!

Captain America is dead!

A man posing as Captain America in Hollywood. The comic book superhero with a penchant for figure-hugging body suits in red, white and blue, has died at the age of 89, shot dead in New York. [AFP]

Assassinated, in fact, as he walks into a federal courthouse in New York, under arrest and in handcuffs, headed to his arraignment for refusing to sign the government's Superhero Registration Act and forcibly revealing his true identity.

It all happens in the latest edition of Marvel Comics, which hit newsstands on Wednesday.

A sniper, firing a high-powered rifle from a rooftop, hits the famed red, white and blue leader of the Avengers with three bullets and escapes the scene, leaving the weapon behind Oswald-style, as police and Captain America's military escort cope with chaos in the streets.

What does this mean? Can the pulverizing patriot really be dead, shot down on the courthouse steps after 66 years of battling villains from Adolf Hitler to the Red Skull? Will the killer or killers be captured?

The only way to find out, says Dan Buckley, president and publisher of Marvel Entertainment, is to "read the book" as the story line unfolds.

Buckley will not divulge details of what he describes as "really cool plot twists," but does not rule out the possibility that Captain America is not really dead or is somehow resurrected.

"When you live in a world of make-believe, a lot of things are possible," he said in a telephone interview.

In any case, readers should not necessarily despair. After all, this is not the first time Captain America was presumed dead. In the last days of World War II, his alter-ego, the former arts student Steve Rogers, was believed killed by a bomb aboard an experimental pilot-less plane, only to have been found later, frozen in a cake of ice, by Sub-Mariner (remember him?).

Years later, when the Avengers retrieved Rogers' thawed-out body, they found Captain America's stars-and-stripes costume under the military uniform, along with his unbreakable shield.

One thing led to another and the revived superhero rose to become leader of the Avengers. From a headquarters in Brooklyn's shabby dockside Red Hook neighborhood, he embarked on new adventures with the Marvel cast of characters.

Whether this had anything to do with Red Hook's recent real estate boomlet is unclear.

Captain America was an early member of the pantheon of comic book heroes that began with Superman in the 1930s.

He landed on newsstands in March 1941, nine months before Pearl Harbor ¡ª delivering a a punch to Hitler on the cover of his first issue, a sock-in-the-jaw reminder that there was a war on and the United States was not involved.

Since then, Marvel Entertainment Inc., has sold more than 200 million copies of Captain America magazine in 75 countries.

In the most recent story line, he became involved in a superhero "civil war," taking up sides against former buddy Iron Man in the registration controversy, climaxed by his arrest and assassination.

The publisher said the theme was seriously debated in staff meetings with the decision that the assassination was "kind of logical in a very compelling story."

Buckley said that despite being handcuffed and without his shield, Captain America saved the life of another person by taking the bullets. He did not know whether the Captain's lawyer was present.

He said he did not anticipate widespread reaction to the slaying of the red white and blue superhero. "We'll get a few people upset, and I don't expect to hear, `Yeah, Captain America's dead,'" but the story continues.

As always.