March 7 (Bloomberg) -- Captain America, the fictional comic book hero who fought Nazi spies during World War II and political corruption in the Watergate era, is shot and killed in front of a New York City courthouse in the issue on newsstands today.

The Marvel Comics character has been standing up to criminals since his creation in 1941. The cover of the first issue, published before the U.S. joined the war, showed Captain America punching Adolf Hitler in the face. In the current issue, he is shot while on his way to testify in a civil liberties case brought against him by other superheroes and the U.S. government.

The star-spangled symbol of the American dream is assassinated by his 66-year-old nemesis, Red Skull, in the first of a nine-to-12-issue series called ``The Death of the Dream,'' series writer Ed Brubaker said in an interview.

``To explore what Captain America means to the country, I needed to get him out of the book,'' Brubaker said. ``When he's there, he gets so much of the physical attention, and we experience less of what he actually means to us.''

Weapons of Mass Destruction

Captain America is published in 75 countries by Marvel Entertainment Inc., the biggest U.S. publisher of comic books. The assassination comes at the end of Marvel's top-selling mini- series, the Civil War, in which Captain America and other heroes rebel against the ``Super Hero Registration Act,'' which requires the characters to register as ``living weapons of mass destruction.''

``Our writers will write stories that reflect what's going on today. That's what's interesting, that's what's challenging, that's what they're thinking about,'' Marvel Comics President Dan Buckley said in an interview. ``This will be the top-selling Captain America book in the past 10 to 15 years, no doubt about that.''

The issue had advance sales of about 120,000, twice the normal demand. The sold-out comic book is already being reprinted and may account for as much as 90 percent of the sales of the Civil War issues, Buckley said. Including plot tie-ins with other comic books, the Civil War series sold more than 10 million copies in 10 months, he said.

Brubaker, 40, grew up reading Captain America on military bases, including the one at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. His father was a naval intelligence officer, and his uncle was in the CIA. He said he writes Captain America's military-influenced character to be styled after former U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal philosophy without being ``a knee-jerk liberal.''

Civil War

In the Civil War series, some superheroes such as Iron Man fight on the side of the government, while others like Captain America go underground. While the heroes fight each other, Red Skull amasses oil wealth and political influence. His first strike against America and democracy is to ``take out Captain America,'' Brubaker said.

``It's a metaphor of the way that the war on terror distracts us from the laws that are being stripped away,'' Brubaker said. ``We've got a long story to tell, but it's comic books, so I wouldn't count him out forever.''

To contact the reporter on this story: Tom Randall in New York at trandall6@bloomberg.net.

Last Updated: March 7, 2007 18:28 EST