Hey! Did you hear? They made a movie about The Avengers!

No, not those Avengers. These Avengers. And gee whiz, they're already plotting a sequel.

Captain America: The Musical

OK, I'll admit it: Back in the day, when these cheesy cartoons with Marvel Comics superheroes aired in New Orleans on a weekday afternoon children's show -- Cap Canaveral, if memory serves me correctly -- I thought they were pretty freakin' dreadful. Even as a 12-year-old, I could tell that pennies had been pinched, corners had been cut, and the animation left something to be desired. (Something like, oh, I dunno, maybe real animation.) And yet I felt compelled to watch. Why? Well, I was a big Marvel fan at the time. And, yeah, there was something about the theme song for the Captain America cartoons...


And the Spider-Man theme was so endearingly and enduringly neat, it was reprised -- briefly -- by a street musician in the movie Spider-Man 2.



But really, there's never been any excuse for that.

Baseball, apple pie, country music... and Captain America

Throughout my four fun-filled days in Nashville for the 2011 CMA Music Festival -- during which time, I'm happy to say, I made my very first pilgrimage to the mecca of country music, the Grand Ole Opry -- I was amused and intrigued by the various and sundry promos on display for the forthcoming Captain America movie. Was this Paramount/Marvel's way of hyping the action-adventure as a summer blockbuster as all-American as... well, country music?

Whatever the motivation, the hoopla obviously elevated the film's profile -- and even may have attracted a few new fans for the red-white-and-blue superhero.

Indeed, the hoopla may have attracted some new fanboys, too.

Marvelous

After this weekend's smashingly successful launch of Iron Man, Marvel Studios has wasted little time in announcing an ambitious slate of other films based on Marvel Comics. Naturally, there will be an Iron Man II (set for April 30, 2010). Also upcoming: Thor (June 4, 2010), The First Avenger: Captain America (May 6, 2011), The Avengers (July 2011) -- no, not those Avengers -- and Ant-Man (date to be announced). All this, in addition to The Incredible Hulk, due June 13 at theaters and drive-ins everywhere.

This is great news for comic book geeks (and former geeks, like myself) everywhere. But am I the only one who's wondering how Marvel will avoid catching flack from fundamentalists with a movie about a super hero who is identified as... well, a god?

R.I.P.: Captain America (1941-2007)

Damn! I thought he died years ago, when he got shot at the end of Easy Rider. Oh, wait! You mean the comic book character? Oh. Well, I bet Bill O'Reilly will blame liberals in general -- and Keith Olbermann in particular -- for the star-spangled hero's untimely demise.