The New Smithsonian Book of Comic-Book Stories: From Crumb to Clowes #[nn]

In the wake of a shocking headline declaring Captain America dead, the world mourns—only to be plunged into chaos when the Avengers, Nick Fury, Sharon Carter, and SHIELD agents are ambushed at a funeral. As HYDRA’s sinister plot unfolds, a masked figure on a motorcycle emerges from the shadows, revealing that Steve Rogers never truly died. With the truth buried in deception and the past rewritten, the line between hero and myth blurs once more.

In "The Hate-Monger!", Colonel Nick Fury calls upon the Fantastic Four—Mr. Fantastic, The Human Torch, The Invisible Girl, and The Thing—just as they’re being manipulated by a sinister new enemy: the Hate-Monger. With the team under the influence of a powerful Hate-Ray, Fury must navigate a crisis that tests both their will and his resolve, all while facing a foe whose ideology threatens to tear the world apart.

In "The Final Chapter!", Spider-Man fights to free himself from a collapsing underwater base, racing against time to save Aunt May from a deadly radiation exposure. With the help of a few unexpected allies and his unyielding resolve, he battles Dr. Octopus' henchmen to reach the serum that could save her life.

In "The Malpractice Suite," the familiar panels of vintage Rex Morgan, M.D. are fractured and reassembled into something unsettlingly new, turning medical melodrama into a surreal, self-reflexive comic experiment. The story plays with form and meaning, using the original strips not as narrative anchors but as raw material for a deeper, more disorienting kind of storytelling.

In "Pipo," the titular character reflects on her life with quiet intensity—her origins, the birth of her son, her marriage and divorce from Gato, and the unexpected journey of building a thriving sportwear business in Palomar and later in Hollywood, all while navigating a world where she never learned English. Through her voice, a portrait emerges of resilience, quiet ambition, and the private weight of choices made far from home.

Jimmy Corrigan’s quiet morning unfolds in familiar rhythms—breakfast, errands, the hum of the office—until a sudden, impossible sight stops him cold: Superman, waving from a distant rooftop. The moment lingers, surreal and unexplained, as Jimmy stands between the ordinary and something beyond.

A sprawling, intricate two-page diagram weaves together Jimmy Corrigan’s family tree, his ancestors from the 1800s, his love of comic books, the layout of his home, the history of Chicago, and the cosmos—linking personal memory to the vast scale of time and space.

In a quiet, haunting moment at the 1893 Chicago World's Fair, young James Corrigan finds himself alone atop the fair’s grandest structure, his father’s sudden absence leaving him stranded between wonder and fear. The vastness of the fairgrounds stretches below, but the real weight is the silence left behind.

In a quiet moment after returning from work, a female amputee lies on her couch, her thoughts drifting through memories of her past and her present state—mind and body in quiet negotiation. The story lingers in the stillness, exploring intimacy, identity, and the weight of what’s lost, all within three intimate pages.