If you’ve listened to this week’s episode of Funnybooks, you know that Aron and I really dug the Marvel one-shot Captain America: The Fighting Avenger, from writer Brian Clevinger (Atomic Robo) and artist Gurihiru.  Originally meant to be a kind of companion title to Thor: The Mighty Avenger (and you know how much Aron loved that book), the title started as an ongoing, then bumped down to a mini-series…then, sadly, a pretty excellent one-shot.

Now, on his official site, Clevinger gives us a peek of what could have been.  An outline of what would have happened in the first twelve issues of the series basically shows that it would have been friggin great. 

One of the strengths of Atomic Robo is that we tell our stories non-linearly. Jumping around time between and during volumes goes a long way toward maintaining the illusion of a more fully realized world. I’d like to be able to do the same things with this Cap series. At the very least I’d like to be able to hop from one era of the war to another with each Volume. I think Cap’s first mission is a good place to start as it sets the tone for this whole “Cap before he was REALLY Cap” thing we’ve got going on. But I’d like the second volume to jump ahead a few years and then the third to come back to the early days. I can build a rough timeline to make sure everything lines up and then pick and choose which adventures to show in whatever order seems the most interesting so we never have to waste a single page on justifying moves from one set piece to another.

A new take on Cap’s origin, storytelling akin to Atomic Robo, and “hideous vampires or zombies!” It’s a damn shame we’ll never see the series … but hopefully, with good sales on the one-shot, maybe Marvel will give another one-shot a…um…shot? Check out more at www.atomic-robo.com!