Just exactly what is Marvel Comics trying to tell us?

After a long and illustrious career Marvel Comics has seen fit to kill off Captain America. You would think after sixty six years it would have been enough just to allow the superhero to quietly retire. But no, he is shot to death by a sniper on the steps of a courthouse as he was about to be arraigned for his part in leading a civil war (insurgency?) against the US government. The government had been trying to compel the superheroes into military service.

Is this symbolic of the end of the American empire or the death of American freedom? I eagerly await more details.