I know. It was a real rough one, and I did my damnedest to avoid most of it. One thing to keep in mind: it was very much the Marvel Comics response to Bush-era "war on terror" restrictions on civil liberties and dissent, which is why it ended the way it did. As awful as it was for those who loved those characters, I can see why it had to climax with Cap being shot; the whole thing is about the destruction of traditional American beliefs in freedom and liberty by a paranoid government turning on a minority community, and Cap getting gunned down in broad daylight on the steps of a courthouse was a great (if horrifying) metaphor for what we'd lost in the mania for "security."

It was a lot better than the whole "Secret War" that followed not long after, which was sort of a mess.....