Captain America #28
Writer: Brubaker
Artists: Epting & Perkins
Colorist: D'Amata
Spoilers Ahead. Please be aware that events in the past 4 issues of Captain America will be discussed below.
It takes a talent to keep a comic series alive and kicking after you've gunned down the titular character. With 'Steve Rogers & Friends' now just '& Friends,' readers could very easily be expected to bail on Captain America. Yet in spite of this, Brubaker's absolute mastery of the spy-thriller/espionage genre leaves me anxious for more each and every issue. And it's not like I'm a huge fan of the Falcon or Bucky or any of the myriad folks so crucial to the life of this story. One can easily forget that Cap's death was just chapter 1 of the story arc "Death of a Dream." Just as that title resonates and begins to suggest far more than the death of just one man (a.k.a 'a dream' instead of 'a hero'), Brubaker allows a very singular and powerful event reverberate down into all of the hollows of the Marvel Universe.
Captain America #28 is a fractured issue composed of an almost bewildering number of these reverberations. Split up into 9 brief mini-stories, the reader is constantly shuffled back and forth between arcs featuring the Winter Soldier, the Falcon, Tony Stark, Sharon Carter, and two antagonists, Doc Faustus and Sin. I suppose my only complaint is a quite purposeful lack of focus as the reader is never satisfied with just a few pages of material on each character. Yet I understand the reasoning behind such a disjointed approach, and for me that nullifies the disorientation. The world, as these characters know it, has been irrevocably shattered. The broken quality of the narrative is exacerbated by the generous amount of 'screen time' given to 'extras.' Brubaker is fond of giving the reader the thoughts of the average joe on the street (or bar stool as the case may be) and on a story arc like this one it's even more important. With Cap's death filtering down to each and every human of the Marvel Universe its easy to forget that there are more than just capes and hoods feeling the effects.
The Falcon/Winter Soldier dichotomy is really starting to pay off. As the latter character presses on toward his ultimate goal of killing off all those responsible for Cap's assassination (which includes, for the time being, Iron Man and the Red Skull), the Falcon is doing what he can to actually prevent the death of Steve Roger's self-proclaimed best friend. These two are going to come to blows soon enough and with Sharon Carter, the woman who delivered the fatal shot to Captain America (under mind control or not) teamed up with the Falcon, who knows what will happen if Bucky ever finds out who pulled the final trigger.
The only mini-story that seems to fall flat (1 outta 9 ain't bad) is the Professor X cameo. I realize that this is the proverbial coffin nail on Crossbones' part of this story but all of the Xavier style interrogation seemed excessive in a storyline as gritty and 'realistic' and 'noirish' as this one. Though it was interesting to see the interpersonal relationship between Tony and Charles, I had almost forgotten that they are both on the Illuminati, and while one can see that the two respect each other's abilities, a real friendship here is notably absent. Here's how the verbal exchange woulda gone down if Chuck and Tony weren't such detached Masters of the Universe:
Tony: "So, ole Crossbones' memory banks are a blank slate, eh?"
Chuck: "Yeah, that sumbitch got tore up inside."
Tony: "Well, you did what you could..."
Chuck: "Say, you wanna go grab a beer?" (says this while 'encouraging' a particular answer)
Tony: "Well I do now!" (Both of them hold their stomachs and laugh gleefully while Crossbones' head lolls back and forth, mentally destroyed)
~end scene~
Back to our regularly scheduled review...
The cover girl, Sin, steals some scenes and gives the dark issue its brief points of comic relief. Maybe I just have a thing for red-heads but it also gives the issue some much needed comicbook kick-ass babery. Nothing like a Jovovich like psychopath in a red-leather corset to, er, spice things up a bit. As the Red Skull's daughter and a woman soon to have a huge target on her freckled head, i foresee some hard times for the girl in the near future, but for now she's shooting first and, well, not really asking any questions so much as slithering into ridiculously tight-fitting uniforms.
The two biggest revelations of the issue involve the hunter and the hunted. We get some more inner-monologue from Bucky and while he isn't halting his quest to put a bullet in Tony, we can finally tell that he actually realizes this whole thing really isn't completely Tony's fault, and begins to try and figure out where the Red Skull fits in behind all this, crime detective style. Meanwhile Tony, after his above referenced meeting with Xavier, gets a rather disturbing letter. It appears Cap isn't through 'acting' in his own series after all. A friend of Matt Murdock's is holding a letter to be delivered to, and only to, Tony Stark in the event of Steve Roger's death. Apparently it was composed during the Civil War while Cap was having rather poignant thoughts of not making it out of that war alive. The whole "Dead Letter Department" min-story is a complete teaser as we never find out what it actually says. All we get is Tony's mumbled "Damn it Steve..." However, the whole letter sequence does arrive just after a purposefully planted segment where Tony is dismissing a S.H.I.E.L.D. soldier who has nominated himself to be Cap's replacement. Does this letter have anything to do with legacy I wonder?
As I said before, just as suspenseful as your Bourne Identity style spy thriller, Captain America leaves me wanting more each and every time. Rating: Snake-eyes, since you really can't be expected to maintain a Voltron each and every issue, especially when the last Voltron happens to be the death of Captain America.
Writer: Brubaker
Artists: Epting & Perkins
Colorist: D'Amata
Spoilers Ahead. Please be aware that events in the past 4 issues of Captain America will be discussed below.
It takes a talent to keep a comic series alive and kicking after you've gunned down the titular character. With 'Steve Rogers & Friends' now just '& Friends,' readers could very easily be expected to bail on Captain America. Yet in spite of this, Brubaker's absolute mastery of the spy-thriller/espionage genre leaves me anxious for more each and every issue. And it's not like I'm a huge fan of the Falcon or Bucky or any of the myriad folks so crucial to the life of this story. One can easily forget that Cap's death was just chapter 1 of the story arc "Death of a Dream." Just as that title resonates and begins to suggest far more than the death of just one man (a.k.a 'a dream' instead of 'a hero'), Brubaker allows a very singular and powerful event reverberate down into all of the hollows of the Marvel Universe.
Captain America #28 is a fractured issue composed of an almost bewildering number of these reverberations. Split up into 9 brief mini-stories, the reader is constantly shuffled back and forth between arcs featuring the Winter Soldier, the Falcon, Tony Stark, Sharon Carter, and two antagonists, Doc Faustus and Sin. I suppose my only complaint is a quite purposeful lack of focus as the reader is never satisfied with just a few pages of material on each character. Yet I understand the reasoning behind such a disjointed approach, and for me that nullifies the disorientation. The world, as these characters know it, has been irrevocably shattered. The broken quality of the narrative is exacerbated by the generous amount of 'screen time' given to 'extras.' Brubaker is fond of giving the reader the thoughts of the average joe on the street (or bar stool as the case may be) and on a story arc like this one it's even more important. With Cap's death filtering down to each and every human of the Marvel Universe its easy to forget that there are more than just capes and hoods feeling the effects.
The Falcon/Winter Soldier dichotomy is really starting to pay off. As the latter character presses on toward his ultimate goal of killing off all those responsible for Cap's assassination (which includes, for the time being, Iron Man and the Red Skull), the Falcon is doing what he can to actually prevent the death of Steve Roger's self-proclaimed best friend. These two are going to come to blows soon enough and with Sharon Carter, the woman who delivered the fatal shot to Captain America (under mind control or not) teamed up with the Falcon, who knows what will happen if Bucky ever finds out who pulled the final trigger.
The only mini-story that seems to fall flat (1 outta 9 ain't bad) is the Professor X cameo. I realize that this is the proverbial coffin nail on Crossbones' part of this story but all of the Xavier style interrogation seemed excessive in a storyline as gritty and 'realistic' and 'noirish' as this one. Though it was interesting to see the interpersonal relationship between Tony and Charles, I had almost forgotten that they are both on the Illuminati, and while one can see that the two respect each other's abilities, a real friendship here is notably absent. Here's how the verbal exchange woulda gone down if Chuck and Tony weren't such detached Masters of the Universe:
Tony: "So, ole Crossbones' memory banks are a blank slate, eh?"
Chuck: "Yeah, that sumbitch got tore up inside."
Tony: "Well, you did what you could..."
Chuck: "Say, you wanna go grab a beer?" (says this while 'encouraging' a particular answer)
Tony: "Well I do now!" (Both of them hold their stomachs and laugh gleefully while Crossbones' head lolls back and forth, mentally destroyed)
~end scene~
Back to our regularly scheduled review...
The cover girl, Sin, steals some scenes and gives the dark issue its brief points of comic relief. Maybe I just have a thing for red-heads but it also gives the issue some much needed comicbook kick-ass babery. Nothing like a Jovovich like psychopath in a red-leather corset to, er, spice things up a bit. As the Red Skull's daughter and a woman soon to have a huge target on her freckled head, i foresee some hard times for the girl in the near future, but for now she's shooting first and, well, not really asking any questions so much as slithering into ridiculously tight-fitting uniforms.
The two biggest revelations of the issue involve the hunter and the hunted. We get some more inner-monologue from Bucky and while he isn't halting his quest to put a bullet in Tony, we can finally tell that he actually realizes this whole thing really isn't completely Tony's fault, and begins to try and figure out where the Red Skull fits in behind all this, crime detective style. Meanwhile Tony, after his above referenced meeting with Xavier, gets a rather disturbing letter. It appears Cap isn't through 'acting' in his own series after all. A friend of Matt Murdock's is holding a letter to be delivered to, and only to, Tony Stark in the event of Steve Roger's death. Apparently it was composed during the Civil War while Cap was having rather poignant thoughts of not making it out of that war alive. The whole "Dead Letter Department" min-story is a complete teaser as we never find out what it actually says. All we get is Tony's mumbled "Damn it Steve..." However, the whole letter sequence does arrive just after a purposefully planted segment where Tony is dismissing a S.H.I.E.L.D. soldier who has nominated himself to be Cap's replacement. Does this letter have anything to do with legacy I wonder?
As I said before, just as suspenseful as your Bourne Identity style spy thriller, Captain America leaves me wanting more each and every time. Rating: Snake-eyes, since you really can't be expected to maintain a Voltron each and every issue, especially when the last Voltron happens to be the death of Captain America.
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