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Rating:  -
The Death of Captain America was really the beginning of a new chapter, and a rebirth of the symbol for a new age. Brubaker and team have wisely throttled the team into thriller mode. The Death of CA in the wake of the Civil War epic is really about the ongoing SHIELD-Avengers-Stark-Winter Soldier-Falcon-Black Widow-Sharon Carter-etc intrique that make this a nice comic meets film noir tale. What will happen next? Let's hope the series can keep up the momentum.
Brilliant cover by Alex Ross.
Rating:  -
This book collects issues 31 to 36 of "Captain America volume 5", written by Ed Brubaker, with art by Steve Epting, Mike Perkins, and Butch Guice. These issues make up the story arc "The Burden of the Dream", the second act of a new epic storyline "The Death of Captain America" (the next act being "The Man Who Bought America"), an epic which opened with, obviously, the death of Captain America. Bucky, aka the Winter Soldier, sought to avenge his mentor's death by seeking out both the Red Skull, the villain who orchestrated his death, and Iron Man, Director of SHIELD, the hero Bucky blames for betraying Cap. Sharon Carter and the Falcon, Cap's two other allies (the former his girlfriend and unwilling executioner, thanks to Doctor Faustus, the Skull's brainwashing henchman), pursued Bucky in the hopes of dissuading him from going after Fury, while Bucky stole Cap's shield from SHIELD agent Black Widow (his former girlfriend back in the USSR), who then was assigned to track him down. The first volume ended with Bucky and Sharon in the clutches of the Red Skull.
In this volume, Brubaker, in the space of six issues, pays off a few running plot threads from the previous volume and initiates a major change in the series' status quo by introducing a replacement Captain America (it's Bucky, not that that would be a surprise to anyone reading the series, though Marvel initiated a feeble effort to drum up some suspense over who it was going to be). Sharon and the Falcon largely fade into the background in these six stories; the former struggles against her mental programming, largely unsuccessfully at first, while the reader waits for more information concerning her apparent pregancy with Cap's child, while Falcon, after a teamup with Black Widow to rescue Bucky from the Skull, also recedes temporarily into the background. The major characters are Bucky, the new Captain America, Black Widow, and Iron Man; in effect, with these three, Brubaker momentarily replicates the series dynamic from the initial Winter Soldier arc, with Bucky, Natasha, and Tony in lieu of Steve, Sharon, and Nick Fury. At the midway point, Bucky finally faces off with Iron Man, the hero he sees as the Judas to Steve's Jesus; the confrontation is handled in a way that is quite satisfactory, and respectful of both characters, not at all like J. Michael Strackzynski handled the meeting of Thor and Iron Man in his "Thor" series. Bucky taking up the mantle is also handled with remarkable subtlety, and just feels perfect; if only all legacy heroes could be handled in this manner. When the heroes are done fighting each other, the focus shifts to the Skull, whose master plan begins to really unspool in this volume, and it's a brilliantly realistic one that plays on contemporary economic and political insecurities in the United States (and there's a time machine involved somehow too). The volume ends on a major jolt that will have you ready to pick up the next one and see what Brubaker has in store (or, if the wait is too long, buy the monthly issues).
Brubaker's writing is expertly-paced, both in monthly serial and trade format, and demonstrates in-depth knowledge of all the characters; he's a master both at using a formula and doing it will (thus showing why it became a formula in the first place) and innovatively pioneering his own variations on how things usually go (watch what happens, for example, when Bucky tries to use the old EMP trick to disable Iron Man's powered armour). On art, Steve Epting, Mike Perkins, and Butch Guice all make contributions (in Perkins' case, this is apparently his last scheduled work on the series before leaving for other jobs, and he, fittingly, gets the last pages; I'll miss him, but Guice is a great replacement). The series has always benefited from seamless transitions between its major artists, and that continues to be the case here; the three are all brilliant at rendering fantastical objects like a flying aircraft carrier and making them seem as real and believable as an ordinary car; characters have rich, varied facial expressions, and realistic proportions and body types. And one cannot forget to mention colourist Frank D'Armata, whose wonderful work blends the different artists' work together even more expertly.
If you are looking for a great story, look no further than this book.
Rating: -
Ed Brubaker's critically acclaimed run on Captain America has seemingly been celebrated by everyone, except me. I hadn't been all that thrilled with Brubaker's run thus far, and while for me personally it hasn't been anything terrible in the least, bringing Bucky back from the dead and killing off Cap haven't exactly been anything special for me either. However, I am now a believer in the magic that Ed Brubaker has been casting, and this second collected volume of The Death of Captain America has really won me over. Let it be known that if you don't already know what happens here, that spoilers are ahead: the Red Skull's plan is coming to fruition, and he has Bucky captured. To add to the problem is Iron Man, Black Widow, and the Falcon trying to figure out the Red Skull's nefarious, and masterful, plot; as everyone's life hangs in the balance. However, what really works surprisingly well here, is Brubaker making Bucky the new Captain America. Featuring a new costume designed by the great Alex Ross, Bucky being Cap ends up being an idea that in a lesser writer's hands would have been a terribly conceived notion. But for some reason, it just works here. Steve Epting provides more good pencil work as well, and by the time this volume comes to an end, you'll be salivating for more. All in all, I'm officially a believer in Ed Brubaker and his run on Captain America, and I personally can't wait to see where things go from here.
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