The Fighting Americans

 

Captain America #40

It’s the new Captain America — Bucky Barnes — vs. another new Captain America — in this case, a resurrected and brainwashed replacement Cap from the 1950s. But it’s nowhere near a fair fight — the replacement Cap may think he’s the original Steve Rogers, but he’s a lot stronger and faster than Steve ever was. The fake Cap thinks the Bucky Cap is an assassin who killed Bucky in the ’40s, but when he learns that Bucky’s still alive, will his conditioning break? Meanwhile, Sharon Carter is fighting for her life against the Red Skull’s daughter, Sin.

Verdict: Thumbs up, but for once, I wasn’t overly impressed with what I was reading. Personally, I’m thinking this storyline has gone on for a really, really long time, and I’d like a bit of resolution sometime…

 

Wonder Woman #22

Trapped in a fantasy world, and fighting alongside Beowulf, Claw, and the Stalker, Wonder Woman is rapidly losing her soul, thanks to Stalker’s bizarre magic. Their only hope is to defeat the powerful demon D’Grth, who is assisted by Grendel itself. But someone is fated to betray them all… and what will happen when D’Grth makes his way to our world? Elsewhere, Agent Tessier has stumbled onto Diana Prince’s houseguests — a friendly band of albino gorillas from Gorilla City — and of course, a big fight breaks out, leading to Diana’s apartment getting completely wrecked…

Verdict: Thumbs up, but this is another one that I’d like to get finished up soon, preferably with some explanations that actually make sense.

 

Young X-Men #4

Ink is having a change of heart after betraying Blindfold to mutant-hating cyborg Donald Pierce — he goes out and gets new tattoos (one designed to give him telepathy) and prepares to help Wolf Cub and Rockslide take out the last members of the new Hellfire Club, Cannonball and Sunspot, formerly of the New Mutants. But Cannonball and Sunspot seem to be under the impression that the kids are the villains here — what’s going on? And Greymalkin, a mutant who’s previously not been seen much here, makes a surprise attack on Cyclops — or rather, on the guy who’s been pretending to be Cyclops. No, he’s not a Skrull — he may be even worse…

Verdict: Thumbs up. I was actually a bit more impressed with this issue than I’d been with the previous ones, and the big reveal on the fake Cyclops was pretty good, too.