Captain America #34

Well, I talked myself into getting the issue with the new Captain America. Heck, I didn’t even talk myself into getting the issue where Cap was killed, or the one with his funeral. Don’t know what changed my mind for this one — I probably just gave in to the hype.

For those of you who got here late, the original Captain America, Steve Rogers, was assassinated a few months back. His WWII sidekick, Bucky Barnes, was long believed killed during the war, but he was secretly recovered by the Soviets, brainwashed, and turned into a killing machine called the Winter Soldier. He’s since recovered his memories, but he’s still a lot harder-edged than he used to be. And with Cap dead, Bucky has decided to take up his mentor’s adamantium shield.

Cap’s old archenemy, the Red Skull, has a new plan to destroy America — and instead of pulling the old lame supervillain gags, he’s updating his plans for the new millennium. The Skull has secretly gained control of an international megacorp called Kronas Corporation, and with that, he’s doubled the price of oil and foreclosed on thousands of homes, throwing Wall Street into a tailspin and kicking off a major economic panic. To push things over the brink, the Red Skull sends his minions to steal Wall Street’s gold reserves.

Bucky makes his debut as Cap, and he and the Black Widow rout the bad guys without too much trouble. But Tony Stark (Iron Man, and the current director of the S.H.I.E.L.D. spy agency) discovers that the Red Skull has co-opted and brainwashed some of S.H.I.E.L.D.’s own agents, and they’re going to push the chaos even higher…

Verdict: Thumbs up. Bucky’s very well-written, and they’ve done great work on explaining both why he’s not all that well-suited for the job (not as intensely patriotic as Steve Rogers was, definitely not as athletic or physically overpowering) and why he actually works very well wearing the big white “A” on his forehead (great tactical thinker, knows how to fight against huge masses of goons, knows how to throw a big adamanatium shield). And as for the bad guys, the Red Skull’s plan is wonderfully devious. Using America’s economy against itself? Oh, that one’ll never work, Herr Skull. Uh, wait a minute…

And yes, he uses a gun. But to my surprise, he doesn’t actually kill anyone with it. I wasn’t expecting that at all. I had him pegged as the dark pessimistic anti-hero who goes too far and eventually has to be taken down by his resurrected mentor. So far, things ain’t playing out like that at all. Good — that kind of story was tired and played out a decade ago.

Anyway, like I said, thumbs up. Good story, good art, good dialogue. Marvel did a good job with this one.

 

Well, if you ain’t heard the news, there’s a new Captain America, and he’s former Cap sidekick Bucky Barnes.

No big surprise, and the big reveal has already been spoiled in the media. I think most of us were expecting Bucky (or the Winter Soldier, as he’s now called) to take up the shield.

I honestly have a hard time getting excited about this. Cap’s death was just a publicity stunt, Bucky Barnes as Cap is just a publicity stunt, Cap’s eventual resurrection next year is gonna be just another publicity stunt. There’s mighty little old-fashioned storytelling getting done in comics these days. It’s all driven by fairly short-term marketing.

And the more I see of the new costume, the goofier it looks to me. First, he’s wearing a Puerto Rican flag on his chest. Sure, Puerto Rico is a territory of the United States, but it ain’t quite the same as a regular American flag, now is it? And second, look at the point that big metal flag comes to. Poor Bucky ain’t gonna be able to sit down at all without stabbing hisself in the dinkyboo. Just a bad costume design in general.

And as long as I’m grousing about the new Cap, I’m getting plenty of amusement about people complaining that the new Cap is gonna use a gun. “OMG, Captain America doesn’t use a gun! When the real Cap comes back, he’s gonna be mad at Bucky for using a gun!” Pshaw, sez I. The original Cap was a soldier, so yer darned tootin’ he used a gun. It ain’t even that hard to dig up pictures of Cap lugging around various guns and even shooting people with ’em. If Cap comes back whining about Bucky using a gun, Bucky’s within his legal rights to hit Cap with a steamshovel. And that probably goes double for goofy fanboys.

Taking a quick break from football matters to take care of some actual stuff about comics.

Maybe you’ve heard the news — Marvel is introducing a new Captain America!

 

According to this article at Comic Book Resources, the character was designed by superstar comics painter (and former Lubbockite) Alex Ross (the illustration above is by Steve Epting — I think it shows off the costume better than the Ross paintings, so far), and it’s definitely not Steve Rogers, the original Captain America who was assassinated earlier this year. Marvel is hinting that it’s a previously existing character.

Some people are freaking out about this version of Cap carrying a gun and knife. I have a hard time caring, actually. I never really got the “Captain America doesn’t carry weapons and never kills” bulldada — the dude’s a soldier and he doesn’t shoot people? I call shenanigans.

Of course, (A) Marvel has a long history of leaking fake images just to make the fanboys flip out, and (B) it’s pretty obvious that this new guy is going to be temporary, too, because everyone knows they’ll bring Steve Rogers back in time for the Captain America movie planned for 2009.

 

Funeral Details

Oh my gosh! Captain America is GETTING A FUNERAL!!!1!

It’s a funeral fit for a superhero. In the drizzling rain at Arlington National Cemetery, thousands of grieving patriots solemnly watch as the pallbearers — Iron Man, the Black Panther, Ben Grimm and Ms. Marvel — carry a casket draped with an American flag. Yes, folks, Captain America is dead and buried in the latest issue of Marvel Comics’ “Fallen Son,” due on newsstands the morning after Independence Day. After 66 years of battling villains from Adolf Hitler to the Red Skull, the red, white and blue leader of the Avengers was felled by an assassin’s bullet on the steps of a New York federal courthouse.

It’s a little embarrassing that the national media is still running news articles about this. Wouldn’t you think a reporter would want to avoid getting roped into a publisher’s PR ploys?

I find myself having a really tough time caring about this. The “death” of Cap was never meant to be a good story — it was designed, from the beginning, as a publicity stunt to sell a few extra comic books.

And anyone who really believes that Captain America is really dead? I got this big bridge out in Brooklyn I’ll let you have for cheap.

So yeah, color me cynical about every single thing about this funeral.