Captain America #2 & Daredevil #2

I have two number two issues to review in this post... If by chance I gave a 2 as the score for one of these two comics, this would be Two-Face's favorite post ever!

Captain America #2:

Summary: Alright flashback time! Back during WWII, some kid named Jimmy Jupiter had the ability to warp reality and touch people through their dreams. Jimmy was assisting the allies against the Nazis by teleporting allied forces into Nazi bases. One of the allies, Bravo, was in the dimension Jimmy used to move people around when Jimmy gets bashed in the head by a Nazi spy. Dum Dum Dugan was supposed to be watching over Jimmy, and winds up killing the Nazi, but honestly, if YOU had a kid who could warp reality working for you, would you really have a dude named “Dum Dum” watching over this awesome weapon? Anyway, Jimmy lapses into a coma, and Bravo, along with several Hydra agents, gets trapped in Jimmy's alternate reality fantasy land. Back in the present, Captain America(yes, Steve Rogers...), Nick Fury and Sharon Carter attack a Hydra base they thought was associated with Bravo. Cap walks through the Hydra defenses, but is too late to stop the leader of this sect, some random woman who the Hydra goofs were treating as royalty. Having partially succeeded with that mission(they didn't find Bravo, but they DID bust a few Hydra goons!), Cap and Sharon head to a hotel room and go to sleep. Sharon in met in her dreams by Bravo, who flirts her up before kissing her. Sharon wakes up rather disturbed by all of that, and is about to tell Cap what happened when the Ameridroid busts through the wall and attacks Cap.

Thoughts: I rarely say this about anything written by Ed Brubaker, especially a Captain America comic, but here it is... Meh. This was a very sub-par comic for me, as the lack of ANY mention of Bucky is actively beginning to piss me off now... Yes, I get it, Fear Itself is still going on so we really can't mention anything that went on during that event in this Cap series, but not mentioning Bucky makes for a very awkward read here... Bucky was Captain America in the last Captain America solo series, then suddenly we get a new Captain America solo series starring Steve Rogers with NO mention of Bucky or why Steve took up the shield again! Add the fact that Jimmy Jupiter was brained by a typewriter and brain damaged because of that, and Bravo not being a very interesting foe, I've got to say, I'm surprisingly disappointed with this series thus far. I was expecting the kind of awesome that was last time Brubaker started a Captain America series, and instead I'm getting the mediocrity that was the start of Brubaker's Secret Avengers run...

Score: 6 out of 10.I wonder if Hydra agents ever wake up and actually think that maybe this is the day they'll defeat Captain America...


Daredevil #2:

Summary: This issue gets started with Captain America(yes, Steve Rogers...) trying to arrest Daredevil for DD's role in the Shadowland mess. After a pretty awesome fight(those two always have pretty awesome fights though), DD tells Cap that he had been mind controlled by an evil demon(a likely excuse!), and that in a way, he wasn't any different than Bucky being mind controlled by the Soviets(damn that DD and his lawyer talk!!). Upon hearing that comparison, Cap decides to give DD the benefit of the doubt and allows him to go. From there, DD continues researching the Jobrani case, and after some digging learns that several lawyers had been scared off the case by threatening phone calls. It seems that Jobrani would have EASILY won his case if he had a competent lawyer, and DD learns that Jobrani had been planning on buying back his family's electronics store had he won his case. Figuring that somebody was actively trying to prevent Jobrani from regaining his family's store, DD heads there to investigate and immediately notices weird noises coming from the basement. DD enters the basement and finds a bunch of semi-constructed Klaw drones building something. Unfortunately for DD, Klaw is a being of pure sound, so his senses have difficulty pinning down exactly what he was surrounded by. DD goes to touch one of the Klaw drones, which winds up creating a loud feedback loop that causes DD to pass out. Upon waking up, DD finds himself strapped inside a device that was shaped like Klaw while the Klaw drones continued to rebuild Klaw around the trapped and disoriented hero.

Thoughts: Now this comic was more like it! The DD/Cap battle was great, as their battles usually are. And yes, those two have fought before. More than once if memory serves me correctly... And if I'm really remembering things correctly tonight, Cap has beaten DD every time! DD using his brains to deal with Cap was great, because like I said, I can't remember DD ever beating Cap, so trying to talk some sense into him was almost definitely the way to go. And the DD/Beast-Bucky/Winter Soldier comparison was the perfect way to get Cap to leave Matt alone. Klaw being the villain in this first arc of the new DD series was surprising to say the least, but I'm actually fine with that. I can't recall DD facing off against Klaw before, and with Klaw's sound based powers, he's almost the perfect opponent for DD. I've always been a fan of villains of specific characters(Klaw usually battles the FF or Black Panther) battling heroes they don't have much of a history with. It usually makes for good reading, and with Mark Waid doing the writing here, I'm sure the eventual Klaw-DD battle should be great.

Score: 8 out of 10.That bottom panel with Cap is about 12 different shades of awesome.