Captain America #5:
What Happened: Queen Hydra ends up shooting Jimmy Jupiter in the chest due to Sharron Carter making a move at the Queen. That causes the alternate reality world Jimmy created to start breaking apart all around Captain America and Bravo. Bravo shows that he still has some control over the world by zapping Cap, causing him to lose his super-soldier powers. Even without his powers though, Cap still manages to take the fight to Bravo. The Queen manages to escape and Sharon ends up convincing the pretty much catatonic Jimmy into doing one final thing before he died, expelling Cap and Bravo from the other world. Back in the real world Cap's powers are still with him and Cap, Sharon and Nick Fury manage to take Bravo down, but not before Bravo rants about how Cap failed America. In the end, Cap gets moody as he wonders if he really did fail America, Baron Zemo buddies up with the Hydra Queen and Cap has nightmares where he's lost his powers.
The Good: This storyline with Bravo is finally over... That's the good.
The Bad: Well, everything else pretty much... Okay, that's not fair, the art wasn't bad. This story, and the characters introduced(Queen Hydra, Bravo) did nothing for me. This was EASILY Ed Brubaker's worst Cap story ever, and I say that as somebody who's loved like 89% of his Cap work.
The Verdict: Well, the first comic review for 2012 was a stinker... So now we get to look forward to “Steve Rogers loses his faith in America” part 74... I NEVER thought I'd say this, and it's probably dumb to say after only one storyline, but maybe Brubaker has finally run out of awesome Cap tales to tell. I mean it happens to every writer. After a while they just can't come up with any compelling stories after writing a character for so many years. Brubaker's past Cap stories all had an epic feel to them. They were multifaceted, had all sorts of interesting characters running around and almost always had me dying to pick up the next issue. But the prospects for the future here really don't look good... I mean a multi-part story featuring Queen Hydra, Bravo(who is sure to be sprung from prison eventually) and Baron Zemo, who a) should be playing the role of conflicted tweener, not out and out villain again, and b) never explained how he got out of the desert after being betrayed by Sin, just doesn't appeal to me... At all.
Score: 5 out of 10.
It was nice to see Cap and Falcon working together again here...
I agree with almost everything you said. and cap has been my fav title for years, so it pains me to think Brubaker should move on. The part i disagree with is that the art was good. I abig Stev McNiven fan and was really glad to hear he would be doing cap. Then five issues in... hes done? Was he the sole reason for all the delays? His work was great as always... except the random pages done by someone else. For what reason? To get it out sooner? The quality did not compare. I was so happy to get McNiven art in cap and it kinda fizzled away into a poor exit from the title.
ReplyDelete"and cap has been my fav title for years" Same here, JK. It was the beginning of Brubaker's Cap run that REALLY pulled me back to comics after being away from a few years. So it's an understatement to say that I love the job he's done. This storyline just didn't do anything for me though... The villains, the story itself, even Cap himself seemed just kind of off... And if it leads to yet another "Cap doubts his country" story, I'll be really disappointed, because I'd expect better from Brubaker.
ReplyDeleteI've got to agree with you on the art too. The pages NOT done by McNiven were really noticeable, and makes me wonder what the story there was. I'm definitely hoping this storyline sets the stage for bigger, more awesome things down the road, but I was uncharacteristically let down by a Brubaker/Cap book here.