On top of the buy pile

Today I decided against going to the Birmingham collectors fair as I spent loads of cash on Wednesday. It wasn’t on the agenda to go on a spending spree but on top of the “buy pile” was the first issue relaunch of Captain America. Like I mentioned before, Marvel’s got a habit of cancelling long numbered issues then starting from #1 again, it’s common practice and in September DC comics will follow suit by relaunching all their main titles from issue one onwards.
Another thing Marvel and DC do are variant covers. Along with regular covers which are usually by the main artist of the book, most of them are done by other artists and it’s also an incentive for comic retailers and fans. I bought three copies of the comic, which is a rare occurrence as I just buy one. The first copy I bought was the cover by silver age artist John Romita Senior, the second was a movie variant which has Chris Evans in full regalia. Lastly is a complete blank cover, which I can take to a convention for an artist to sketch on.

(this is yet another variant for Cap#1 Neal Adams's Cap looks almost Gene Golan like. A homage perhaps?)

As for the interiors, the storyline opens with Steve Rogers back in the red white and blue. Well I think it’s set after the events of Marvel’s current big storyline Fear Itself. After attending a funeral of his ex girlfriend Peggy Carter, Rogers and his former wartime friends are targeted for assassination by another Super Soldier, the mysterious Bravo, whose got a grudge against Cap.

I’m quite glad that writer Ed Brubaker is still writing Cap he’s “killed” the character off and bought him back again and also bought his sidekick Bucky back from the dead and plays with the “man out of time” theme quite a lot. During the earlier days Brubaker established Nick Fury, Sharon Carter and Steve Rogers as a trio and it’s good to see them all back in one book again.
The writer has been often accompanied by artists like Steve Epting, Mike Perkins, Jackson Guice and Bryan Hitch for Cap’s exploits.Here he’s got Steve Mc Niven whose come back to drawing a Marvel characters after a dip in the creator owned pond with Mark Millar on Nemesis.
The artist first drew Cap for one panel in an issue of Fantastic Four. A few years later, he drew Civil War which pitted Captain America against Iron Man. The Canadian artist drew an amazing beaten down Cap who’s on a losing streak in the mini-series. He’s on an exclusive contract at the company and much like Bryan Hitch; Mc Niven’s sharp detailed pencils ramp up the action especially when Cap takes down a terrorist along with handling the emotional subtleties of Brubaker’s script.

This is a comic that’s basically for people who haven’t read Cap and with the upcoming film coming out Marvel want many new readers as possible. I wasn’t going to buy this and I was just going to wait for it to come out as a collected hardback. But thanks to Brubaker and Mc Niven, I think I’ll add this to my pull list as they say.

Furthermore this is the last post on the Star Spangled Avenger. I promise.

Posted: 16/7/2011
Categories: Comics / Reviews

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