CAPTAIN AMERICA #1

Review by: TheNextChampion

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Avg Rating: 4.3
 
Users who pulled this comic:
Story by Ed Brubaker
Art by Steve McNiven & Mark Morales
Colors by Justin Ponsor
Letters by Joe Caramagna
Cover by Steve McNiven, Mark Morales, Justin Ponsor, John Romita Sr., Joe Sinnott, Val Staples, Neal Adams & Olivier Coipel

Size: pages
Price: 3.99

With the Captain America movie coming up, Marvel is putting out all the stops with the character. We have Captain America and Bucky, Captain America and Iron Man, Captain America Corps, Ultimate Captain America….

Captain America, Captain America, CAPTAIN AMERICA!!

So of course we should have yet ANOTHER Captain America comic to come out. This time though it has to be looked at a bit closer because we have the talents of Ed Brubaker and Steve McNiven on this particular title. Plus since we have the developments of ‘Fear Itself’ looming over us I guess a new Steve Rogers title makes sense. Still though, is yet another Captain America book worth the price?

This book is like a  pure, unadulterated action movie. This issue makes me believe this could be part of a new Captain America movie if the Avengers wasn’t already looming about. There are a lot of explosions, a lot of twists and turns, and a lot of posing about. While this isn’t going to win any awards for ‘Best Writing’ for such a simple book, Ed Brubaker is certainly doing his best. We get into the world of Rogers before he froze and I am interested in his teammates that isn’t named ‘Bucky’. But then we go right into another set piece and yet another instance of Rogers throwing his shield. Of course what else would you expect for a book like this? How about the 40+ issues of a Captain America book we had before from Brubaker? That was fucking fantastic to read outside of the action bits….why can’t we have more of the past Brubaker and less of the present Brubaker here?

Of course many readers are going to ignore the lack of a story or characterization when you have Steve McNiven on board. Every page and panel in this comic are gorgeous to look at, I can’t deny it. Just a great level of detail in even the most simplistic panels. It’s a bit tough to describe but you can sort of ‘feel’ the cloth of Cap’s costume or Nick Fury’s eyepatch. Every bullet has a clear mark and when an explosion happens you better damn believe you’ll see every peice of rubble. What makes McNiven’s art even better is that he has an inker, a good one at that with Mark Morales. McNiven’s previous work without an inker (or himself inking as well) looked too ugly to really get into. But now that McNiven is somewhat controlled with his pencils you can appreciate the detail even more.

I guess I should do a [insert lateness comment] here but I’m gonna make one anyway. While the story is not really memorible so far, I am more then willing enough to buy this comic on the McNiven art alone. It’s gorgeous to look at and he makes all the action pieces really stand out. But let’s face it, McNiven is not a monthly artist and we’ve seen the attempts have failed to make him one. The next two issues have been solicited already with McNiven as artist. But then again we’ve seen that before too and the artist changed as well. I hope we get a full arc here with McNiven but there is no way I am holding my breath on that.

Story: 3 - Good
Art: 5 - Excellent

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