Eh, this didn't do much for me. I can understand why some would dig it, but there wasn't enough story advancement or whatever for me. My first instinct was to say that there wasn't enough "content", but how could I say that when this was a double-sized issue with the Marcos Martin portion? I guess what I'm feeling is that, as much as I liked Martin's art, the whole thing felt like too much of a retrospective. I wouldn't even call it filler, because the whole production was too well orchestrated and well thought-out to be "filler". But the Martin half especially...that could have been a free "Captain America Saga" on Free Comic Book Day or something. It told the reader nothing new. Even the Brubaker half didn't say anything that I didn't already know. More flashbacks. More brief pointless cameos of stock bad guys (Here are some "right-wing extremists"! There's Master Man--remember him!) I can do without.

The main part of the issue seemed like half an idea with no real point to it. "Bucky is trying to be Captain America, and, hey, he's a real person who's been through stuff"--that's not good enough for me. That's not enough for a story. The surprise party at the end seemed cute but slapdash; if there were a few more pages of interactions there, I would have gone for it. All we got were another few brief, conventional exchanges with the Black Widow that do nothing to really deepen Bucky's relationship with her.

Call me too aware of contemporary news items, but the stuff with "right-wing extremists" being upset with the new Cap is by far the most potentially provocative part of this issue. Unfortunately, Brubaker doesn't do much with it and I doubt it will become a running theme. There's an easy and interesting meta-commentary that could be made here, but I doubt Brubaker's going to go into it: You see, in this issue we're told that these "right-wing extremists" have certain ideas about what America is about. Well, what is this new Captain America about? What America does he represent? What Marvel Comics does he represent? Not the America that Steve Rogers originally represented. And not the comic books that Steve originally appeared in. Think of how propagandistic the original Captain America comics were. Wouldn't those would be "right-wing extremist" comics by today's comic standards? Personally, I have two views on these matters: 1) Yeah, I don't like how propagandistic/somewhat racist the old WWII-era comics were, and 2) I think it's incredibly lazy and somewhat offensive to just casually throw some "right-wing extremists" into a comic book (or a tv drama) for no real reason. George Bush was a bad president, so now everyone who wants to cite the Constitution is a "right-wing extremist"? Hey, a few years ago wasn't the Left (justifiably) saying that Bush was violating the Constitution? You didn't see a lot of "left-wing extremists" in the news or on tv shows when that was happening. You didn't see a Captain America comic in which "left-wing extremists" were trying to kill Captain America because they "hated America" or whatever. What Cap #50 shows us is the reverse side of that scenario, and it's just as ridiculous in its own way, and kind of random, because there's not enough of a surrounding left-right political context shown in this particular fictional world.

In summary, I think the whole matter is at the very least interesting, especially when you throw Captain America into the mix, given how he's been represetned over the years, but my sense is that Brubaker isn't using any of this stuff purposefully. The term "right-wing extremist" has been in the news more often because that's useful for a left-leaning administration, and Brubaker just picks up on that and uses it casually. It's too bad he doesn't use it for more of a purpose, whatever his commentary would be. There'd definitely be room for criticism on both sides of the issue; you could do the story in an evenhanded way. Because it would take a REAL right-wing extremist to argue that offensive wartime propaganda comics are a great thing, just like it would take a REAL left-wing extremist to argue that the symbol of Captain America is inherently offensive or whatever. But as it is, there's no social commentary in the current Captain America series. Or if there is, it's too vague, too hard to sort out which side could represent which real-world political force. As was the case with Civil War: no social critique ever really crystalized, and the series was less meaningful for that, a real wasted opportunity to say...SOMETHING.

And I don't think enough has been made of the fact that Bucky is in a sense Tony Stark's Captain America. Okay, follow the logic: most readers were behind Cap by the end of the Civil War storyline. Cap died and that threw even more support his way, out of sympathy. Cap, and thus his philosophical/political side in the conflict, had the readers' sympathy, generally speaking, and Tony's side didn't. But then most readers, led by Brubaker's great (at that time) writing, came to accept Bucky as the new Cap... But Bucky works, ultimately, for Tony (unless I missed something? I don't read all Marvel Comics). If Tony would try to cash in on his pull over Bucky, have him do something that Steve wouldn't do but the Winter Soldier would, I think the creative sparks would fly. There'd be some tension, on the readers' part as well ("Hey, we like the new Cap, but now he's working for the guy we didn't like at the end of Civil War!"). I mean, when Steve does return, there needs to be some ideological difference between him and Bucky, right?

Maybe something like that will happen. But, instead, for now, we just get the safe sterile retrospective that is Cap #50. Well-made for what it is, but how lifeless it seems compared to the dynamic past history of the character it references.