Even though I had no comics coming out for me last week, I was hesitant to try this mini-series out. Mostly because the preview for it on the web didn’t make it look that interesting. Well here I am this week, with comics but a slow week at that, and I’ve decided to give this mini a shot. I’m glad I did and I think this shows that previews can’t always be the barometer to how a comic will be at the end. This is a fun, totally silly comic that put a smile on my face as I continued looking at the pages.

It helps that you have legend Roger Stern writing the story here. Even though at times, like most ‘old school’ writers, the book has a tendency to be a bit over-written and has bizarre catch phrases (get ready to see ‘Golly’ a lot) this book has a strong idea of a story. Maybe it’s a testament to how strong of an idea Captain America is, because the characters in this book are way more interesting then the original. We got Bucky-Cap, U.S.Agent (one of my all time favorite characters), American Dream (the female Captain America), Commander A (a Hispanic Captain America) and old school Steve Rogers. (Before the shield, who is much more interesting then Cap’N Steve will ever be). Stern brings a good amount of conflict with every character’s viewpoint. Especially with U.S.Agent who has no qualms voicing his opinion no matter how out of date they are. The overall story of trying to find the original Cap is strong enough to continue the plot and any story that has the timestream being changed is always good for me. This issue is a lot of exposition though so hopefully the next issue has more action and less explanation.

The artist for the book is a newcomer, or at least I think he is, with Philippe Briones. It’s not the best art I’ve seen in a book truth be told. Faces are wildly disproportional in a lot of panels and sometimes the actions don’t match with what’s being told. But Briones has a good knack of detail as shown in the first couple of pages with Inuits taking out the ice ‘tomb’ of Steve Rogers. Plus Briones is able to show his talents when the book goes into the future and there are a lot of great designs (from the new look of Times Square to the new police state). I think if the book was more action, and less talking, then Briones can really show his stuff here. As it is though it’s a book peppered with good looking pages but on the other hand there are some inconsistant anatomies with the characters.

Is this the greatest comic coming out this summer? Probably not. But what this mini is, at least with this first issue, is just a lot of fun with a great idea mixed in. Again Stern is able to bring all of the characters traits into the mold and they mesh nicely together. With Briones style this book has a lot of promise, it really does. Let’s just hope we see a bit more action next issue then a massive info dump this first issue had to bring.