Volume 54: Captain America: The Chosen

Captain America: The Chosen

Author: David Morrell |  Illustrator: Mitch Breitweiser

"I'm no hero. All I want is to get out of here. To go home. To hold my family. To sleep without nightmares."

We're told in the introduction to The Chosen that David Morrell, the author of the work, is the same David Morrell that wrote First Blood (1972), which most of us will probably know better as the first Rambo film starring Sly Stallone. I mention that because First Blood was Morrell's début novel, and The Chosen is his début comic book. If you do the maths, there's 35 years between the two, and it's clear while reading the Captain America story that it sprung from the mind of someone who had little experience with the comic medium.

Please don't take that as a purely negative comment, having a comic that doesn't read like a comic is a refreshing change from the norm. The novelist's mindset that Morrell had meant he was more used to building characters from the ground up, whereas with Capt. he had to work within an existing, established framework. Perhaps that's why he chose to focus on what Steve Rogers in costume represents; i.e. the hero as inspirational, totemic symbol for the common man.

The man in question is a US soldier stationed in Afghanistan, a Corporal by the name of James Newman. Morell gets deep inside Newman's head, exploring his emotional state and the affect conflict has on him. I got the feeling that the author was more comfortable with the blank slate soldier than he was the super-soldier.

Besides the 'USA = Freedom' stuff that many new writers of Capt. America default to, the human parts of the story are well-told. But there's a bizarre element upon which everything else is built that I was less involved with. It wouldn't be out of place in an X-Men story, but in Steve's own world it was all a bit too left field to be believable.

As such, while I enjoyed the book, especially that it wasn't all set in boring New York, a part of it was also off-putting to me. But the partial ambivalence made me curious about how Morell might structure something with characters that are 100% of his own making, something that's completely non-superhero. Maybe someday I'll take the plunge into one of his novels.

The book collects together Captain America: The Chosen #1-6.

Verdict:

Volume 51: Fallen Son: The Death of Captain America

Fallen Son: The Death of Captain America

Capt America #25: Author: Ed Brubaker / Illustrator: Steven Epting
Fallen Son Miniseries: Author: Jeph Loeb (from a premise by J. Michael Straczynski) / Illustrators: Leinil Yu (#1) / Ed McGuinness (#2) / John Romita Jr. (#3) / David Finch (#4) / John Cassaday (#5)

"...[A]nd one day, it'll be different. The load won't feel as heavy. 'Course, then you'll hear a song or somebody will laugh or the wind will blow the wrong way...and the hole will tear wide open again."

A number of heroes died during the Civil War arc (Volume 50), and while every human life should be equal in value, it's a fact that those closest to us leave the biggest vacuum in the world, an absence that's immeasurable in size. For many of the superhero community the death of Captain America cuts deeper than any of the others because of how inspirational he was. He's the reason so many of those able to protect the innocent were moved to do so in the first place. Steve Rogers was a man, but his costumed self was an almighty symbol that had the power to speak in place of the person beneath it.

The stories of how the death affected those closest to Steve is structured like the Kübler-Ross model (aka The Five Stages of Grief, as observed by Swiss psychiatrist Elisabeth Kübler-Ross), with each issue exploring one of the stages: Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, and Acceptance. The particular hero chosen to lead each issue isn't random, there's a method at play whereby the emotion will have a special resonance with that particular character.

Before we get to the Fallen Son issues, we're given the issue of Captain America in which the hero was killed (#25). It's a great issue, with the focus split between Steve's situation and the world around him, but favouring the latter, surprisingly.

Stage 1: Denial: Wolverine. No stranger to loss as one of the X-Men, Wolverine needs confirmation of the death before he can begin to heal. The sketchy lines and dark colours suit the tone.

Stage 2: Anger: the Avengers. The team who lost a friend and leader. While some grieve openly, some choose distraction. Choosing not to vent anger doesn't necessarily make it go away; it still affects but quietly, and can do even more damage in the long term.

Stage 3: Bargaining: Capt. America. It's named for Cap, for reasons that will be obvious upon reading, but it's mostly about Iron Man and one specific other. Without going into detail it was the best issue so far, by quite a margin. I loved how the chill of the rainy night adds to the cold reception.

Stage 4: Depression: Spider-Man. Another good issue. Peter carries the weight of the world on an ordinary day, but when his failures (real and imagined) gang up on him as one, past and present blur and the web-slinger aches like only he can.

Stage 5: Acceptance: Ironman. The acceptance doesn't mean an end to the grief, but allows reflection. The future is changed, but for the superhero community it must go on.

The book collects together Captain America #25; and Fallen Son #1-5 (i.e. Fallen Son: Wolverine; Fallen Son: Avengers; Fallen Son: Captain America; Fallen Son: Spider-Man; Fallen Son: Iron Man).

Verdict:

Volume 44: Captain America: Winter Soldier

Captain America: Winter Soldier

Author: Ed Brubaker  |  Illustrator: Steve Epting

"...[H]e's a Cold War myth that's turnin' out to be true."

Winter Soldier is one of the more well-known Captain America story arcs, but the issues included in the book can only tell a part of the story. If you haven't read the build-up, then you'll just have to accept that prior to the events herein some shit went down that ended with a man named Aleksander Lukin, an ex-General of the KGB, coming into possession of a Cosmic Cube (one of the many, it seems like Marvel create a new one as and when they need it).

Some knowledge of Steve's one-time partner, Bucky Barnes, will also be helpful. Bucky was killed in action during WWII, and Steve never fully got over it. The youth was his partner but also someone he felt responsible for, so alongside the loss of a friend is a feeling of failure to himself, his confidant and his country. When it's suggested that the Winter Soldier might have a connection to the event that killed Bucky, Steve's emotions are put through a wringer.

The book bounces around in time, showing events from yesterday or yesteryear, etc, that when assembled like a four-dimensional jigsaw result in a series of cause and effect scenarios that weigh heavily on Steve's conscience. His feelings are a confused mix of hope, fear, denial and anguish - states of being that artist Steve Epting captures wonderfully in his framing, expressions and lighting. In fact, Brubaker's script allows many of the weighty moments to draw their power from being shown more than told; he must have known Epting was very much up to the task.

A personal favourite moment of mine is when Steve goes for a rooftop run. High above the city, distanced from the everyday bustle, he seeks to clear his head by going through the motions, leaping and rolling as only a superhero (or super-soldier) can do. He seems to be aware that his weakness is party to guilt and loss, to friendship lost, and perhaps even a little nostalgia for a time that only he remembers. He knows that running from the problem isn't going to make it go away, but the feeling of familiarity that accompanies such actions is a kind of comfort in itself.

To get back on track, despite the leaps of faith needed by the reader, the nonsense science (and the damn Cube), Winter Soldier is a human story, a turn of events that prove even heroes aren't so different from the rest of us after all.

The book collects together Captain America (Vol 5) #8-9 and #11-14.

Verdict:

Volume 27: Captain America: The New Deal

Captain America: The New Deal

Author: John Ney Rieber  |  Illustrator: John Cassaday

"Blood on your hands, they say. As though it stops there. At the wrist. Like a glove."

The New Deal was John Ney Rieber's first Captain America story and the one that launched yet another reboot of the series. It wasn't a good start. It's a heavily politicised post 9/11 story.

I live in the UK. We're not patriotic. It's a generalisation but largely true. We aren't taught allegiance in schools or weaned into it by fraternities and sororities and expected to declare undying loyalty, etc. Being an outsider means I don't know if the view I have of US culture is even remotely close to the real America; it's a view based on media offerings, and we all know their truth to bullshit ratio.

The book embodies what the media tells me, so I can't know how much of it mirrors real sentiment and how much is exaggerated. Irrespective, it's not a very good story. If you strip away the self-reaffirming monologue, the calls for unity and the blatant mollycoddling then there's almost nothing left.

Most of the text is short, broken clauses; the type best reserved for action scenes. When that kind of writing takes up the bulk of a text it disrupts the narrative flow and stops being fun to read.

There's an attempt to show the 'enemy' perspective, but it's uneven. Respect to Rieber for trying, but when Capt resorts to beating down his demonised opponent with words, claiming that at least America doesn't kill children, I was ready to fling the book out the window. I'd like to say it was a clever device to show him naïvely blinded by patriotism, but I really don't think it was. I sincerely hope I'm wrong.

John Cassaday's art is fantastic. His depiction of the Captain sifting through rubble, gray dust filling the frame, with a pained sense of failure on his hero's shoulders is beautifully presented, and the action scenes are dynamic. It's a shame that such great work was accompanied by such a problematic text.

The book collects together Captain America Vol 4 #1-6.

Verdict: