Review: CAPTAIN AMERICA #1

CAPTAIN AMERICA No. 1 (Legacy #705)
MARVEL COMICS – @Marvel

[This review ws originally posted on Patreon.]

STORY: Ta-Nehisi Coates
PENCILS: Leinil Francis Yu
INKS: Gerry Alanguilan
COLORS: Sunny Gho
LETTERS: VC's Joe Caramagna
COVER: Alex Ross
VARIANT COVERS: Adam Hughes; Joe Jusko; David Mack; Jim Sternako; Frank Miller with Edgar Delgado; Leinil Francis Yu; Paul Renaud; Joe Simon and Jack Kirby; Marko Djurdjevic; Ron Garney with Matt Milla; Mike Zeck with Richard Isanove; John Cassaday with Laura Martin
40pp, Color, $4.99 U.S. (September 2018)

Rated “T+”

Captain America created by Joe Simon and Jack Kirby

“Winter in America” Part 1

Captain America is a Marvel Comics superhero created by Joe Simon and Jack Kirby.  Captain America was Steve Rogers, a frail young man who reached the peak of human perfection via the experimental “super soldier” serum.

He first appeared in Captain America Comics #1 (cover dated:  March 1941), which was published by Timely Comics, a predecessor of Marvel Comics.  After Captain America Comics was canceled in 1949, there was a revival of the series from 1953 to 1954.  Captain America fully returned to modern comic books in The Avengers #4 (cover dated: March 1964).

Steve Rogers/Captain America embarks on a new beginning again with a relaunch of his title series.  The new Captain America comic book series is written by Ta-Nehisi Coates; drawn by Leinil Francis Yu (pencils) and Gerry Alanguilan (inks); colored by Sunny Gho; and lettered by Joe Caramagna.  In the new series, Captain America faces an existential crises as he wrestles with how people view and perceive him in the wake of the Hydra Captain America impostor that briefly took over the world as an authoritarian dictator.

Captain America #1 opens in the Sayan Mountains of Russia months earlier.  There, something new is emerging from the ashes of Hydra.  In the present day, Captain America and the Winter Solider battle a small army of men who resemble Cap's old adversary, Nuke.  They are killing civilians in a mass shooting event in and around the National Mall in Washington D.C.  As Captain America battles to save lives and stop these killers, he will also have to face another harsh reality.  No one really trusts him anymore... even the people who should know him best.

I would not call Captain America #1 2018 a great comic book, but it is the best written Captain America comic book that I have read in ages.  Ta-Nehisi Coates cleverly uses the battle at the National Mall's aftermath to depict not so much Captain America in crisis, but the Sentinel of Liberty as man at odds with the people, places, and nation he has sworn to protect and to defend.  It makes for great reading, because we known this is the true Captain America, but the dramatic tension brought by the distrust of Cap from the other characters makes for some good reading.

Leinil Francis Yu has been a skilled graphical storyteller for over two decades, but his drawing style has taken an ugly turn the last several years – as far as I am concerned.  He is better here, and Sunny Gho's evocative colors strengthen how the narrative conveys its ideas and heightens the drama.  Letterer Joe Caramagna creates a steady sense of rhythm that paces the narrative flow for both the action scenes and for the character scenes that confront Captain America.

I think Ta-Nehisi Coates will make me a regular Captain America reader for the first time in ages.  I think this is the beginning of a good age for Captain America.

8 out of 10

Reviewed by Leroy Douresseaux a.k.a. "I Reads You"


The text is copyright © 2018 Leroy Douresseaux. All Rights Reserved. Contact this blog or site for reprint and syndication rights and fees.

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I Reads You Review: Marvel Super Heroes: SECRET WARS #1

MARVEL SUPER HEROES SECRET WARS #1
MARVEL COMICS – @Marvel

WRITER: Jim Shooter
PENCILS: Michael Zeck
INKS: John Beatty
COLORS: Christie Scheele
LETTERS: Joe Rosen
EDITOR: Tom DeFalco
32pp, Color, $.75¢ U.S. (May 1984)

Everything old is new again and again and again...  Marvel Comics launched its latest everything-is-changing event comic book miniseries, Secret Wars, this week.  However, neither the event nor the  title is new.

A little over 31 years ago, 1984 was the year Marvel Comics released Marvel Super Heroes Secret Wars (Secret Wars, for short).  Not everything about that Secret Wars was new.  For instance, Marvel had apparently contemplated and attempted this type of comic book event – a large number of super-heroes taking on a large number of super-villains – in the comic book, Contest of Champions (1982).  For all intents and purposes, however, Secret Wars was the first its kind, a successful gathering of a comic book publisher's most recognizable heroes and villains in a special comic book series.

So this is how the story goes.  Marvel Super Heroes Secret Wars #1 (“The War Begins”) opens as a large group of Marvel Comics' biggest superheroes arrive in an unknown and distant part of the universe.  Members of the Avengers, Fantastic Four, X-Men, and also Spider-Man find themselves aboard a large and mysterious space ship of some kind.  Meanwhile, some of Marvel Comics' biggest super-villains find themselves transported aboard a similar ship.

Both groups watch an entire galaxy being destroyed and, almost immediately afterward, watch a planet being built.  The one who brought the heroes and villains to the far depths of space and who is also the builder of this new world finally speaks.  The voice says that he is “from beyond.”  He promises both heroes and villains that if they slay their enemies, “all you desire shall be yours.”

That is an easy proposition for this “Beyonder” (as Galactus calls him) to make, as he knows that many of his listeners are spoiling for a fight.  Heroes and villains know that their most hated adversaries are members of the group on the other side, and that even within their own ranks are people whom they dislike... maybe even enough to kill.  Let the battle royale begin!

I had not read Marvel Super Heroes Secret Wars #1 in ages, but when I read that Marvel Comics' big 2015 event would be entitled “Secret Wars,” I found a copy of the original on eBay at a decent price.  I don't remember what I thought of Secret Wars #1 after reading it for the first time all the years ago.  I do remember that by the time I got to the halfway point, I was disappointed in entire series.

Marvel hyped Secret Wars as the event that would change everything.  I think either TIME or Newsweek magazine covered the series in short article.  Other than a new costume for Spider-Man and some fights, nothing changed, however.  In fact, Spider-Man's new costume, the original version of the black costume that was actually an alien symbiote, appeared in The Amazing Spider-Man #252 (cover dated: May 1984) comic book before it “first appeared” in Secret Wars #8.

Reading Marvel Super Heroes Secret Wars #1 now, I find myself ambivalent.  I am curious to read the rest of the series, but this first issue is neither especially bad or particularly good.  Mike Zeck was not the right artist to draw the large number of characters and big action scenes required for Secret Wars, although he proved to be quite good at drawing solo Spider-Man comics and The Punisher.  In fact, I still think of Zeck, an especially talent artist, as the definitive Punisher artist.

As for the story and script by Jim Shooter, it is more inconsistent than imaginative.  In a few spots, the character drama is good.  In some places, Shooter presages the kind of superhero revolution that was about to explode via Alan Moore (Watchmen) and Frank Miller (Batman: The Dark Knight Returns).

Ultimately, Shooter and Marvel Super Heroes Secret Wars did introduce something to American superhero comic books that remains to this day – the big event as a big, money-grabbing lie.  For the most part, big event miniseries change little.  When one does bring change to our favorite superhero universes, that change usually lasts until the next big event.  There are exceptions, such as DC Comics' Crisis on Infinite Earths (1985), which is why it is fondly remembered by those who read it.

The truth is that Secret Wars showed American comic book publishers that they could create an atmosphere via a publishing event in which fans and readers, i.e. their customers, feel the need to buy (literally) into an event.  That includes purchasing the main event series and many, if not all, of the related or tie-in publications.  The sequel to Marvel Super Heroes Secret Wars, Secret Wars II (1985), had tie-in issues (as did DC's Crisis), some of which only had a tenuous connection to the main series.

I bought into events for a few years, but lost interest in world-changing comic book events a long time ago.  When I returned to reading superhero comic books some years ago, I found myself still disinterested in comic book publishing events.  A few times, a friend or store owner passed a freebie that was part of an event, and I read them.  Thirty years after Marvel Super Heroes Secret Wars, the writing in comic books is supposed to be so much better than it was in the past.  Still, even when a golden boy writes a crossover, line-wide, event, it tends to amount to sound and fury signifying...

Reviewed by Leroy Douresseaux (support on Patreon)


The text is copyright © 2015 Leroy Douresseaux. All Rights Reserved. Contact this blog for syndication rights and fees.

I Reads You Review: X-MEN CLASSICS #1

X-MEN CLASSICS #1
MARVEL COMICS – @Marvel

WRITER: Roy Thomas
PENCILS: Neal Adams
INKS: Tom Palmer
LETTERS: Sam Rosen, Artie Simek
NEW MATERIAL: Mike Zeck and Tom Palmer
COLORS: Daina Graziunas
EDITORS: Stan Lee (original), Carl Potts and Ann Nocenti (reprint)
EiC: Jim Shooter
COVER:  Mike Zeck and Tom Palmer
48pp, Colors, $2.00 U.S., $2.25 CAN (December 1983)

One of my favorite comic book miniseries is actually a reprint series.  Originally published in late 1983 (with 1983 and 1984 cover dates), X-Men Classics reprinted writer Roy Thomas and artist Neal Adams’ celebrated run on The X-Men comic book series circa 1969-70.  Adams drew The X-Men #56-63 and #65, while Don Heck was the fill-in artist for #64.  X-Men Classics reprints The X-Men #56-63.

Already a freelancer for DC Comics, in 1969, Adams also began freelancing for Marvel Comics, where he penciled several issues of The X-Men.  In 1969, The X-Men comic book was on the verge of cancellation.  Adams joined Roy Thomas and inker Tom Palmer to produce acclaimed, award-winning work (the Alley Awards).

Adams not only penciled The X-Men, but he also colored and plotted the stories with Thomas.  Apparently, some comic book historians consider the Thomas-Adams-Palmer X-Men a highlight of that era (late 1960s to early 1970s) for Marvel Comics.  Adams’ work was popular, but it was too late to save The X-Men from cancellation with issue #66 (March 1970), and the title ended its initial run.

X-Men Classics #1 reprints The X-Men #56-58, in whole or in part.  It also features some new material, including a new splash page drawn by Mike Zeck and Tom Palmer, which summarizes the story leading up to the reprinted material.  Legendary X-Men artist, John Byrne, also provides an introductory piece for this series.

The X-Men, at the time of these stories, were Scott Summers/Cyclops, Jean Grey/Marvel Girl, Warren Worthington III/The Angel, Hank McCoy/The Beast, and Bobby Drake/Iceman.  X-Men Classics #1 opens with a summary of the connection between The Living Pharaoh/The Living Monolith and Alex Summers, Scott’s younger brother.  Beyond that melodrama, the story’s primary focus is the return of the mutant-hunting robots, the Sentinels.  Larry Trask is the son of Boliver Trask, the creator of the Sentinels.  Seeking revenge for his father’s death, which he blames on the X-Men, Larry restarts the Sentinels program.  One by one, the Sentinels kidnap the X-Men and other mutants with whom the X-Men had interacted (which at the time of this story arc’s original publication was a small number).

I have read the Roy Thomas-Neal Adams-Tom Palmer X-Men several times, mostly in reprint form, but I have read a few of the original issues.  I have never been disappointed.  Reading the series again for the first time in ages, I wondered if I would realize that my love of these classic X-Men comics was really about nostalgia.  That is not the case.  They were great superhero comics, and they remain so.

I think what Thomas and Adams created was their take on the soap opera theatrics of Stan Lee and the dynamism of Jack Kirby.  It as if the grand epic that was the Lee-Kirby Fantastic Four became a smaller epic, something like an intimately staged opera, in the pages of the X-Men.

Thomas has the characters scream dialogue, taking the saying, “wears his heart on his sleeve” as if it were some kind of comic book proverb.  Larry Trask practically vomits rage and the spirit of vengeance is in every one of his word balloons.  The X-Men yell at each other; to hell with discussion.  They command, demand, order, and bicker.  They are selfish and concerned about their own needs and interests.  At the same time, they are a family, constantly fighting to save one another from a world that wants to destroy them.

Neal Adams’ page design early in his career (and even later) was like a mosaic of broken, jagged, and angled panels united into a single page of narrative.  More diagonal and vertical than horizontal, the panels could be confusing.

There is another way of looking at Adams’ stylish and chaotic graphic design and graphical storytelling.  He was creating the illusion of life and movement in static images.  His art suggested 3D in what was clearly 2D.  That 3D, sense of movement makes Roy Thomas’ loud exposition even louder and makes the melodrama seem imperative and immediate, and maybe even genuine.  Pages 2 and 3 of The X-Men #57 form a splash page, in which Iceman seems to be flying off the page.

That splash page epitomizes the graphic and visual power of superhero comics.  It is not fantasy grounded in realism.  That power is a comic book in which the characters really seem to be exploding off the page.  And X-Men Classics is a great way to experience the master of explosive comic book art, Neal Adams.

A+

Reviewed by Leroy Douresseaux


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