Daily Archives: 10 July 2010

Does anything happen this issue? I will definitely say it doesn’t tread over Marvels territory at all and does introduce one or two interesting things–the image of the Human Torch working on controlling his flames in a hayloft–but otherwise, nothing happens.

The narrator–this issue revealed to be a costumed adventurer himself, the Angel–talks a bit and Brubaker does fine with that narration, but so much of the story doesn’t have anything to so with the narrator, it’s hard not to think mostly about why Brubaker’s bothering with one.

Nearly everything else, from the 1940s NYPD being unsympathetic to Nick Fury breaking out the Captain America serum scientist (will they explain why Fury doesn’t age as fast in this series, I never can remember why he doesn’t), is all pretty standard. The art is nice, some of it really nice.

The plot just is not compelling enough.

CREDITS

Writer, Ed Brubaker; artist, Steve Epting; colorist, Dave Stewart; letterer, Chris Eliopoulos; editors, Lauren Sankovitch and Tom Brevoort; publisher, Marvel Comics.

I really need a cast of characters page. It’s neat how Brubaker uses the Two-Gun Kid to open (though I can’t remember how he got to the future in the Slott She-Hulk series); it gives the story something of a context in the modern Marvel Universe, since it really is just another retcon. Just one without a lot of repercussions.

Following all their Captain America flashbacks, Epting and Brubaker are perfectly assured and the comic does read well.

It just isn’t particularly necessary. It appears to tie a bunch of old events together under the purview of the United States government (to “Ultimatize” regular Marvel history). There’s an FDR cameo and Nick Fury shows up and we get some really good Namor stuff… But it’s really just another Marvels, with a different narrator on a somewhat wider perspective.

Decent Marvel–Brubaker’s capable of a whole lot more though.

CREDITS

Writer, Ed Brubaker; artist, Steve Epting; colorist, Dave Stewart; letterer, Chris Eliopoulos; editors, Jeanine Schaefer and Tom Brevoort; publisher, Marvel Comics.