Marvel Comics
Creators: Mark Waid, Chris Samnee, Matthew Wilson and Joe Caramagna
Release date: 2018
I read two of the single issues collected in this volume, and liked them enough, I said I would buy this trade. Don’t believe me? I wrote about it here.
I bought the trade and just recently, I had time to sit down and read it. It was full of surprises despite my having already read nearly one-third of the contents previously. In fact, it was so surprising, I might not have purchased this trade if I had known more about the contents beforehand. And that would have been sad, because had I not bought the trade, I would have missed out on a wonderful story.
But let’s back up. I took a break from Cap comics after Ed Brubaker’s phenomenal, multi-year run on the title. Brubaker’s run saw Bucky brought back from the dead, Cap killed and eventually resurrected and explored a lot of what the character of Captain America is and represents. I liked that run and its focus first on Cap as an espionage-style character, then later as more of a traditional superhero.
After Brubaker’s run, a number of other creators took the reins of the book and guided it in different directions. I felt I had read the definitive Cap — at least for my tastes — in Brubaker’s run, so I bailed on the title. I can’t speak to the strengths or weaknesses of those subsequent stories because I didn’t read them. But the most recent one prior to the issues collected here was certainly a bit controversial. In that lengthy story arc, an evil version of Cap was revealed as a sleeper agent for Hydra and helped bring the world “to the brink of destruction,” according to a brief introduction in this book, before being defeated by the original hero.
This book opens with the real Steve (Captain America) Rogers traveling the country, getting in touch with common folks and trying to rebuild his reputation. The issues I’d read previously included a done-in-one story along those lines from issue No. 696 and a confrontation with Kraven the Hunter in issue No. 697, which seemed to be kicking off a multi-issue arc when it was revealed that Kraven’s attack was orchestrated by another group. What I didn’t know when I read those two issues was that the group behind Kraven’s assault on Cap had faced the star-spangled hero twice before in the pages of issue No. 695, the first in this collection.
The group is a white supremacist, paramilitary organization called Rampart that tries to stage a coup of the United States, beginning in the small town of Burlington, Nebraska. Captain America thwarts that small-town takeover attempt shortly after the Avengers find and revive Cap from the ice-induced suspended animation that had held him captive since World War II. Cap begins his tour of America by returning to that small town, now renamed Captain America, Nebraska. It is the 10th anniversary of Cap’s defeat of Rampart, but that newly rebuilt terrorist group has also returned, seeking revenge.
Cap once again dispatches the Rampart goons with some help from the residents of the small town, and he leaves feeling somewhat re-invigorated. That is where we find him in issue No. 696, where he happens purely by chance upon a plot by the new Swordsman, the done-in-one tale I’d read previously. What Cap doesn’t consider is that none of the Rampart ringleaders are defeated or rounded up in the battle from the previous issue. Instead, they put in motion the plan with Kraven that is meant to end with them once again putting Captain America on ice, which is exactly what happens in issue No. 697.
When issue No. 698 begins, Cap is once again revived from suspended animation to find an America much changed and at the mercy of Rampart and its mysterious leader. Nuclear war has ravaged the population, leaving the few survivors weak or mutated. With the exception of issue No. 696, this entire trade is one big tale about Captain America facing off against this one group three times and ending up in a rather dystopian future that is quite bleak, to say the least.
I’m not a fan of dystopian future stories, as I believe I have discussed before, although there are always exceptions. I’m glad I didn’t know this tale would so heavily involve such a future before I bought it or I likely would have passed it up. Instead, though, I happened to read the two chapters that did not deal with the bleak future and found them quite enjoyable. I've read and enjoyed Mark Waid’s writing in other books; and I appreciate Chris Samnee’s clean, flowing art style; it isn’t too cartoony but still harkens back to a simpler time, with clean, simple lines. It also didn’t hurt that I knew from previous cover art that the Thing and the Hulk would also play a role in this story, and I like both of those characters.
So I did buy this trade, I did read it, and I was not disappointed. This team has crafted a stirring tale filled with heroism big and small, with tragedies befalling beloved characters and innocent masses, with examples of mindless depravity and noble sacrifice. And all of it hinges on a simple little concept, one critical to these kinds of four-color heroes, but especially to Captain America — hope. As Cap himself says in this tale near the finale, “Hope is not a plan. But you sure as hell can’t win without it.”
Well said, Cap, and well done, Messrs. Waid, Samnee, Wilson and Caramagna!
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