By Ed Brubaker, Luke Ross, Butch Guice, Rick Magyar, Dean White & various (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-4511-0
The Star Spangled Avenger was created by Joe Simon & Jack Kirby at the end of 1940 and launched in his own title (Captain America Comics, #1 cover-dated March 1941) with overwhelming success. He was the absolute and undisputed star of Timely (now Marvel) Comics’ “Big Three†– the other two being the Human Torch and Sub-Mariner. He was also among the very first to fade at the end of the Golden Age.
When the Korean War and Communist aggression dominated the American psyche in the early 1950s he was briefly revived – with the Torch and Sub-Mariner – in 1953 before sinking once more into obscurity until a resurgent Marvel Comics once more brought him back in Avengers #4.
It was March 1964 and the Vietnam conflict was just beginning to pervade the minds of the American public…
This time he stuck around. Whilst perpetually agonising over the death of his young sidekick (James Buchanan Barnes AKA Bucky) in the final days of the war, the resurrected Steve Rogers first stole the show in the Avengers, then promptly graduated to his own series and title as well. He waxed and waned through the most turbulent period of social change in US history, but always struggled to find an ideological niche and stable footing in the modern world.
Eventually, whilst another morally suspect war raged in the real world, during the Marvel event known as Civil War he became an anti-government rebel and was assassinated on the steps of a Federal Courthouse.
Over the course of three volumes he was replaced by that always assumed-dead sidekick. In fact Bucky had been captured by the Soviets and turned into their own super-agent, The Winter Soldier.
Once rescued from his unwanted spy-role the artificially youthful and part-cyborg Barnes reluctantly stepped into his mentor’s big crimson boots…
This politically-charged thriller written by Ed Brubaker collects the one-shot Captain America: Who Will Wield the Shield? and issues #602-605 of the monthly comicbook, set squarely in the immediate aftermath of the original Star-Spangled Avenger’s return from the dead (details of which can be found in Captain America Reborn)…
The rabble-rousing tale of ideology and patriotism begins with that one-shot (illustrated by Luke Ross and Butch Guice), as the former Winter Soldier ponders his future in the wake of the “real†Captain America’s resurrection and considers returning the role and unique Star-emblazoned disc to its rightful owner.
Meanwhile Steve Rogers, fresh from a timeless suspension where he perpetually relived his life over and again, combats the haunting memories by taking to the snow-bound streets where he encounters his replacement and super-spy Black Widow battling the ferociously brutal Mr. Hyde.
Content to merely observe his old partner at first, he is soon invited to join the fray and, after the dust settles, the comrades-in-arms come to an understanding. Bucky Barnes will stay as the one and only Sentinel of Liberty: the President of the USA has a far more strategic role in mind for his mentor Steven Rogers…
One that will have to wait for another tale as this tome jumps directly to the eponymous ‘Two Americas’ (with art by Ross, Guice & Rick Magyar) and picks up the trail of the deranged duplicate who briefly played Captain America in the 1950s whilst the original languished in icy hibernation in the arctic.
William Burnside was a student from Boise, Idaho, obsessed with Captain America. The lad had ferreted out the hero’s true name, rediscovered most of the super-soldier serum which had created the Star-Spangled Avenger and even had his name and features changed to perfectly mimic the Missing-In-Action Steve Rogers.
Volunteering his services to the FBI, then conducting a nationwide war on spies, subversives and suspected commies, Burnside and impressionable youngster Jack Monroe briefly became Captain America and Bucky; crushing every perceived threat to the nation.
Sadly it soon became apparent that their definition of such included not just criminals but also non-whites, independent women and anybody who disagreed with the government…
After a few short months the reactionary patriot had to be forcibly “retired†as the super-soldier serum he and Monroe used turned them into super-strong, raving, racist paranoids.
Years later when the fascistic facsimiles escaped their suspended animation in Federal prison they attacked the real Sentinel of Liberty only to be defeated by Cap, his partner Sam Wilson (AKA the Falcon) and S.H.I.E.L.D. agent Sharon Carter. Although Monroe was eventually cured, Burnside’s psychosis was too deeply rooted and he returned many times to tangle with the man he felt had betrayed the real America…
Used most recently as a pawn of the Red Skull, malign psychologist Dr. Faustus and genetic trickster Arnim Zola in a plot to plant a Nazi stooge in the Oval Office, the dark Captain America had escaped and fled to the nation’s heartland.
When police in Idaho raided a den of reactionary separatist fanatics the Watchdogs, they were slaughtered by the delusional Sentinel of Liberty who had aligned himself with them in a crazed bid to take back the nation for right-thinking ordinary people like himself.
Alerted by rogue agent Nick Fury, Barnes and the Falcon head for the economically depressed Midwest where the crumbling economy and lack of prospects has driven hard-pressed hardworking folk into the open arms of the seditionists.
Intending to infiltrate the movement now led by the faux Captain America, things go badly wrong when Burnside recognises Barnes from his college researches…
Intent on starting a second American Revolution, the crazed patriot ambushes the newest Cap and the Falcon and, whilst planning to set off the biggest bomb in history against the Hoover Dam, demands that Barnes returns to his first and proper heroic identity to become the Bucky to Burnside’s one-and-only Captain America…
Determined to convince the equally time-lost Winter Soldier that modern America must be destroyed and the Good Old Days restored, Burnside is still savvy enough to use the hostage Falcon to achieve his ends, but far too prejudiced to accept that a mere black man – a flunky sidekick – could be competent enough to foil his plans…
Imprisoned on a train packed with explosives, Sam busts free and trashes his Watchdog jailers and with the aid of a simple working Joe (yes, a proper “ordinary Americanâ€) diverts the runaway bomb, whilst Burnside and his fanatics invade Hoover Dam with an even more devastating device, ready to send a message that will spell the end of the country and signal the return of the madman’s cherished if illusory idealised America.
However when Bucky overhears that the Falcon is safe he immediately lashes out, tackling the old world warrior head-on and stopping the insane incursion with ruthless efficiency…
This thoroughly readable and exceedingly pretty collection also includes a cover and variant gallery from Gerald Parel, Alan Davis, Mark Farmer and Javier Rodriguez for art lovers.
A fascinating examination of political idealism and the mutability of patriotism, this sharp and scary saga avoids the usual trap of depending too much upon a working knowledge of Marvel continuity and provides in situ what little back-story new readers might need, fairly thundering along to its climactic conclusion, providing thrills, spills and chills in full measure for all fans of Fights ‘n’ Tights action.
© 2009, 2010 Marvel Characters Inc. All Rights Reserved.