By Fred Van Lente, Luke Ross; Neil Edwards, Crimelab Studios & Daniel Green; Javi Fernandez; Andy Smith & Tom Palmer; Richard Elson & various (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-5725-0
With new superhero comics-based Summer Movie Blockbusters now an annual tradition there’s generally a wealth of supplementary reading released to coincide, cash in on and tantalise all us die-hard print addicts. Thus, through the comfortable hindsight of time passed and all hype deflated, here’s a slim tome designed as a combination tie-in and prequel to the 2011 Captain America film…
Scripted by Fred Van Lente, First Vengeance was a 4-issue comicbook miniseries that actually began as 8 webcomic chapter teasers before bounding into paper physicality during April and May 2010. It concentrated on the cinematic iteration of the Star Spangled Avenger, infilling background, adding character and disclosing the secret history of the main players, opening with Chapter 1 (illustrated by Luke Ross and colourist Richard Isanove) as Captain America parachuted into Nazi-occupied Denmark in 1944, idly reminiscing about his tough childhood in Hell’s Kitchen, Manhattan two decades earlier as he drifted down amongst the shell-bursts and ack-ack fire.
After his mother died, sickly Steve Rogers went to an orphanage and was befriended by protective scrapper James Buchanan Barnes…
The second instalment (Neil Edwards, Crimelab Studios & Sotocolor) recalls later years as the frail art student struggled to join the military in the face of increasing war-tensions, even inducing boxing champ “Bucky†Barnes to teach him how to fight. Those painful memories are interrupted when the US super-soldier is ambushed by Germany’s equivalent – a stormtrooper in a massive lightning-throwing mechanical exo-skeleton…
Chapter 3 (Ross & Isanove again) continues that spectacular duel whilst flashing back to Berlin in 1934 to detail Adolf Hitler‘s first meeting with a man even crazier, more fanatical and far deadlier than he…
Johann Shmidt was a Nazi scientist obsessed with elder gods, arcane lore and creating the Übermensch through interventionist science. After allying himself with the monstrous Heinrich Himmler, Shmidt proceeded to eradicate every obstacle to his unholy dream…
Javi Fernandez & Veronica Gandini produced the fourth episode – which continued the byplay between elucidating flashbacks and Cap’s combat against Nazi terror weapons – detailing how Shmidt co-opted willing German technologist Arnim Zola and coerced hostage Jewish biologist Abraham Erskine to further his schemes, whilst Ross & Isanove handled Chapter 5, exploring how pioneering industrialist and inventor Howard Stark created the Yankee hero’s invulnerable shield…
Chapter 6 (Andy Smith, Tom Palmer & Gandini) reveals how British spy Peggy Carter rescued Erskine from Shmidt, but not before the Nazi became the first recipient of the biologist’s prototype super-soldier serum… The saga then introduced the pan-national filmic version of the Howling Commandos as the comic prologue built to a spectacular end courtesy of Ross & Richard Elson, with the introduction of the ghastly Red Skull, the conclusion of Cap’s clash with Nazi science, an origin for the Howlers, the return of Bucky and the fateful meeting of a patriotic sad sack with the men who would transform him from 4-F failure to America’s ultimate fighting man…
To Be Continued in Captain America: The First Avenger…
This compilation also includes an interview with Van Lente from Captain America: Spotlight and a gallery of covers by Paolo Rivera, John Cassaday, Laura Martin & Tyler Stout.
This short, sweet, action package is a fine, fun comics read which certainly succeeds as an enticing appetiser for movie mavens and print fiends alike, offering the best of both worlds and delivering big bangs for your bucks…
© 2011 Marvel Characters, Inc. All rights reserved.