{"id":20233,"date":"2019-06-10T08:00:33","date_gmt":"2019-06-10T08:00:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/?p=20233"},"modified":"2019-06-09T20:34:22","modified_gmt":"2019-06-09T20:34:22","slug":"captain-america-marvel-masterworks-volume-4","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/2019\/06\/10\/captain-america-marvel-masterworks-volume-4\/","title":{"rendered":"Captain America Marvel Masterworks volume 4"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\" \"\"\"\"
\nBy Stan Lee<\/strong>, Gene Colan<\/strong>, John Romita Sr.<\/strong>, John Buscema<\/strong> & various (Marvel)
\nISBN: 978-0-7851-2936-3 (HB)<\/p>\n

During the Marvel Renaissance of the early 1960’s Stan Lee & Jack Kirby tried a tactic that had reaped huge dividends for DC Comics. Although initially generating mixed results, their efforts eventually changed the nature of comicbooks. Julie Schwartz had scored an incredible success with his revised versions of the company’s Golden Age greats, so it seemed natural to try and revive the characters that had dominated Timely\/Atlas in those halcyon days.<\/p>\n

A new Human Torch<\/em> had premiered as part of the revolutionary Fantastic Four<\/strong>, and in the fourth issue of that title the Sub-Mariner<\/em> resurfaced after a 20-year amnesiac hiatus (everyone concerned had apparently forgotten the first abortive attempt to revive an \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Atlas\u00e2\u20ac\u009d superhero line in the mid-1950s).<\/p>\n

The Torch was promptly given his own solo feature in Strange Tales<\/strong> from issue #101 on and in #114 the flaming teen fought an acrobat pretending to be Captain America<\/strong>. With reader-reaction strong, the real thing promptly resurfaced in Avengers<\/strong> #4 and, after a captivating and centre-stage-hogging run in that title, was granted his own series as half of the \u00e2\u20ac\u0153split-book\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Tales of Suspense<\/strong> with #59 (cover-dated November 1964). An unmissable string of classics ensued and in 1968 the Star-Spangled Avenger won his own solo title\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 but not for long\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6<\/p>\n

This groundbreaking full-colour compilation (available in hardback and digital editions) gathers Captain America<\/strong> #114-124 – spanning June 1969 to September 1970 – and opens with a captivating Introduction<\/em> from illustrator Gene Colan revealing amongst other things how he created The Falcon<\/em>\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6<\/p>\n

The comics portion of this treat opens as the Sentinel of Liberty has just acrimoniously retired from superhero service and reclaimed his anonymity after impetuously revealing his secret identity to the world mere months earlier.<\/p>\n

The hiatus doesn’t last long as, again a man of mystery, Captain America bursts into action to save his lover Sharon Carter<\/em> (SHIELD Agent 13) from a suicide mission against Advanced Idea Mechanics.<\/p>\n

The tale coincided with an ongoing period of artistic instability as here John Romita the Elder (inked by Sal Buscema) illustrated Stan Lee’s tense spy-caper ‘The Man Behind the Mask!’<\/em>.<\/p>\n

The action and suspense were merely prologue to an extended war against the Red Skull<\/em>. Issue #115 – ‘Now Begins the Nightmare!’<\/em> – was drawn by John Buscema and inked by his brother Sal, wherein the fascist arch-villain uses the reality-warping Cosmic Cube to switch bodies with the shield-slinger and trash the hero’s reputation, after which ‘Far Worse than Death!’<\/em> in #116 follows Cap’s frantic attempts to escape his own friends and allies the Avengers, as well as the villain’s callous reality-warping torments.<\/p>\n

This issue saw the start of Gene Colan’s impressive run on the character, here augmented by the smooth, slick inks of Joe Sinnott.<\/p>\n

This next instalment returns him to the Isle – and clutches – of aging war criminals the Exiles<\/em> in a tale that introduced Marvel’s second black superhero.<\/p>\n

‘The Coming of \u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 the Falcon!’<\/em> in issue #117 was a terse, taut build-up to a cataclysmic clash before the neophyte hero-in-training takes centre-stage in ‘The Falcon Fights On!’<\/em> after which all the ducks drop neatly into place for a spectacular finale in ‘Now Falls the Skull!<\/em>‘ in #119.<\/p>\n

As 1970 dawned, Marvel imposed a moratorium on continued stories for most of their titles, and Cap – having returned to his hectic twin lives as unofficial SHIELD Agent and mighty Avenger – here hops on the disaffected youth\/teen revolt bandwagon for a series of slight but highly readable puff-pieces promising nothing but delivering much.<\/p>\n

Kicking off is ‘Crack-up on Campus!’<\/em> by Lee, Colan & Sinnott: an odd m\u00c3\u00a9lange of student radicalism and espionage that sees itinerant cipher Steve Rogers<\/em> become a Physical Education teacher to foil a scheme by the sinister cyborg Modok<\/em> and his AIM cohorts.<\/p>\n

Demented bio-chemist Silas X. Cragg<\/em> then rediscovers the fabled Super Soldier serum that had originally created Captain America in ‘The Coming of the Man-Brute!’<\/em> Sadly, the bonkers boffin picks the wrong candidate to become his Blockbuster<\/em> stooge\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6<\/p>\n

Spider-Man’s old sparring partner mugs the wrong guy in #122’s ‘The Sting of the Scorpion!’<\/em> and subsequently falls to Cap’s bludgeoning fists before issue #123 taps into the seemingly eternal \u00e2\u20ac\u0153battle of the sexes\u00e2\u20ac\u009d zeitgeist with ‘Suprema, The Deadliest of the Species!’<\/em> turning her espionage-tinged attentions to the Star-Spangled Avenger\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6<\/p>\n

The blazing battle action then concludes here as AIM returns with a deadly new hi-tech human weapon. Despite all their efforts the Sentinel of Liberty triumphs yet again in ‘Mission: Stop the Cyborg!’<\/em>\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6<\/p>\n

Supplementing the drama is Romita’s original art cover for #114s and its colour roughs.<\/p>\n

These are tales of dauntless courage and unmatchable adventure, fast-paced and superbly illustrated, which rightly returned Captain America to the heights that his Golden Age compatriots the Human Torch and the Sub-Mariner never regained. They are pure escapist magic. Glorious treats for the eternally young at heart, these are episodes of sheer visual dynamite that cannot be slighted and should not be missed.
\n\u00c2\u00a9 1969, 1970, 2016 Marvel Characters, Inc. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Stan Lee, Gene Colan, John Romita Sr., John Buscema & various (Marvel) ISBN: 978-0-7851-2936-3 (HB) During the Marvel Renaissance of the early 1960’s Stan Lee & Jack Kirby tried a tactic that had reaped huge dividends for DC Comics. Although initially generating mixed results, their efforts eventually changed the nature of comicbooks. Julie Schwartz … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Captain America Marvel Masterworks volume 4”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[74,72,79],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-20233","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-captain-america","category-marvel-masters-masterworks","category-marvel-superheroes"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4AFj-5gl","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20233","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20233"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20233\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20233"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20233"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20233"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}