Waid Captain America

Captain America 1-7

Mark Waid returns to Captain America after a year-long Heroes Reborn hiatus.  

Rob Liefeld.  Comic book America's favorite punching bag.

The first seven issues deal with the the idea of Captain America as celebrity.  The public is feverish with Capmania, reaching heights of hero worship that make Steve extremely uncomfortable.  He questions whether they’re seeing him in the way he would like, as a symbol of inspiration.  (They’re not.)  He’s become a commercialized entity, and everyone’s lost sight of what he represents.  

Cap talks about his doubts with his teammates across a couple of issues.  Hawkeye naturally gives him a hard time, which Thor is more earnest in his advice.  Either way, it was nice to see Cap chatting with his fellow Avengers as old, old friends.  There’s an ease to those conversations and a comfortable respect that comes across in the writing.  It was also just entertaining to have Cap and Thor talk over a milkshake.  

Only Hawkeye could get away with this.

It turns out this is all a Skrull plot.  Build up the people’s trust in Captain America, impersonate him, and tell everyone that one in twenty people are Skrulls.  Let chaos ensue.  It’s a mini-scale Secret Invasion, and the riots that follow are entirely believable.  The ploy plays on our natural suspicions of anyone that’s different, and is still applicable in its relevance today.

Skrull as the Sensational Hydra, in all his sadistic and hilarious glory.

Oh yeah, Captain loses his shield to the depths of the ocean, ushering in the unnecessary energy shield era.

Ron Garney hands the pencilling reins over to Andy Kubert, by way of Dale Eaglesham.  Kubert really needs a good colorist to showcase his work.  (His early X-Men art looked the same, but suffered greatly from flat colors.)  With Joe Rosas, he’s got one.

Fine, but flat.  Coincidentally, also Joe Rosas on colors.

What a difference five years of coloring technology makes.  Absurd pose, but I love it.

What throws me off is that Rosas does a much worse job earlier in the issue with Eaglesham’s panels.  (Eaglesham and Kubert split the work in issue 7.)  

Dale Eaglesham pencils.

Andy Kubert.  It's not just me, is it?  It's the colors and not the pencils?

There appears to be a drastic change in the color shading between the artists.  Or am I missing something?  Kubert uses a lot more black with his shadows.  Could that be what’s making the difference?

Regret buying? No

Would buy again? Yes

Would read again? Yes

Rating: Fine

Captain America: Sentinel of Liberty 5-6

Capmania wasn’t limited to within the pages of the comics.  Waid and Garney were so popular that they got a second Captain America title for a year, covering stories throughout his history.  It appears that I wasn’t so enamored of Waid even back then to buy more than these two issues.  Meh.

Regret buying? No

Would buy again? No

Would read again? No

Rating: Didn’t suck