Captain America vol 5

Captain America 43-50, 600-601

I have so completely checked out of Brubaker’s run.  I posited in my last entry that I may have been suffering from storyline fatigue.  That is definitely not the case - The next two three-parters are standalone stories, and they engaged me zero.  

Natasha and Bucky are now a couple, and it’s a pairing that makes sense.  I’m happy for those crazy kids.  But in yet another example of the worst does-this-ever-happen-in-real-life media trope, post-coital Natasha shows up with a sheet magically wrapped around her.

How is that thing balancing on her butt?

Who??  Who would ever do this?  The ways in which this doesn’t make sense boggles the mind.  Part of me doesn’t want to get into this, but the other part would rather do this than talk about this interminable run of Captain America comics.  I’ll come back to this if I run out of ways to complain.

Another Captain America thing that I’ve never bought into:

Never ever would his shield fit under any kind of outfit.

No one I know calls it Taipei City.  It’s Taipei!

Things I’m sick of on this title:

Brubaker’s extensive use of flashbacks.  I’m going to do a quick flipthrough of the last two trades.  Back in a sec.  Okay, about ⅙ of the pages are flashbacks.  Not as egregious as I thought.  

But the last issue was entirely flashback.  And the flashback had a flashback.  Rassum frassum...And none of it is interesting.  It’s about a vampire infiltrating the US army during World War II.  Gene Colan was the guest artist, and I imagine Brubaker wanted to give him an excuse to draw vampires as a homage to his Tomb of Dracula days.  But it was a wretched, boring issue.  

So done with the dreary gray/blue color palette that permeates the entire run.

Luke Ross on art is barely replacement level:

Maybe you can't tell because he looks so happy, but he's getting choked here.

Getting choked again.  Hand position is totally off.  And Bucky looks bored.

Butch Guice is a step above, but I would never have guessed that this is Sharon Carter without context:

Sharon's doing her Gwen Stacy impression, with headband and everything.

Things that I liked:

Namor grumbling about his role in Bucky’s plan as being beneath his station is suitable hilarious.

Marcos Martin is such a good artist:

The scale of Namor to the thing he's lifting looks super sweet.

So yeah, these last two trades are not sticking around; They’re post-mega 40-issue storyline, so I’m not missing out on anything, and the past two days have added nothing to my quality of life.  In truth, I could probably do without the entire Brubaker run, but getting rid of such a huge chunk of comics is a little too much for me.  

So that’s it for Captain America, until I get to the current Captain America run that’s still going on.  (It’s on the bookshelf, not in the box, so I’ll be review those way later.)  Looking back, both the Waid and Brubaker runs were not as good as I remembered.  Sadness.  At least the Waid issues have the benefit of nostalgia glasses.  Brubaker’s work just didn’t impress that much.  I liked aspects of his work on Sharon Carter and Bucky, but the plots were just meh.  I’m ready to move on.

Regret buying? Yes

Would buy again? No

Would read again? No

Rating: Boring