This is a damn good creative team for Captain America, and it's a pretty solid first issue. I'll be honest, as I get older, I'm finding that my favorite runs on these classic characters are in the past, untouchable by comparison with current stuff by virtue of being perfect in my memory, and so I'm not as blown away by this first issue as others might be. However, despite this not being ideally what I'd want out of a Captain America book, it's off to a really good start, with gorgeous artwork, a style that blends the superhero roots of the character with the action style that Brubaker is known for on Sleeper and a pretty intriguing little twist at the end.
I am generally of the school of thought that says Captain America, like Superman, is a character who is unrealistically good. By that I mean, I want him to uphold a pretty impossible moral standard. Though I have no problem with the notion of the character having killed in World War II, to my mind, one of the defining elements of Captain America is that he does not kill, that he has the moral fortitude and impossible skill to avoid it in 99% of all cases, and when it fails, it's a big deal. So I'm a little put off that Brubaker has Cap on something of a tear in this issue, seemingly not caring that he killed off a couple of terrorists. However, it doesn't put me off the book, and that's largely because I buy into Brubaker's reasoning for why Cap is sort of off the rails. His close friends can see it, which means it is being flagged up as a problem, and given the traumatic events of Avengers Disassembled (however stupid and contrived I find them to be), I can see Cap being a little off-kilter. If this is going to be the continuing characterization of the character, more realistic but less heroic, I might not be so onboard the whole thing, but for now, I'm buying into it.
One of the reasons I'm buying into it is because Brubaker is very talented at structuring his stories, with a really solid mix of character development and action. The opening scene, introducing a Russian general driven to crime by circumstances, is the start of a really interesting bad guy, and Brubaker also has a really good take on the Skull. The guy is evil, there's no doubt about it, no moral relativism here, but he's also smart and human. Brubaker puts a neat spin on the classic "curse you, hero!" frustration that villains feel when heroes interfere with their plans, and it's almost more of a weary, frustrated anger than over-the-top villain behavior. Brubaker also writes a fun, snarky but caring Sharon Carter, and though I don't have any particular love for the character (she wasn't in the run that I imprinted on, back in the day), I like her role here, as confidante/pain in the ass.
I mentioned action, too, right? Because there's a fantastic action sequence in this issue, a narrated flashback of sorts wherein Captain America prevents an act of terrorism aboard an elevated subway train in New York. It's beautifully rendered and exciting, with a dizzying and detailed view of New York and a powerful physical presence for Captain America. Epting and D'Armata are probably the perfect choice for Brubaker's more "real world" take on this character, as their backdrops and almost photo-realistic characters make it look like this is taking place in the real world. The superhuman speed and skill that Cap displays is highlighted because of the believable reality that Epting and D'Armata give the rest of the page, and the darker, inkier look in the opening and closing sequences immediately clue the reader in that we're looking at the darker half, the villain half, of the book.
I'm not sure where the book is going from here, and whether I'm going to like it or not. It's consistent with the style that Brubaker has brought to Sleeper, but I'm hoping that his Captain America will, for lack of a better phrase, "lighten up" as the story goes on. It's clear that Brubaker is breaking from superhero tradition in many ways if only from the last page shocker, which is one of those things you just don't expect to see, and which sets apart this "Red Skull gets the cosmic cube" story from those we've seen before pretty clearly. 8/10
