Serials: War Machine-off and Captain America's Rock-Fu

Captain America #697

by Mark Waid, Chris Samnee, and Matthew Wilson

People talk about decompression in comics -- the act of stretching out a single storyline across multiple issues, but Captain America is doing the opposite: I guess the term would be. . .compression. Each issue since Waid/Samnee have taken over contains a stand-alone story, umbrella'd by the larger story of Captain America visiting an America that moved on without him. In today's issue, Captain America gets kidnapped by Kraven, the Hunter, and has to compete in a game against him. . . the prize: Captain America's life!

There's a nice twist near the end of the story with an unexpected cliffhanger. A very classic cape comic elevated by the cartooning from Samnee.

HIGHLIGHT: LEOPARD SUPLEX

Question: There was one bit that I didn't understand. When Cap and the other captive David Cotter get caught in a mudslide, Cap looks behind him before diving to save David. Why does he look back?

New Super-Man #19

"Day in the Life of a Shanghai Reporter," by Mariko Tamaki and Brent Peeples

Conveniently, this takes place directly after New Super-Man Volume 1: Made in China, and I just finished that trade!

This story is about a day in the life of Laney Lan, the Chinese analogue to Lois Lane. She reports for Primetime Shanghai, nails an action scene between the JLC and an interview with the New Super-Man over noodles. There's a slew of family secrets in this issue, one having to do with New Super-Man's *true* mother (gasp!), and the affair that Laney's father is having, overseas in America.

Overall a quiet issue that serves as intrigue for a larger story.

Punisher #220

"Punisher: War Machine Part 3," by Matt Rosenberg and Guiu Vilanova

And you thought last issue had a high body count. Rosenberg and co. up the kill scenes from here, making issue 220 the action piece of the storyarc. Frank doesn't spare any second killing ne'er-do-wells who are part of General Petrov's military regime. There's a whole page of him killing the guys running four separate concentration camps. It ain't pretty.

Turns out, Petrov has his own men in War Machine Armor, resulting in a War Machine-off in the second half of the comic. The designs make it a little difficult to distinguish Frank from the rest of the War Machines, but serviceable. Frank's "banter" with the armor A.I. makes for a entertaining reading experience that'll keep me coming for the title.

Venom, Inc. Omega

by Dan Slott, Mike Costa, Ryan Stegman, and Gerardo Sandoval

If ever there was a video-game plot, this is it. It's an over-sized issue spent on making a big bad villain bigger (literally) and badder, and only through combined teamwork and other gimmicks do our heroes overcome him. The focus is on Flash Thompson, repeatedly told that he is a hero by Spider-Man: the goal seems to be writing him into a superhero role once more, as the Anti-Venom. I just don't see why it needed a crossover with two separate one-shots, and a Stay Puft Marshmallow Venom.

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Serials: Venom Inc Alpha, Captain America v. Swordsman, and More

Amazing Spider-Man #789
by Dan Slott and Stuart Immonen

Peter had to give up his company, Parker Industries, to keep it from getting in the hands of the sinister Doctor Octopus! For those keeping track, I read the fhhollow-up issues already, 790 and 791 last week. It's an interesting experience to read out of sequence For one, you already know what's going to happen, but for two, you see all the hints that were dropped for the future issues. Slott is great at dropping little seeds of a story that bloom in later issues, like how Peter acquires the science editor position in 791 because of how he randomly helped the then-science editor in 789.

The relationship with Mockingbird adds an interesting layer too. I'd heard good things about Mockingbird, so it helps me get to see her as a character.

It took me a while, but now I'm used to Peter Parker as a more immature person. He took on a CEO position that he was completely unqualified for (a position that Otto-as-Peter handled adequately), couldn't handle the responsibility of a global tech company and let his millions of employees down. Slott's background is as a humor writer, with some great runs on the GLA and She-Hulk, and Amazing Spider-Man is a humor book first, above all, including character progression. It's OK that Peter isn't as mature, because I've still gotten great stories out of it like Spider-Island and Superior Spider-Man.

Amazing Spider-Man: Venom Inc. Alpha #1
by Mike Costa, Dan Slott, and Ryan Stegman

In Dan Slott's Spider-Man, villains sometimes get their own event storyarcs. The Jackal had Spider-Island (and Clone Conspiracy also? Haven't read that one.) Doc Ock had Ends of the Earth. Morlun (and his wacky family) had Spider-Verse. Now, Venom gets, Venom Inc.

Poor symbiote. It's been hustled out to so many hosts, that it's just a punishing comic for the thing. It gets sonic weapon'ed at, anti-venom'd at, and torn between the two people that have bonded with it the most (Flash and Eddie). Add the symbiote to someone you didn't see coming, take it away from someone else, make Flash the Anti-Venom, and you've pretty much got this issue. Very plot-heavy, really setup for next ish.

I'm not a huge fan of Stegman's take on the symbiote. It's weird how, when it separates from the host, just looks like another humanoid. That's always confused me, even when it was able to speak by itself like in Paul Jenkins/Humberto Ramos's The Hunger. If it could speak by itself, why take a host? I don't know. Here's some weirdness for me:

Here's Eddie Brock, crying (?) tears of symbiote while telling off Flash that he's the One True Host for it. Oh, to be a young blushing symbiote, to have two capable, hunky men fighting for you.

Batman #36
by Tom King and Clay Mann

I told myself I wasn't going to collect this in singles, and, well, I failed. Clay Mann draws some really nice figures, akin to Olivier Coipel, and I couldn't say no to him!

Tom King has gotten good word of mouth, and I can see why. He has an understanding of the super heroes that allows us to be a part of their world and realize what it would look like. The Cat & the Bat, and Superman and Lois, have parallel conversations with their spouses about certain engagement etiquette -- that is, who should call whom. The men of the relationships keep avoiding it, while the women urge them to talk to each other.

It results in a 20-page gag which, when you read it, is pretty good. The decompression is strong, but it reads as a solid single issue that ties in to the next one.

Captain America #696
by Mark Waid and Chris Samnee

Well, they can't all be riveting page-turners. There's nothing really novel about this story here -- Steve Rogers travels around America, a la Superman: Grounded, to understand the America that he left, and hijinks ensue. Hijinks being super-criminals who are ready to destroy a small town just to get at Captain America.

So it's in the little moments that make this serial worth picking up. There's so many little details in this comic that make it delightful. How the shopkeepers refuse to let Steve Rogers pay for a meal. The Swordsman's Vibranium-sword, and how Captain America gets around it. There's some very strong iconography here, how Cap and S-man have a hurtling fight in the guts of a dam that has the American flag here. The way Cap uses a katana to manually close the dam, in a feat of superhuman yet layman strength evoking that of the common worker.

I looked this up to see what it's evoking. But really, it's calling the last page of All-Star Superman #12, which itself wasn't directly referencing a piece of art. Here's the closest I found for it on the internet: https://ask.metafilter.com/102370/image-of-man-pulling-lever

It's such a great comic book idea. In that 12th issue, Superman, by "dying," became a very part of the planet that adopted him and saved him, and in his death he returns that favor in the ultimate way. Now, he is a part of the clockwork that helps Planet Earth run. It's such a beautiful image and a great end to that miniseries. It tells us that through grit and perseverance, we can do something great. We tell ourselves that it's such a striking image that, surely, it must be based on some image or piece of art from real life. Socialism sounds right, due to its emphasis on the common worker, but like the above tells you, no, that image came from comic books.

Hawkeye #13
by Kelly Thompson and Leonardo Romero

I had the unfortunate circumstance of knowing enough about this comic to know that it's good, but not having read very much of it to know what's going on. Really, I just loved how the holographic variant cover turned from an homage to the original Hawkeye #1 cover, to a new cover that featured both Hawkeyes shooting arrows from the same rooftop. Pretty neat!

The pencils make me feel like I'm already back on track with Matt Fraction and David Aja's Hawkeye but sadly, I am still lost. There's a pretty solid cliffhanger, but I think I'd prefer to understand the full backstory in trade before I can drop another $4 on a single.

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Serials for October 2017: Captain America #695

I couldn't help myself. I was having dinner with my fiancée, and we were in the part of town where we first met. Fortuitous then, that I would also meet up again with another one of my loves: comic books. We had 20 minutes till the comic book store closed, so we walked off some of our meal on the way there.

They had the racks that I've set my eyes on for years. I perused the section and knew that Captain America returned in this week's issue: so I bit the bullet and purchased issue #695. Yikes, $3.99. I forgot they cost this much now. For that same price, I could get probably 300 pages of comic book story, for whatever comiXology has on sale. But instead, I paid 3.99 for 20 pages of story.

These days, the ads in print comic books are really just ads for other comic books. I don't mind this at all: I don't need my comic books to tell me that I can wear Spider-Man underwear, available TODAY at my nearest department store, or to tell me that there are Thor Ring Pops, now with MEAD FLAVOR!

Anyways, that's a long introduction just to tell you that I got serials last week. I won't be getting them regularly, but it's fresh off the press, so let's talk about. . .

Captain America #695

"Home of the Brave," Part 1

by Mark Waid and Chris Samnee

This story is broken up into two parts: one right after Cap was unfrozen, and then 10 years later, after he defeated the impostor in Secret Empire. It's told through the lens of a small town in Nebraska, and you get a sense of who Captain America is.

It's a good character piece, framed through this one town's interaction with Cap. There's a letter at the end that explains Mark Waid's vision of Captain America as well. To Waid, he's different from other Marvel heroes, because he's not this person who's driven by tragedy to do good. For him, he doesn't need a tragedy to do the right thing; you do the right thing simply because it's the right thing, and when you work together it does make the world a better place. This is a man with such a strong moral compass that you understand why he leads others. That, and his super-sweet acrobatic abilities!

My standout moment from the issue is Captain America's lesson about who protects whom. The strong protect the weak, simply because they can do it. That's how the world ought to work, and you see him directly practice it. He protects Donna, a schoolgirl, from a bullet, which ricochets and shoots down the pole of the American Flag. Right before the flag falls, he picks it up, and then covers Donna in it, urging her to protect the weak. It never touches the ground, simply because you never let the American flag touch the ground.

So much panache. So much style! If only the real world were so simple.

BONUS PANEL: Steve shows up at a Capt. America celebration, as Steve, and another attendee mistakes him for a cosplayer!

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Trades for 2/23/13: Death of the Dream, Return of a Legend

That's right you guys. He's been gone for a while, but now he's back. It's the long-awaited return of the McRib sandwich.

. . . wait. Hold on. I'm confusing my Americas. Today we're talking about Captain America. I got ahold of Road to Reborn and Reborn, and got to finishing them as well. So get your flags ready, and put on your baseball caps, 'cause America's back, baby.

Click here to read more about Captain America's death.

Captain America: Road to Reborn
By Ed Brubaker, Luke Ross, Butch Guice and Gene Colan
collects Captain America #'s 49-50, 600-601

Issue 600 is super-sized, so don't let the issue count fool you. For a four-issue paperback, there's a lot of material, and the material is really repetitive. Each issue rehashes Steve Rogers' life in one way or another. Issue 49 has a splendid Marcos Martin-drawn set of pages that retell his life and times. Then over the course of the next few issues, Cap's teammates, Sharon, the Falcon and Bucky start monologuing the heck out of his life. Then issue 600 throws another montage at you! It gets tiring you guys.

What this trade tells me is that people are not over the Death of Captain America. Which is fine, he's a great guy. Did a lot of cool stuff. I'd just rather read some stories than keep getting told how great a guy he was, or how much people miss him. Y'know, because that's why I'm reading this thing. To get some stories.

Gene Colan does a super-special supernatural special for issue 601. It's. . . strange, to say the least. The anatomy is off, and there's this murky painting color to it. There are no panels, so the pages blur into each other. Bucky recalls the time Hitler set loose some vampires during the war, so it's this whole Cap n' Bucky vs. vampires deal, a little reminiscent of Mike Mignola's Hellboy-verse.

Lastly, here is a nice page about Bucky striving to live up to Steve's legacy:

Captain America: Reborn
by Ed Brubaker, Bryan hitch and Butch Guice
collects the six-issue mini

Remember Captain America's assassination? That sucked didn't it. Well, it turns out that the bullets used to shoot Cap, were time bullets, and so Steve Rogers' consciousness was stuck on a never-ending loop of the ridiculously exciting and tragic times of his life. And he can't do anything about it, otherwise his actions in the past will affect his future.

With some scheming from Norman Osborn, Director of H.A.M.M.E.R. and some collaboration with the Red Skull-bot from previous storyarcs, they force Steve Rogers back into their own time. It ends pretty much the way you'd expect, with a huge fight in front of the Washington Memorial, an army of M.O.D.O.K.s to kill the Avengers, a Red-Skull controlled Steve Rogers and a giant robo Red Skull to fight.

This thing is its own miniseries, and that makes sense. It doesn't fit the tone of Brubaker's Captain America title, and it has a way different artist. It reads like a big action movie, with a lot of wide-screen shots and splash pages. Although it doesn't have the intrigue that Brubaker's Cap does, tt's really fun to read, visually. It was a good way to bring back Steve Rogers, but I don't think it'd be a good introduction to the title or the character.

BONUS SCANS:

My scanner was not manly enough to capture the glory of this two-page spread. Dig the way his body takes over the two pages. It's a great shot!

Check out Iron Man's supple buttocks. Metal has no right to be this sexy.

Verily, Thor would tap that ass.

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Trades for 1-14-13: The Death of Captain America and more

Welcome to chezkevin! You can sit at any table you'd like. I'll be your waiter today -- Floyd. Would you like anything to drink? What can I start you off with? Not much, because we only have one appetizer today:

Predator versus Judge Dredd
by John Wagner and Alcatena
collecting the 3-issue miniseries and the short story "Predator: Rite of Passage"

I have no idea how big the Predator franchise was, because I was 8 at the time and watching Mighty Morphin Power Rangers, but it must've been big enough to get a 3-issue miniseries from Dark Horse comics, crossing over with Judge Dredd (who I assume was also big enough). In this short, 76-page, $9.95 trade paperback, a Predator crash lands on Mega-City One and decides to hunt the greatest prey there -- the Judges. After a few gruesome murders, there's one final confrontation between the Predator, Dredd and a descendant of one of the movie characters, now a Judge from the PSI division, which ends pretty much the way you'd expect. For a 3-issue miniseries, I think it could have been told in a single prog.

The biggest thematic significance seems to come from the PSI judge's comparison between Dredd and the Predator: both of them are singular in goal, one consumed by justice and the other consumed by the hunt. It doesn't really go farther than that. Aside from the grisly murders, there's one thing that really stands out to me:

Alcatena really likes drawing perspective, and he nails these scenes of hunting: it's this specific hierarchy, this specific top/bottom of hunting your prey without the prey knowing it, which gets turned on its head when Dredd confronts it. This is the kind of read that I would only expect Predator or Dredd fans to enjoy.

That might hold off your hunger until the main dish today, served with a side of snark. That dish is

The Death of Captain America: Death of the Dream
collecting Captain America #'s 25-30
by Ed Brubaker, Steve Epting and Mike Perkins

If you haven't read through the Cap omnibus, read my review over here first. Brubaker's Cap is like one of those TV shows that gets better with each season, but you need to know what happened last season in order to get the most out of it. That link again is over here.

Ready? Death of the Dream follows where the omnibus ended, with Steve Rogers' assassination. This trade deals mainly in the aftermath, with Bucky doggedly running off to find who's responsible, as well as with Cap's allies, Sharon Carter (AKA Agent 13 of S.H.I.E.L.D., who resigns) and The Falcon. Not much happens here and Brubaker seems more interested in asking questions, than answering them in this trade (What happened to Steve? Who will take over for him? Where does Sharon get her hair done?) So I think I'll ask a few of my own, as I read through this:

That thing on Sharon's shoulder, is it a cloth shoulder patch or is it actually her shoulder? Why did the colorist have to make that thing the color of skin!

Whoa what happened to Steve? It can't be him, because he comes back in Captain America: Reborn. Don't spoil this for me, as I haven't checked it out yet!

Death of the Dream segues into The Burden of Dreams, collecting issues 31-36. Click here to read about that. Afterwards, read below for The Man Who Bought America, collecting issues 37-42.

The Death of Captain America: The Man Who Bought America
collecting Captain America #'s 37-42
by Ed Brubaker, Steve Epting and Roberta de la Torre

After all the setup in the previous issues and all the intrigue, we reach something of an endgame in this paperback. Brubaker cashes in all his plot devices, and it breaks the bank. The Red Skull pushes forward a candidate for President of the United States of America, and he makes his play for America's heart and soul. Take that, Obama!

Herr Skull also digs up a Steve Rogers clone from stories of eras past, and that makes for great drama. Count on Brubaker to make the plot devices from old stories -- clones and mind control -- and combine them with his own plot devices -- miscarriages and cybernetic left arms -- to weave a yarn that fits so well in the realm of espionage and comic books. Count on Brubaker to make Captain America such a strong title that moves forward as well as strengthen its past.

I was hugely satisfied with this trade paperback, seeing the fruits of 42 issues ripen. Additional kudos to Roberto de la Torre, who draws a powerful interlude issue that focuses on the Steve clone. If you look at his rough, messy lines, it really underlines the memory loss and roughness of the clone himself.

And, I thought I'd show you my favorite scene from this trade. Bucky, as Capt. America, dives in front of a rocket launcher with just his costume and shield, in order to protect America.

Ignore the cheap digital effects, and you will see the most magnificent moment in comic book history. I might as well stop reading comics now, because no other scene will ever compare.

But I won't, of course. Next week we'll be looking at the follow-up trade paperback, The Man with No Face along with Wolverine: Origins - Savior. Thank you for eating at chezkevin! We hope to see you again soon.

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Captain America Omnibus: Winter Soldier and more

I had the good fortune of finding the Captain America omnibus in the library last month and read it over the course of a week and a hot weekend. I'd read snippets here and there, namely, Winter Soldier vol. 1 and Death of a Dream, but neither of them affected me as a story. The storylines hinted at something bigger, but never told me more, and so left me unsatisfied every time I finished reading. With the omnibus, collecting both those stories and much more, including the Winter Soldier storyarc, I got an idea of the bigger picture, and changed my mind. Here are the details. I'm going to do a rundown of each particular storyarc as the table of contents breaks it down.

Captain America Omnibus Vol. 1
by Ed Brubaker, Steve Epting, Mike Perkins et al.

issues 1-7: "Out of Time" and "The Lonesome Death of Jack Monroe"
see here. The Red Skull is assassinated here, which is the umbrella plot point for Brubaker's mega-arc that doesn't conclude with even this omnibus. This first arc is mainly important for establishing tone: Brubaker's Captain America is one that reads like a spy thriller, with political conspiracies and flashbacks to the war.

issues 8-14: "Winter Soldier"

This is the story that clinched it for me. In the seven issues we dig deeper into what happened after that rocket exploded, catapulted Captain America into the arctic and supposedly killed his sidekick, Bucky. I don't think it's a spoiler to say that Bucky didn't die, and there are some juicy details behind how Bucky spent his life up to the present. As the "Winter Soldier," he was behind some of America's worst assassinations, dropping in and out of cryostasis when his Soviet masters deemed it necessary. Cap gets word about it, and the build-up to their first confrontation in the final issue is so powerful. It's my favorite issue, and to me, it's the reason the omnibus exists.

This storyarc gives us what makes Bucky so special, why he's an important character and why he means so much to Cap. It makes me believe in their characters and their relationship. The most powerful moment to me comes in one of Cap's flashbacks:

Doesn't that just kick you, right there? How much does it hurt to know more people under the dirt than above it? That's what makes Captain America human to me. That's what attaches me to him as a character.

The next Captain America movie is based on this, and I highly recommend it.

issues 15-17: "Red is the Darkest Color" &"Collision Courses"

These stories give us an idea of the Red Skull's sick history, via his daughter Synthea. After the Skull is assassinated, Crossbones kidnaps her from S.H.I.E.L.D. protection, removes  the S.H.I.E.L.D. programming and then goes on a crime spree with her. . . there's a lot of background to it, but it's pretty slick how the team writes it and draws it. A great sidestory.

Captain America 75th Anniversary Special

So this one-shot just nails it out of the park. It's a home run, and the ball's in the stratosphere. I really regret not picking this up the week it came out.

The special is one giant, vintage-colored flashback about one of Cap and Bucky's (and Nick Fury and the Howling Commando's) encounter in Germany, with the Red Skull's ridiculous radioactive robot "The Sleeper." It tells us, real-time, a lot of story elements that are crucial in the regular Cap title and tells it beautifully. Just look at this page from Javier Pulido.

It's so beautiful. Just dig the way those panels lead your eyes downwards, like a pinball falling from one slope to another. Look at that shield leading your eye into that final panel.

One more page:

Pulido is a master.

He makes the special one of the highlights, of many, of the omnibus.

issues 18-21: "Twenty-First Century Blitz" and issues 22-24: "The Drums of War"

In the first storyline, Cap and Sharon investigate one of the seedy corporations that was responsible for the Skull's assassination, and cross paths with Bucky along the way. It's a fun buddy romp as Cap teams up with British heroes Firestar and Captain Britain. We encounter the Red Skull's sleeper here.

In the second storyline, Sharon struggles with working for S.H.I.E.L.D., an organization responsible for enforcing the Superhuman Registration Act (SHRA, see: Civil War) and her love for Steve Rogers, Captain America, a man fighting against the SHRA.

Compliments to the colorist Frank D'Armata who, regardless of the penciller, kept the tone of the book consistent. You'll have a difficult time distinguishing Mike Perkins art from Steve Epting art, and that's a good thing. That's how you know they're doing their job.

Winter Soldier: Winter Kills

This is a Bucky-centric, Lee Weeks-drawn "Christmas special," so to speak, in that Bucky has to deal with his first Christmas after getting his memories back. . . it's an award-winning comic book for the pathos it shows, and it's a sterling example of Brubaker's mastery of memory and emotions.

issue 25: "The Death of the Dream, part one"

Cap is assassinated here. I like Ed's commentary on it, provided in the back, on how he wanted it to read like an "American tragedy." It surely does.

issue 10: "House of M"

This House of M tie-in has nothing to do with Brubaker's mega-arc, but is included for continuity's sake. Like Winter Kills, it's drawn by Lee Weeks and it uses that evocation of the past that Brubaker is so good at. It's framed by a Steve Rogers, now old and wrinkly, reflecting on the accomplishments he made in his life: arresting Hitler and walking on the moon, amidst the mutant domination that's taken over the world. Although it has a final page that only House of M readers would understand, it's a powerful issue overall.

Oh, and Baron Zemo:

To sum up, do I recommend this omnibus? My answer is, a tentative yes. If you're interested, even a little, I suggest looking for some volumes in your library or online. Brubaker accomplishes so much in these 25 issues. It's a powerful, emotional and fun tale to ride if you're willing, and it's a great introduction to Captain America.

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Trades for 10-29-12: Epting, Epting and Albuquerque

Hi all! Today I have not one, not two but three comic book trades for you. Ya dig?

Fantastic Four vol.4
collecting issues 583-588, "Three"
by Jonathan Hickman and Steve Epting
$16.49, Amazon

Hey, I've never read any of Hickman's Fantastic Four before, and, thankfully, this library book was as good as any other. He starts right off the bat with an upset in one of the characters' status quos: due to exposure from the recent world they were exploring, The Thing sheds his rock skin and becomes a human-looking Ben Grimm what with hair and all. This makes for my favorite issue of the trade, in which Johnny Storm takes Ben out for a night on the town, and it's pretty touching. Check out who they have dinner with:

Get it? It's Stan and Jack. If ever you had any doubts about Hickman as a Fantastic Four writer, they're taken down right there. Ben Grimm also runs into the all-new, all-action Yancy Street Gang, a group of now-unemployed stock traders from the recession that bully unaware New Yorkers:

Nice one Ben! At the end of the issue, Ben goes to see Alicia, and it's an excellent scene.

Although it was my favorite, Ben's arc isn't the main point of the trade -- the reason it's called "Three" is that Johnny Storm dies in this storyarc, saving the world from another Annihilus invasion. I'm sure it was a big deal in 2011, when it came out. It's given its proper weight and it's heroic, but it's hard to be anything other than ambivalent about it. 'Cause, oh look, hi Johnny, you returned in issue 600 in 2012. Thanks comics.

Captain America: The Death of Captain America vol. 2
collecting issues 31-36, "The Burden of Dreams"
by Ed Brubaker and Steve Epting
$10.19, Amazon

I read this one about two months ago so there's this huge gap between what I remember and what's actually there on the page. I skimmed through the thing when I was on the toilet, and I honestly can't tell you much more than, "Bucky reluctantly accepts the mantle of Captain America and handles the duties in his own way while still honoring Steve Rogers."

There's a story here, I'm sure, but until you've read all the issues in "The Death of Captain America," it's not really there. Re-readability works only if you read every issue together, and no single issue stands alone. It's won awards and prestige, but Brubaker's Captain America goes at a pace that I can't appreciate. But hey, check out Bucky's bionic arm whamming a dude by its own device

Hah! It'll be the new banner here eventually. This trade is labeled volume 2, but volume 1 is labeled "Winter Soldier" and collects issues 1-7. I get that this is the second volume for "The Death of Captain America," but that's a really cryptic way to label your paperbacks, Marvel. Boo.

American Vampire vol. 2
collecting "Devil in the Sand" and "The Way Out" back-ups (issues 6-11)
by Scott Snyder, Rafael Albuquerque and Mateus Santolouco
$11.42, Amazon

It takes a while for "Devil in the Sand" to get going, but by the third issue, you can really sink your teeth into it. Leave it to American Vampire to introduce new characters in the middle of the title and make them compelling. It's America in the 1930s, and we take the perspective of the sheriff of a small town in Nevada. You might have heard it -- it's called Las Vegas, and a few businessmen are attending the small town for the construction of the Boulder Dam. And it turns out those businessmen . . . are vampires!

Scott Snyder weaves a story that's about American industry and progress, as much as it's about a vampire class war, as much as it's about a small town sheriff and his world. While I was lukewarm on the first volume, the second volume is really worth your time.

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Hey Captain America! How about our troops huh?

From John Romita Sr. pencils, taken from themarvelageofcomics.tumblr.com

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