Captain America #48

Brandon Borzelli's Geek Goggle Reviews

Captain America #48
Marvel Comics
Brubaker, Guice, Ross & D’Armata

This issue wraps up the short three issue arc that deals with the new Captain America’s struggle with his own past. It’s a good issue because Bucky aka Captain America can’t save the day all by himself. He relies on his support system and a little bit of luck. It helps to keep this character grounded a little bit and doesn’t make him grow up too quickly.

Bucky begins this issue behind the eight ball. Chin, the mad scientist, is using Bucky’s dead friend, The Human Torch, as a virus. He’s testing it on Namor, Bucky’s ace in the hole. Chin’s plan isn’t world domination or power or even money. No, he just wants to reduce the world’s population with the virus. He’s really the Charles Manson of Earth Day when you get down to it.

The Black Widow busts in and saves Namor and Bucky. However, all is not well. Chin has the virus ready to launch and runs off to trigger the device. You’d be surprised how fast an eighty year old guy can run! While, this is going on, his men and the man with no face keep Namor, Bucky and Widow at bay. In the end, Bucky gets very lucky in how he stops the world from getting this virus dumped on them.

This was a good issue. There’s plenty of action, some mustache twisting sinister plans and a bit of a tricky ending. The comic helps bring Bucky around a little into embracing his new role as Captain America. As seen, he runs around this issue dressed as the Winter Soldier. He has an excuse as to why he is doing this, but it seems the real reason is he hasn’t yet fully accepted that he is now Captain America. Especially when dealing with some of the old Cap’s good friends like the Human Torch.

While this issue has plenty of characters in it that get face time it never loses its focus of what the struggle really is about. Bucky is trying to right a wrong for once from his previous life. Not his World War II life but his Winter Soldier life. If only he killed Chin when he was supposed to, this all wouldn’t be happening.

The artwork fits this story very well. The dark shading and colors help leave the characters under a bit of a veil that seems appropriate for this story. I liked the action sequences as well, especially the depiction of the shield getting whipped around.

The comic is moving away from the epic sweeping stories but it isn’t slowing down at all. This arc involved three characters (and one dead) that we hadn’t seen in the recent run of this series and used them very effectively. Some needed introduction while others didn’t. This particular comic gives the reader a concise issue of a mission, some action, an escape and an interesting ending all set with the undertones of a good spy story. This is worth picking up.

4 out of 5 geek goggles