Captain America #44 – Review

By Ed Brubaker (writer), Luke Ross (pencils), Fabio Laguna and Rick Magyar (inks), Frank D’Armata (colors)

The Story: Following the events of last issue, Bucky follows the trail of Batroc the Leaper through the mercenary underground in order to uncover what he was after following the raid in the UN building. During this chase, we are treated to a few flashbacks of Bucky in his Winter Soldier days when he on a mission in China which reveals some connections to his current quest. The clash between Bucky’s past and present lives culminates with the appearance of a mysterious and powerful new foe.

The Good: The story is well-paced and interspersed with enough mystery, action, and tight dialogue to infuse the story with some intrigue and excitement. Ed Brubaker does an excellent job of sculpting Bucky as an “everyman” hero that you can’t help but root for— he takes a beating, makes mistakes, doubts himself, gets scared, and has a past he’d like to forget.

Luke Ross creates solid character renditions that are even more picturesque than Steve Epting’s. Additionally, the momentum of the action scenes mixed with fine scenic detail helps make this an overall gorgeous book.

The-Not-So-Good: A few of the action scenes seem a little needless and only serve to hold up the story’s progression, thus making the story feel flat. Additionally, the story ends anticlimactically as the new character is just another unknown figure associated with a bunch of other unknown figures. His (I assume it is an “he,” but it could be an “it”) reveal is more of an, “okay…so….” as opposed to a “wow!”

Conclusion: I like, not love, Bucky as the new Cap and was unconvinced that he’s interesting enough to keep me coming back to this series. However, Brubaker’s prowess in spinning compelling stories with complex characters, like he does in this story, is more than enough to convince me to stick around.

Grade: B

-Rob G.