Winter Soldier #6 – Review

By: Ed Brubaker (writer), Michael Lark (penciler), Stefano Gaudiano & Brian Thies (inkers), Bettie Breitweiser (colorist), and Joe Caramagna (letterer)

The Story: So….where the heck is that third sleeper agent?!

The Review:  Between Michael Lark’s dark, moody artwork and Ed Brubaker’s tight narration, I was really struck by how much this issue felt like an issue of Brubaker’s Criminal.  Naturally, that’s a very good thing.  It makes for beaten down characters lost in existential crisis and a general whirlwind of desperation and things constantly going from bad to worse.  In other words, Criminal is noir and so this comic is superhero noir.

Much of this issue is spent establishing new villain, and third sleeper agent, Leo Novokov.  Once again, Winter Soldier succeeds where Brubaker’s Captain America has faltered as of late, as in one issue, we have a very well-established, compelling villain with an interesting backstory and a clear trajectory from sympathetic figure to cold-blooded killer.  Brubaker manages this through a sequence of street-level flashbacks narrated by Leo, a sort of Jason Bourne meets Criminal mash-up.  It’s fantastic watching Leo slowly struggling to figure out who he is, only to have events kick in to dictate to him the answer.  The end result is a character, and a plot, loaded with pathos and ice in the veins.