Captain America #7 – Review

Rick Remender (Writer), John Romita Jr., Klaus Janson (Artists), Dean White (Colorist)

The Story: Steve Rogers tries to find Ian, his son, yet Jet Black stands in his way toward his goal as he advance in Zola’s domain.

The Review: Intent is something that can be difficult to properly gauge. Sometimes, an author tries to give a certain tone or a certain mood to a story he is telling, yet does so in a way that is perhaps too subtle or ambiguous. This might lead to people not seeing the actual meaning behind some key scenes or the works that clearly influenced the take on a certain subject.

I am telling this right now because I am afraid that I might be confused as to the intent behind Rick Remender and his take on the sentinel of liberty. In some way, this seems to be a rather touching story about a man discovering how to be a father and doing what is right to save his son, yet in other ways this seems like a take on good old science-fiction stories from the 20’s and 30’s, like Buck Rogers. It seems to be both sometimes, yet at the same time it struggles between the cheesier aspect of the dialogue and the more touching and serious aspects of its script.

One of the key areas where this can be seen would be in the dialogue, which goes from touching and heartfelt to sometimes really clichéd. In the opening pages of the issue, we get a really great scene with Steve and Ian, who talks to the boy he had adopted as his son about the fact that he is happy right now that he can be with him, yet there is another place where we get one of the most overused dialogue trope ever conceived: the ‘’listen to your heart’’ speech. To summarize what this is, it’s a moment where someone on the evil side of the equation is convinced to join the good side not by arguments or with any actual proof, but rather by the good guy telling that person that it would be the right thing to do. I’m not saying that this specific trope cannot ever be used in smart ways, yet here in this issue it is used in a way that feels very corny, close to an unbelievable way. It removes a bit of the actual conflict and the character building that has been show, or rather it precipitates the development to full speed on the character of Jet Black, which seems a bit jarring and forced.

However, even if a lot of what I said about this issue seems to be on the negative, allow me to balance things out by talking about the better aspects of the book. First of all, the action here is very well done, with Steve Rogers fighting great odds one after another, which does give a lot of tension and adds drama to the whole story. Whether it’s when he’s fighting one of the captains of Zolandia, Jet Black or some of the guards, it can be seen he could be easily outmatched, yet he never backs down or despair when coming to face with such challenges.

Captain America #6 – Review

By: Rick Remender (Writer), John Romita Jr., Tom Palmer, Klaus Janson, Scott Hanna (Artists), Dean White (Colorist)

The Story: Captain America assaults the stronghold of Arnim Zola, as Ian is being held by the mad scientist himself.

The Review: There is nothing more fearful than a man scorned, it seems, as the very presentation of the whole conflict shown in this newer volume of Captain America so far has been turned upside down, for the better it seems, as we get to see Captain America being much more proactive than reactive here. This kind of event and direction leads to several developments that builds on what the series had shown so far, adding to the building blocks while respecting a whole more about Steve Rogers.

Captain America #5 – Review

By: Rick Remender (Writer), John Romita Jr., Tom Palmer, Scott Hanna (Artists), Dean White, Lee Loughridge (Colorists)

The Story: Zola invades the Phrox ground and kills the tribe while his daughter tries to kill Steve Rogers during the attack.

The Review: Is it already the time for more science-fiction goodness from Rick Remender? It seems so, as another issue from this definitely different take on the adventures of Steve Rogers is upon us and this one is decidedly great in many ways, but suffers in other parts.

What is pretty great here would be the story, as many of the points developed by Remender during the first four issues of the series meet here. Jet Black, Zola’s daughter, along with her dad comes head to head with Steve, Ian meets his father, Steve manages to find a way to remove the Zola virus and the fate of the Phrox tribe is all shown here, to great dramatic effect. Although it had been kind of chaotic at times, many of the threads introduced by Remender manages to get even bigger and weirder in this issue, showing us that we cannot even begin to see what is ahead for the series.

Captain America #4 – Review

By: Rick Remender (Writer), John Romita Jr., Klaus Janson (Artist), Dean White (Colorist)

The Story: Eleven years later, Steve Rogers goes on a hunt with Ian and makes some key discoveries about the boy and how to get out of Zolandia.

The Review: Some people may have already got accustomed to it, but it is still a little bit weird for me to consider this title a sci-fi one. It is quite a jump from a genre to another, but the tone is so different from the previous volume that it is hard to not feel a little bizarre about all this.
I mean that in the most positive of ways.

A strange thing to say, I admit, but this feeling of utter strangeness from the shift of genre and tone is actually also felt in the book in itself, just like us readers. Remender throws dozens of concepts at once during the issue, not explaining most of it, yet the majority of these ideas are simple enough for us to understand. From the very first page of the book, Remender takes us unaware and just continues like this, creating something completely surprising in many ways.