Captain America by Chip Zdarsky vol. 1: Our Secret Wars

It’s an interesting time to be Captain America right now.  After all, what does America represent anymore?  New writer Chip Zdarsky has the character say here that he believes in striving to live up to the ideals of our country even as those in the military around him fight for self-interest.  That’s not really what this volume is about, though.  It’s meant to introduce us to David Colton, the man who took up the mantle of Captain America after 9/11.  Who, if his depiction in this volume is any indication, may be the next major supervillain to emerge in the Marvel Universe.

Now, the monthly adventures of “Captain America” have been chronicled in comic book form since the 60’s.  Which includes the real-life post 9/11 era.  So how is it possible that someone could have been Captain America during that time while there were comics that had the character dealing with that traumatic event?  Because of the way Marvel’s “sliding timeline” works in relation to continuity.  All of its characters have been in active service “for the past several years” with decades of comics history being compressed into that space.  It’s why Frank Castle is now a veteran of the first Gulf War and, for the purposes of the story here, Captain America was thawed out after 9/11.

The world Steve Rogers awakes to is considerably different for him, but the story isn’t here to dwell on that.  He goes right back into military service because that’s all he knows how to do, and General Thaddeus “Thunderbolt” Ross has just the right job for him:  Taking on a tyrannical despot.  There’s been a coup in Latveria with one Victor Von Doom having forcibly seized power.  After Doom has closed off the country in the wake of this, people in the American embassy there have effectively been taken hostage.  Steve’s been assigned to go in with two marines, and one Major David Colton, a man who saw the towers fall and wanted to make a difference in the world by standing up to fight its bullies.

We’ll get back to David, as this is still Steve’s show.  Which means that he gets to have a crash course in seeing how things aren’t as black and white as they were – for him, at least – during WWII.  So you get to see him play nice with the military, agree to go on this straightforwardly well-meaning mission, stand up to Doom with his words and fists, and then go off and join the Avengers when he finds out that a lot of what he was fighting for here was a sham.  It’s all perfectly standard “Captain America”-brand superhero stuff that, if nothing else, really underlines why he won’t directly ally himself with the military these days.  I’ll admit that there’s entertainment to be had in seeing what’s now his first canonical meeting with Doom even though the story he’s in doesn’t really do anything you wouldn’t expect it to.

That’s also true for how it handles David, at least so far.  He’s Zdarsky’s major addition to the “Captain America” lore and he works on a basic level as a reflection of the world that his predecessor has found himself in.  Driven to his purpose by an act of terror rather than a global war.  Stomped on by bullies who were part of his basic training in the army.  Sent into warzones where liberation was only the beginning of the fight.  Forced to deal with terrible situations involving children and his comrades-in-arms in a way Steve never had to.  Seeing everything that he went through before this mission, it feels like the point Zdarsky is trying to make is that the Captain America we know could only have been forged in a conflict between clear good guys and bad guys.  Trying to create one now where that line isn’t so clear, or when “good” and “bad” is more a matter of personal preference, is a recipe for disaster.

Which David makes abundantly clear in the final issue.  I understand the tragedy of the character, but this is only his first act.  He shows up in the “Wolverine:  Weapons of Armageddon” miniseries in the present day after this, then in the main “Armageddon” event after receiving a major power-up.  Word is that he’s also set to join Zdarsky’s “Avengers” series, which seems like favoritism if I ever saw it.  Except I don’t think that’s what the writer is doing here.

David is presented in “Our Secret Wars” as a classic case of someone with the best of intentions, the power to see them realized, but unable to find a way to actually do so.  It’s why things go badly for him here and he would’ve made for a good enough cautionary tale if this had been the last we’d see of him.  It’s not, and he’s being given even more power on top of the upgrades he got in order to be Captain America.  That doesn’t sound like how you become a superhero, but it sure seems like how you make someone into a supervillain.

Which I don’t think is a bad idea at this point in the company’s history.  It’s been harder than ever for them to get new characters to break out these days, and harder still to find new takes on existing ones.  David’s an interesting case because I get the feeling that he’s not being set up to have a very long shelf life.  With him (presumably) being elevated to Avenger status, the expectation is that he’s going to crack under the pressure and the team is going to have to stop him when he goes rogue.  Before that, we’ll get lots of time showing how he interacts with all these familiar heroes, creating a new team dynamic in the process before we get into the hero gone bad of it.

I can see that story working.  I’ll probably want to read it.  Which means that it’ll be HILARIOUS if none of this is the case and [REDACTED] in the solicitation for Zdarsky’s “Avengers” turns out to be Howard the Duck.  Which… yeah, I’d probably still read it.

I’ll also admit that this is a whole lot of words without mentioning the artist of this volume, Valerio Schiti.  He’s done lots of great work at Marvel over the years, with Jonathan Hickman on “New Avengers,” “Inferno,” and “G.O.D.S.,” and Kieron Gillen on the “Judgment Day” event.  Here, he dials back the spiky stylization of his recent work to something more smoother and conventional.  It’s solid work, and proof of his range as the story calls for the artist to deliver scenes that are a lot more grounded than the fantastic superhero spectacle that he’s been doling out on a regular basis at the company over the past few years.  Which is to say that I won’t mind seeing what he continues to do on this title, but maybe it’s possible that one of the FIVE artists illustrating the next volume will deliver something better.

Which I’ll be back for as Zdarsky tries to thread the needle between “One World Under Doom” to “Armageddon.”  That’s all well and good, but I’d also like to see what he does to illustrate his long-term plans for Cap.  With this first volume, he’s given us a decent proof-of-concept for David as a character, but it’s ultimately just a continuity implant retcon that doesn’t tell us much about where we’re going with “Captain America.”  Sure, that may mirror Steve Rogers’ ongoing issues with being a man out of time, but I think it makes this story more interesting than genuinely entertaining in the end.