Captain America: Steve Rogers vol. 1 — Hail Hydra

It’s cute how the text on the back cover of this volume dances around the big twist in this newest volume of Steve Rogers’ adventures as Captain America.  We’re told that “The original sentinel of liberty is back!” and is focused on rounding up the villains on the run from Pleasant Hill, taking down the Red Skull who is also the new head of Hydra, while also making his own plans as well.  This is cute because unless you’ve been living under a rock since last May you’re already aware that Steve’s reality has been re-written to make it so that he’s been an agent of Hydra all along.  Some have been horrified to see that this character who was created to fight the Nazis in WWII is now working for their modern-day equivalent.  Now I can’t be sure that these people have never read a superhero comic before, but the rest of us know that this is likely the first part of a longer storyline which will see Steve back on the side of the good guys at its end.

In the meantime, writer Nick Spencer looks to be setting things up for a clever twist on the usual Cap/Red Skull rivalry.  While the story has the villain holding all the cards as Hydra’s leader, and therefore being the man that Steve reports to, it doesn’t remain that way for long.  Steve has his issues with the Skull’s ruthless methods and that leads him to start mounting his own operation inside Hydra in order to wrest it from its leader.  Yes, Cap does do some pretty bad things here, but his essential humanitarian nature is still present.  It’s just been twisted in a way that serves Hydra and leads him into conflict with the Skull.  After years of stories that have had the Skull constantly one step ahead of the good guys, it’s actually refreshing to have one where a “hero” works to take him down from the inside.

While this is the narrative for most of the volume, things get a bit bogged down in the second half.  That’s the “Civil War II” crossover section and I’m going to have to read the event itself to determine how I feel about it.  Either Spencer is finding clever ways to explain Cap’s actions in the event that square with this storyline, or there’s a lot of stuff being made up here to make it seem that way.  Regardless of how that turns out, I’m still pretty sold on this new direction for the character.  Throw in the fact that Spencer hasn’t entirely abandoned his winningly quirky sense of humor and some sharp art from Jesus Saiz and Javier Pina and you’ve got a “superior” Cap story that should play out in entertaining fashion over the next several volumes.