Captain America by Ta-Nehisi Coates vol. 1: Winter in America

It took a while, but Coates has shown that he can deliver a thrilling comic with this latest volume of “Black Panther.”  Now he looks to replicate that success as the new writer on “Captain America.” It’s a good sign that Coates shows he really gets how to balance action and speechifying here, effortlessly blending the title character’s many internal monologues with lots of scenes of beating up bad guys set to Lenil Yu’s dynamic art.  The problem is that his approach, in both theme and story, looks to borrow a lot from a “Cap” run that did a lot to disappoint me by its end.

I speak of Ed Brubaker’s run.  Yes, I realize that his run is considered one of the best (if not the best) on the character and also served to inspire one of the best entries in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, “Captain America:  The Winter Soldier.” While I’ve got a lot of love for his creator-owned work, the latter half of his “Cap” run felt like nothing but one long string of disappointments for me. Mainly because nearly all of the stories Brubaker told after Steve Rogers’ return from the dead involved either him or Bucky being outsmarted by the bad guys and said bad guys usually getting away without any consequences.  My short criticism of this is that it was a bummer of a second half that didn’t deliver what I like to see from my Marvel Comics and failed to replace it with something equally compelling.

So when it starts to read like Coates is heading down the same road that Brubaker tread I find it hard to get excited about what he’s doing here.  No matter how skillfully it’s pulled off. It all starts with Cap thwarting an attack by Nuke soldiers on American soil only to be greeted by Gen. Thaddeus “Thunderbolt” Ross.  Steve is surprised to see him here because the last he heard of Ross was that he was in jail. It turns out that the General is but a number of high-profile felons, including Wilson Fisk, Wolfgang Von Strucker, and Ezekiel Stane, who have been paroled by the government for leading resistance cells against Hydra’s “Secret Empire.”  This is just one more reminder to Cap about the lasting damage done by his doppleganger in that event.

It’s also an indication that Coates is looking to treat “Secret Empire” as something that has long-lasting ramifications for the character here as well.  I understand there are a lot of people who are just looking to forget that event ever happened, but I’m actually interested in what the writer has to say here.  While the story in this volume is ostensibly about Cap grappling with another supervillain conspiracy, it’s really about the divisions that are undermining our country today.

More specifically, it’s about how an outside force can recognize them and exploit these divisions to their advantage.  One of the main villains here makes a great point about looking at the disenfranchised in America, in both the upper and lower classes, and realizing that they’ve got a “glorious proletariat” to work with.  That these people are already halfway to having a Russian mindset to begin with, which will make them incredibly susceptible to Russian machinations. It probably goes without saying at this point that if you weren’t a fan of how Nick Spencer injected politics into his “Captain America” comics then you’re likely to be similarly put off here as well.

That’s not what bothered me about this volume, however.  It was more annoying for me to see how Cap just couldn’t catch a break here.  For every minor triumph he managed — taking out the Nukes, stopping a Russia-backed cell in a small town, going hand-to-hand against Taskmaster and winning — something always happened immediately afterwards to show that it didn’t matter as much as we thought it did.  Either that or it was playing into the hands of the main villain of this volume.

Alexa [Last Name Redacted for Spoilers] is a new character with ties to one of the main villains from Brubaker’s run.  In fact, her ties to said villain are personal and are the real motivation for what she’s doing here. She’s quite close to a genuine Russian historical villain whose presence here would seem to be at odds with the grounded story Coates is trying to tell.  I honestly thought this bit was the best part of her character and would’ve loved to have seen the story lean harder into the ridiculousness it tempts. Instead, it’s all about the person she brings back who also happens to be a key player from the Brubaker era.

Up to this point I was willing to look past Cap’s inability to catch a break in the story thus far.  It was only when this villain came back that things really started to feel like the bad old days of Brubaker’s run.  I can understand why the writer would want to try and bring back this character, and it’s not just to appeal to all of the fans of that run.  That’s because in the volume’s best twist, and the only thing that really gives me hope here, we find out that this villain didn’t come back alone.  The… personality that was brought back also has some fascinating implications as far as the secret Russian invasion of the U.S. goes in the story Coates is telling.  My main hope here is that Alexa finds out what she’s done sooner rather than later so we can see her struggle and come to grips with her actions. Preferably while she’s still alive and not in the moments before her death.

While I have definite issues with the story, my feelings about the art are a lot more straightforward.  I’ve always thought Lenil Yu has been a fantastic superhero artist and he doesn’t disappoint here either.  His Captain America cuts a bold, heroic figure on the page whether he’s striding into a fight or trying to talk things over among friends.  Yu even manages to capture the character’s uncertainty about his role, which is good because that’s something demanded by the story. The fight scenes are satisfyingly crunchy as well, and even distract from the fact that the backgrounds in this volume feel a little more sparse than in the artist’s previous works.  Maybe it’s a one-off thing, or maybe it’s just me? What’s here is still good enough to make investigating this issue in the future fun rather than a chore.

There’s no denying that Coates got better as a writer over the course of his run on “Black Panther,” and I’m hoping that he’s come up with a good long-term plan for “Captain America” now that he’s got a good grip on how to write for the medium.  I just can’t help but feel concern towards how much he’s leaned into what Brubaker was doing on his run with this volume. People who loved that run are probably going to be more appreciative of what Coates is doing here, just not me. I still think that what’s here is just good enough to get me to come back for vol. 2 to see where the writer takes things.