Captain America: Operation Rebirth

I mentioned I was probably going to pick this up in the “Captain America” podcast if I could find it for half price, and I did.  Even though I’ve already read four of the issues collected here, the whole package still holds up pretty well as a snapshot of ‘90’s-era Marvel along with the good work that writer Mark Waid and artist Ron Garney did with the character.  I’ve already gone on record about the quality of the title story, but the other tales here are just as good.  The volume opens up with a nice summation of what the character means to his fellow Avengers and the Marvel Universe at large as the team has to improvise when terrorists take President Clinton hostage and refuse to set him free unless the “presumed dead” Captain meets them in person.

Clinton also features prominently in the other extended story collected here, “Man Without A Country.”  After the events of “Operation:  Rebirth”  it should’ve been back to business as usual for Steve Rogers, but it turns out that the government has a lot of questions about why he was working with the Red Skull and former S.H.I.E.L.D. agent Sharon Carter.  Surprisingly, those questions pale in comparison to how top-secret military technology that only Steve knew about wound up in the hands of a foreign nation.  Not wanting to put the symbol of America on trial, Clinton rescinds his American citizenship and exiles him to London.

Naturally, our hero isn’t going to take this lying down and what follows is very 90’s in its over-the-top and melodramatic execution, and will undoubtedly be of limited appeal to anyone who can’t get past the style of the time.  If you are able to get past all that, you’ll find a rousing superhero story that shows the title character at his best.  Waid makes sure the pacing never flags and does a great job of serving up some terrific action scenes and some impressive “How’re they going to get out of this!?” cliffhangers at the end of each issue.  Garney’s characters may look a bit over-muscled and excessively angry, but he matches Waid’s energy in his art, and his mid-air parachuteless rescue of Sharon Carter still comes off as a terrific piece of action.

The volume finishes with a one-off where Steve teams up with Sharon to liberate some political prisoners in Asia and finds out part of what happened to her during the time she was thought to be dead.  It’s a nice enough send-off for the creators before the character was handed off to Rob Liefeld and co. for “Heroes Reborn.”  I’ve never read any of his work with the character… but I have a feeling that it has aged even less well than the stories collected here.  So even if these stories are relics from another era, like the title character, they’re still good to have around.