Captain America: Steve Rogers vol. 3 — Empire Building

I’m convinced that writer Nick Spencer conceived this volume as a final test to weed out the readers who aren’t completely on board with his “Hydra Cap” storyline.  How else to explain the “Civil War II:  The Oath” one-shot where Cap demonstrates an almost demonic glee as he gloats to a comatose Tony Stark about how everything’s going his, and Hydra’s, way.  If you’ve merely been tolerating Spencer’s take on Cap then the amount of smug arrogance on display is likely going to be hard to take.  Speaking as someone who has been on board with Spencer’s plan, the level of villainy on display from Mr. Rogers reaches almost comical levels.  I can easily see the writer cackling with glee as he wrote some of the dialogue here.

It’s worth noting that “The Oath” does a good job of laying out the road plan for “Secret Empire” with the rest of the volume filling things in further.  We get more of Steve’s Cosmic Cube-altered history that mainly has the aim of separating Hydra from the Nazis.  Some may find this to be too little, too late for them, but it works for me.  Particularly in the way it sets up Cap’s showdown with the Red Skull and we see the Nazi finally get the poetic justice he so richly deserves.

We also get to see Steve work to undermine the new planetary shield set up by Captain Marvel, the establishment of a new Hydra High Command, Maria Hill on the run in Madripoor, Taskmaster and Black Ant goofing their way into a job with Hydra, and more.  In fact, there’s so much going on that Marvel had to get TWELVE different artists to illustrate the issues contained in this volume.  Some of the art is quite good, a good portion is as rushed as you’d expect, and there’s very little stylistic consistency to hold the volume together.  The basic storytelling in the issues themselves is still solid and the final issue works as a great springboard into “Secret Empire.”  I was left wishing that the collected edition of the event was out now, but your mileage may vary depending on how interesting you’ve found the whole “Hydra Cap” storyline so far.