Captain America: Two Americas

(Or, vol. 12 in Ed Brubaker’s run for those of you still keeping track at home.)

Now that Steve Rogers is back in the present, the next item on this series’ agenda is settling who gets to be Captain America in the “Who Will Wield the Shield” one-shot that kicks off this volume.  Surprise:  it’s Bucky, not Steve.  While I can’t say that the reasons for doing so were particularly imaginative, I’m willing to overlook that since I’ve enjoyed Bucky’s exploits as Cap so far.  Plus:  we get to see Obama pardon Steve because he felt the Superhuman Registration Act was un-American, and that’s just cool.

With that out of the way, we can get back to telling Captain America stories and the one here is a great example of the kinds of stories I’d like to see in this series.  After a while off the radar, the insane Captain America from the 1950’s shows up leading an underground militia movement in the hopes of getting “his” America back.  This involves Bucky and the Falcon going undercover to infiltrate the group and culminates in a fight on top of the Hoover Dam as Crazy Cap plans to blow it up.

It’s a bit over-the-top, to be sure, but it’s also the kind of story I like to see in my superhero comics.  Brubaker also gives it the right amount of seriousness in the details.  Things like how the genuine frustration Crazy Cap’s recruits feel towards the state of things in America makes them easy marks to go along with his plans and keep the story from going off the rails.  Add in some great art by Luke Ross and Buch Guice, and you’ve got another solid entry in Brubaker’s run that bodes well for Bucky’s continued exploits as Cap.