Duck Fox

Note: Spoilers for several Marvel movies will follow, but if you haven't watched Iron Man 3, Thor: The Dark World or any of the pre-Avengers movies by now then why are you even reading this? And if you haven't seen Captain America: The Winter Soldier, well, same question, but also, this review is like 3 weeks late. Go see the movie. 


It's easy to be cynical when it comes to entering the theater in preparation of seeing a Marvel Cinematic Universe film these days. After all, Marvel's television and movie production arm has been hurrying out more and more films aiming to duplicate the massive payday that The Avengers turned out to be, but with a much foggier purpose than the titles that lead to that blockbuster. The "Phase I" films--as they are officially denoted by Marvel's own production office-- were quite clearly about building the team that was one of the most well known names in comic books. Each installment carried with it a purpose-- to explore the origin of a particular hero. Teasing future developments and tying the stories together through easter eggs and comic references was just a bonus to the larger film. Marvel's Phase 2 hasn't had much success constructing an overarching narrative for the heroes.

Sure, there's some teasing themes involving betrayal and mistakes of the past, but both Iron Man 3 and Thor: The Dark World were directionless epic action films. Iron Man 3's postcredits scene was less of an important setup and more of an inside joke, and though Thor 2's midcredits sequence gave a juicier tease of Guardians of the Galaxy, the films themselves barely connected with the larger Marvel Cinematic Universe. Don't get me wrong, I'm not crying foul because Tony Stark didn't call his g(o)od friend for back up (though his casual session with Bruce Banner was kind of weird, since if he could goof off with Banner why not give him a call for help to take down the Mandarin?), I'm just wondering why the most we've seen in the way of ramifications after the Mandarin blew up a city street and physics in the UK were sent into a tizzy is a couple of crossover episodes with Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.? It was almost like Marvel was backing away from the idea of a shared Universe, afraid that they'd hamper the path to Avengers: Age of Ultron by continuing to mix worlds.

Thankfully, Captain America: The Winter Soldier got back to what makes the Marvel Cinematic Universe so compelling, while telling an epic Captain America story at the same time.

Captain America is, to many, the ultimate hero. He's not only noble and kind and self sacrificing, he's also patriotic and humble. Oh, and his superpower isn't even that super, so if you worked really hard, you could sorta be close to being just like him one day! And, indeed, Steve Rogers himself is having to deal with the reality of his popularity, while also balancing his actual job as an operative for the increasingly more secretive agency, S.H.I.E.L.D. The movie doesn't make it clear whether Cap knows Coulson is alive, though by chip on his shoulder concerning the agency, I wouldn't be surprised if we found out definitively that he did not know of Coulson's magical trip to Tahiti. Naturally the first thing Cap is tasked with doing in the film is secure a S.H.I.E.L.D boat that has been highjacked by Batroc. Yes, you read that right, Batroc the leaper. And somehow the movie makes possibly lamest villain since Stilt-man... kinda badass. I love MCU reimaginings! Anyway, Cap hears that his mission is to save the hostages, but Black Widow is his backup, and she seems to have a different job completely.

The first really cool action sequence of the movie is Cap systemically taking down everyone on the ship. It is as amazing as anticipated. Let it be a note to Thor and Iron Man-- Cap don't need no fancy hammers or repulsor rays to take out highly armed baddies. This sequence is more or less an opportunity for Cap to be frank with Fury about his concerns on S.H.I.E.L.D. Concerns that mirror the ones soldiers in the real world probably have about our military. Fury provides stock answers about the need to have an agency like S.H.I.E.L.D-- secrecy and all-- so it can protect people. Cap's response is essentially questioning how much liberty people should give up for their security.

The question doesn't linger over the movie for too long, though, as soon Fury faces off against The Winter Soldier himself. There's little more that can be expounded upon with blatant spoilers, but suffice to say when the movie kicks into high gear, it really gets moving. The Winter Soldier has all the action movie scenes you expect-- explosions, Cap taking on dozens of guys in a crowded elevator, Black Widow putting guys to sleep with her legs (using martial arts moves, you pervs!), but it separates itself out from the popcorn thriller by being surprisingly topical.

When Captain America brings up his concerns over what is done in the name of the American people, it's a lot like the concerns of Obama's ongoing drone warfare or the NSA spying. And while the movie doesn't get too embroiled in representing the citizens reaction to events-- it is still a superhero summer blockbuster-- it should leave quite a few members of the audience nodding their heads in disagreement. Now if only we could actually vote Cap for president... Of course, the political edge behind the story would be meaningless if the main characters weren't of interest.

Chris Evans reprises his role as the handsome Steve Rogers, AKA Captain America, and he brings a liveliness and playfulness to the role that is really unexpected by the way the character is usually depicted. Evans has definitely got the 1940's drawl down, though not so much the slang as the "lookie here, dahl" accent. Opposite him is the always lovely Scarlett Johansson, always swearing Samuel L. Jackson, and newcomer Anthony Mackie, playing one of my favorite superheroes ever-- The Falcon! Black Widow (Johansson) and Nick Fury (Jackson) should be pretty familiar by now, and each one plays their part. Widow is a little too overly concerned with Cap's romantic life, for my taste, but Johansson's deadpan delivery of the names of available women punctuating action scenes makes the gag work. The real surprise, though, is Sebastian Stan's Bucky Barnes. Though he's far more limited to flashbacks in this installment, he really creates an understanding for why Cap is the kind of man he is with that little bit of screentime.

But now you're probably wondering about all this "game change" nonsense and why I started this review with two paragraphs of how lame the other MCU Phase 2 films were for not incorporating the larger MCU. So what happens that makes the film more powerful than the other films in its phase? Well, I won't tell you here, but suffice to say: S.H.I.E.L.D is never going to be the same. The insidiousness that Captain America reveals involving the agency has a widespread affect on the entire Marvel Cinematic Universe, and we're seeing those repercussions dealt with now on Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.

Overall, the Captain America: The Winter Soldier explores some pretty powerful political themes. It's not exactly subtle with its parallelism, but the real draw of the movie is watching an iconic character tackle the problems we as Americans (if you're reading this as an American, of course-- sorry Canadians, no Alpha Flight just yet!) are either too fearful or too complacent to solve. Superhero films have always aimed to be more inspirational than education, and so it's nice to see a film that shoots for the stars and manages to reach the moon. Here's hoping Marvel's next trip lands us solidly in the galaxy.

9.0/10

• Great action scenes, intimate character moments, and a thriller espionage story with just enough twists to be understandable come together to form the best sequel in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
• Chris Evans, Anthony Mackie and Scarlett Johansson have wonderful chemistry.
• Batroc was pretty cool. Like, for real!
• Crossbones (Frank Grillo as Brock Rumlow)and Emily Thorne Sharon Carter (Emily Van Camp) show up, too!...Which combined with info that Chris Evans is only doing three more Marvel movies... doesn't bode well for Captain America....

• Duck it? Okay buddy, which are you: a communist or a Nazi?!
• Scarlett Johansson just isn't as enjoyable as she is when she's a disembodied voice. 
• You're okay with being completely lost come next year around this time, or when watching Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.

Steve Rogers, AKA Captain America, is perhaps the least subtle superhero of all time. And yet, the draw to one of Marvel’s oldest characters (first gracing the cover of Marvel’s predecessor, Timely Comics’, Captain America #1 in 1941) is his genuine heroic spirit. Instead of being thrown into the deep end of superheroics because he just so happened to invent a super weapon that could be worn as a suit of armor, or being bitten by a radioactive spider, Steve Rogers was, from the beginning, a hero. A guy willing to put his life on the line and fight for his country, despite some obvious physical shortcomings. In exchange for a dose of a highly experimental “Super Soldier Serum”, Rogers becomes more capable of putting his money where his mouth is, and does so splendidly. Captain America carried the US through World War II, both in books and in reality. Then he went and got himself frozen in ice. Luckily, cryogenics in Marvel is super advanced, because he thawed a couple decades later and became one of the core members of The Avengers.

The first story arc of Rick Remender’s Captain America downplays Rogers’ hyper realized heroism in favor of a more bizarre story involving Cap being spirited away to Dimension Z by Arnim Zola. Here he finds and raises a young boy for ten years, barely keeping the two of them alive as Zola’s army hunts him and as the other residents of Dimension Z try to take his or the young boy (Ian’s) head to Zola in exchange for peace. The art is handled by John Romita Jr. There’s really nothing else that needs to be said about the quality—I’ve yet to come across a book from JR JR that looked anything less than beautiful, his run on The Amazing Spider-Man was probably the best run of art the series had (not to get off topic, but Stracyzinski’s authorship was also amazeballs. I’d check out that entire run if you haven’t already).

An entire story that takes place in an alternate dimension over a decade? Sounds like it could be hard to pull that off and then jump back to the main Marvel verse, but Remender manages it beautifully. The obvious “time dilation” solution keeps Cap from returning to a world 10 years older, of course, but the impressive part of Cap’s transition from otherworld warrior back to righteous American crime fighter only works because of what Cap brings back. Physically, there’s Jet Black, Ian’s “sister” from Dimension Z. Originally a true follower of Arnim Zola, Cap convinces her to come back with him and live a normal life just as Ian turns to the dark side. Jet Black gets her character focused entry in the series’ 15th issue as well, but more on that later. The more important bit of baggage Cap has is internal-- his pain from the loss of Ian and Sharon coupled with his feeling of being a "man out of time" again.

That said, bringing Cap back to the main Marvelverse isn’t made out to be some chore, instead it’s handled mostly off panel in John Romita Jr.’s final issue as artist. Captain America is tasked with taking out a failed Weapon Plus project, code named “Nuke”. This guy may be familiar to veteran readers, but his story here is certainly unique and gives Captain America an intriguing villain that parallels Cap’s own recent experiences. In their showdown, Cap realizes the parallels between Nuke and himself, both of them being veterans of the same war, now living in a world at peace. The allegory for PTSD and the real world difficulty of veterans transitioning to civilian life shouldn’t be lost on anyone, and issues 11-15 or so are pretty sobering. Cap understands Nuke’s pain on two levels, being literally the WWII vet, but also being a “vet” of Dimension Z’s residents’ infighting and squabbles. For ten years Cap was alone and fighting to protect himself and his son. Now he’s lost his son to Dimension Z and has to learn how to live without the constant threat of death every night before he goes to bed.

The finale to this first part of a larger arc is in issue 16, where Nuke literally explodes after being transported to the S.H.I.E.L.D Hub facility, killing all the agents there and freeing a mysterious new villain named “Mindbubble”. Mindbubble takes center stage next issue where it is revealed he’s manipulating. Cap naturally blames himself for not realizing the true intention behind Nuke, but the current story is less focused on Cap making amends and more on exploring the murky world of covert and clandestine operations. S.H.I.E.L.D. is naturally hiding something that Mindbubble is, also naturally, attempting to acquire for his organization’s own nefarious ends. Issue 17 takes a new angle by depicting Nick Fury’s systemic destruction of a secret HYDRA base. At least that’s what it appears to depict until the final pages, where it is revealed he’s actually attacked agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. And not the TV show.

The current issue expands on MindBubble’s plot as well as gives us some answers on what S.H.I.E.L.D. is up to. Cap and Falcon team up and break into the secret drydock in the Sahara desert; meanwhile, Maria Hill is also infiltrating the base, intending to destroy the mysterious “Gungnir” tool too keep it out of Mindbubble’s grasp.

Jet Black, who was tasked with finding out who Mindbubble is, turns up information by torturing a cyborg in Mindbubble’s employ. The moral quandaries of torture are mostly overlooked by Cap, whose in a hurry for the info, and he learns Mindbubble used to be a S.H.I.E.L.D. scientist working on the Weapon Minus program to create weapons and soldiers that would kill more humanely. He mixed the super soldier formula with LSD and tested it on himself, causing his own insanity and bloodlust. Mindbubble’s powers work by emitting “Dream Maps” from his noggin to any unsuspecting S.H.I.E.L.D. agent’s. The Dream Map then makes all their deepest desires appear to them in a twisted LSD style hallucination. And much like LSD, the hallucination can prove fatal. Actually, it always does, as eventually the Dream Map creates one’s darkest fear and kills the poor affected sap in the worst way they can imagine. Jet Black ominously warns Cap that the only way to escape the Dream Map alive is to kill yourself while trapped.

During Jet Black’s briefing, Falcon takes up arms against a tank trailing the heroic duo, and the issue closes with him taking one for the team and Cap managing to finally make his way to a giant helicarrier; Mindbubble’s objective. And on the horizon? Dozens of S.H.I.E.L.D. combat aircraft…
The current arc is quite obviously creating some synergy with the upcoming film, Captain America: The Winter Soldier. A major element of the upcoming film is the interplay between freedom and privacy, and the limits government organizations have and how best they are enforced. The current arc in Captain America leans on these questions, and it’s little wonder why with the frequency of scandals involving alphabet agencies these last few years. The NSA scandal was the big one, but there are certainly lots of questions to ask about the idea of exchanging liberty for security. Tying them to Cap’s Dimension Z PTSD may just be enough to get him out of his rut.

On the whole, though, Remender’s Captain America has been a thrilling throwback to the idea of heroism that Steve Rogers embodies. Remender doesn’t get bogged down in creating a new threat every week, or constructing some huge, bloated, nonsensical serialized story. Instead, he places Captain America into dire situations and lets us see why he’s capable of escaping them and coming out the other side a better man. It’s because he was forced to work himself half to death while taking care of his sick mother. Because he spent years readjusting to a world that had left him behind, and trying to reconcile his status as the nations’ most famous hero with the identity of Steve Rogers, who was hardly celebrity material. The man that Steve Rogers is today was heavily informed by his past, as with all of us. The reason he’s capable of doing so much good and being so inspiring, both to those within the pages of the book and those who simply thumb through it every month, is because of that mantra that he’s come to live by: “You always stand up”.  Really, if we at home could just commit to this, I’m sure we’d all feel a little more heroic too.

Series Verdict: Read It Like a Fox

8.0/10.0

Cause and effect. This basic principle dictates literally everything in our lives. If we take an action, then we can be certain that it will have some sort of consequence. So it's fitting that the epic actions the Avengers took in Jonathan Hickman's space operatic limited series Infiinity have come back to bite them in the ass. Though what's also fitting is that Avengers World, written by Nick Spencer with assistance from Jonathan Hickman himself, is definitely not the appropriate starting point for newbies looking to figure out what all the fuss with Avengers is about. Taking the place of the second Avengers monthly issue, Avengers World picks up some of the threads spun by that book and New Avengers.

The book opens with Captain America and Bruce Banner approaching new Director of S.H.I.E.L.D., Maria Hill, hoping to get into the nitty gritty of more closely incorporating S.H.I.E.L.D. operations with the operations of the Avengers. When the conversation actually starts, it ends up being about the mayhem happening all around the globe. There's crazy seismic and meteorological activity all up and down the Eastern coast of the US. Thor and Hyperion are on the job there, but Bruce still volunteers to figure out the origin of the problem. Meanwhile in Madripoor, people are rioting inexplicably, forcing Black Widow, Wolverine and Falcon to step in. At the same time in Velletai, Italy, Starbrand, Nightmask, Hawkeye and Spider-Woman encounter a mysterious object. Starbrand, being new to the whole "superhero" thing, touches it and activates it somehow, knocking electronics offline. But that's hardly the biggest problem-- Shang-Chi gets to have a nice conversation with a Hand ninja who reveals that Madripoor has secretly been built on the home of a giant tortoise.... But it gets crazier! In Italy, the object Kevin sets off apparently relates to deceased people somehow, because it starts screaming at him (though only he can hear it), warning him of some type of trouble down the pipeline.

We close with Smasher, Sunspot and Cannonball flying over A.I.M. Island and confronting a souped up beekeeper (as in, member of A.I.M. in standard A.I.M attire). Except, as Smasher takes a blast from the scientist's armaments, the island changes to Barbuda.

If you had doubts that this book would require frantic rereading, then they should now be alleviated. But even if you don't quite understand what's going on, you can rest assured that Avengers World is an excellent starting point. The action sequences are stunningly drawn by Stefano Caselli, and though the exposition is a little heavy at times, this is clearly a book that excels at setting up things. It's not quite a must buy just yet, but it's more than worth the price of admission if you're a fan of Hickman's other work.

8.0/10

• Fan of Jonathan Hickman's Avengers and/or New Avengers
• Want the full piece of the puzzle regarding the aforementioned series
• Need more cool, earthshattering action setpieces in your life

• Hard to follow for newbies
• Don't need to think with your action
• Can wait for the trade