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Captain America #2
"Out of Time" Part 2
Writer: Ed Brubaker
Artist: Steve Epting, Michael Lark
Colors: Frank D’Armata
Publisher: Marvel Comics
5.00 out of 5 Stars
Reviewed by Matt Rawson
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In this second installment in the newest Captain America yarn, powerhouse writer Ed Brubaker takes Cap to a much darker place than he has ever been before. This story is entitled “Out Of Time” (this issue being the second part), which speaks on several levels regarding the tale. Cap has a new pad, a new attitude, frequent nightmares about the past, in particular about the death of Bucky, and a race to retrieve an object of incredible power.
The good Captain is once again affiliated with S.H.I.E.L.D. with Agent 13 as liaison. This time around, however, we aren’t just presented with post-9/11 reactionary tales. In fact, the Red Skull is back! Well, he got shot in the back anyway, and now Cap must find the shooter, because he isn’t entirely safe from a line-up himself! Also, the new threat, Soviet General Aleksander Lukin, possesses Red Skull’s Cosmic Cube, a device capable of altering reality to the whim of its bearer. But the Cube is broken, and this new villain plans on fulfilling Skull’s destructive plans to power it back to full capacity.
In this newest incarnation of Captain America, Steve Rogers seems to be less concerned with preserving human life in pursuit of a greater goal. Not to say Mr. Brubaker has turned Cap into a cold-blooded killer, far from it, but he is rather more stone faced when confronted with a death he had caused. Steve Epting and Michael Lark’s artwork certainly helps give Cap a more visceral, realistic and gritty edge. (Michael Lark provides art duties on the flashback sequences.) This entrance into the shadows of an almost noir world shows a good natural progression of a character that has literally seen and done it all in the realm of combat.
With Marvel’s apparent need to restart Captain America an umpteen million times, we the readers get a newer, darker Mr. Rogers, and it is well worth it and indeed does deserve a fresh start. Fans of past Cap incarnations surely will not find this one too out there, but instead will likely walk away with the sense that they were offered something fresh to add to the mythos of Captain America.
—CCdC— Cover image used with permission of the publisher.
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