Writer : David Morrell
Artist : Mitch Breitweiser
Publisher : Marvel Comics
Price : $2.99
Release Date: September 6th
The first panel, showing an American flag battered, barely visible, yet still flying against the raging dust storm, perfectly sets the mood for this story.
This story is about a soldier. Corporal James Newman, a battle weary US Marine and a new father, who is fighting a war for his country and his own sense of righteousness. Though the comic is titled in his name, Captain America only features in six pages.
It’s written by David Morrell, better known as the novelist who invented John Rambo. So going in I thought this would be a pro soldier story, but hoped it wouldn’t be full of Republican jingoism as the latter Rambo films turned out to be. Thankfully it hasn’t quite gone that way as, politics aside, the focus here is on the mind frame of the soldier. At one point, while in a firefight, Newman comments upon the fact that he had to get his wife to purchase him a bullet-proof vest and send it to him as the army hadn’t yet organised this.
Morrell has done his research well and his transition from novelist to comicbook writer is quite successful. He doesn’t use all the usual lazy shorthands; we know we’re in Afghanistan, not by a spoon-fed caption panel but by the visuals and the character comments. He trusts the artist to co-tell the story, an amateur mistake which some other novelists have made when they overload their comic panels with large blocks of writing and throw the story off pace. Morrell skillfully and concisely works in the mood of our main character, while still allowing the action to flow.
There are times where his shorthand in portraying the political climate of the setting or characters is sometimes actually too simplistic (“I go to paradise! Virgins wait for me!” shouts a suicide bomber as he rams his van into an American embassy, a scene which didn’t have the writer’s desired effect and threw me out of the story for a moment as did Cap’s dialogue while he fought). This could have been a real turn off. Putting a usually two-dimensional Superhero character in a current place of real death and desperation could leave a bad taste in the mouth of many, especially when Bin Laden makes an appearance, but Morrell just about works it here.
The art is itself beautiful. Mitch Breitweiser’s starkly realistic artwork suits the story well. He depicts the ruined land, peppered with skeletal buildings and hollowed, burnt out cars, with a recognisable veracity. His army vehicles, weapons and technology, the body language of his weary figures and the desperate look in the soldier’s eyes all ground the setting. These seem like real men in a real place. Despite all this detail, his storytelling is simplistic, which is just as well given that the action calls for a less showy artist, one who has the experience to keep his panels uncluttered enough to serve the flow of the story.
For me, his work evokes the imagery of John Cassaday’s work on the ongoing Captain America title a few years back, (especially the initial entrance of Captain America silhouetted against a doorway full of almost blinding light). My only complaint of Breitweiser’s art is that Cap’s costume looks more like inter-woven poker chips rather than chain-mail. Minor quibbles aside, this is the first time I’ve come across his work and I think he has a fine comicbook career ahead of him.
The colourwork by Brian Reber very much compliments Breitweiser’s pencils; you can almost feel the dust, the grit and the texture of the land without it obscuring any of the action. His realistic muted tones work well, especially against the primary colored Captain America. Also his little tricks of motion blurring parts of the action sequence lends an energy to certain panels.
Even though the last panel does what it’s supposed to and leaves us with questions. As it was supposed to have originally come out two years ago, I’m left wondering about the timeline of this series. Is this about the currently living-challenged Captain America rising from the dead? Maybe even the last Cap story? After all it’s original title was Captain America: The End.
I’m not sure if this mini-series would have any bearing on the ongoing title, but it’s good enough to warrant purchasing in its own right, especially if you are a fan of war comics or just jonesing for more new appearances by Captain America. In my opinion it’s a much better tribute to Cap than the recent Fallen Son mini-series.
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Sanjay Shah