I have a little inside joke with my comic book friends that goes a little something like this: Every once and a while a writer needs a villain to facilitate the story, it doesn’t really matter who the villain is, they just need someone to take a dive for some action to exist in the story. The writer shakes a barrel of b-list villains and sees what pops out.
Kudos to Ed Brubaker for shaking the barrel o’ villains really hard and coming up with the Watchdogs as his villains of the week. I still remember the last issue I had of Cap featuring the Watchdogs and US Agent. The Watchdogs don’t really matter to the story in this case, but it was still cool to see them brought out of mothballs for this issue.
The other thing that struck me as cool about this issue is the idea that Bucky’s book and that of New Avengers has finally combined. Cap is a member of a super team but his own book had little opportunity to reflect that. It’s always cool to see how the various books interconnect and Brubaker did an excellent job of bringing Cap into the fold.
Like I’ve mentioned in recent reviews I do have a concern about the long term direction of the book. I’m a huge Steve Rogers fan, and have no problems with bringing the character back, but I feel like the price will be pretty hefty. One of my favorite characters is the controversial Ben Reilly. When the they brought Peter Parker back as Spider-Man it was all too clear that Ben’s days were numbered. I’m getting a similar sensation when it comes to Bucky.
I have to say that my time with Buck has been great, and I’m worried that his story will close sooner rather than later and all he’ll be is a trivia question in 20 years. Nothing more than a footnote in the annals of Captain America history, and I think the character deserves better than that.
Ed Brubaker, you’ve worked too hard at making Bucky cool for a whole new generation to just off the guy so quickly. I know it hasn’t happened yet, but the writing is on the wall.
The next issue of Cap will be renumbered to its standard format, making the next issue number 600. This book was a great way to lead in to the new story arc which might involve the return of a certain Mister Rogers (that’s not funny). The book doesn’t exactly tie up any loose threads but it does bring readers to a somewhat new jumping on point. The story reminds readers that the new Cap is still trying to figure it all out, which again makes me nervous.
Nervousness and foresight aside this book has been solid since issue one and the future looks pretty bright. I may have said this before, but I’ll say it again, this will go down as one of the greatest runs in comic book history.
