Steve Rogers has been alive,dead(frozen),alive,dead(shot through time), and now alive again.So needless to say Mr.Rogers has been through a few things. Through all these different things though he always seems a victim of circumstance. In every story I never think of him as the type of super hero who has to use his brain to take down his foes.Unusually Steve is more of a tactician. In that he is always alert and takes advantage of his foe at exactly the right moment to make the biggest impact on the battle….you know like some kinda Super Soldier!In issue 2 of 4 written by Ed Brubaker and drawn by Dale Eaglesham that is about to change as for the first time it looks like Steve will be required to get out of this situation with his brain rather than his brawn.
In issue 1 we saw Steve on the tracks of the grandson of Professor Erskine who had appeared to have developed his own working version of the super soldier serum and was selling a version to the highest bidder .Upon locating Erskin in Madripoor Steve finds out that Erskin only developed the serum to cure cancer and it wasn’t even a fully working version as it gave some guards Steve had the drop on brain aneurysms. Upon learning of Erskin’s true intent ,he was shot by a sniper leaving yet another Professor Erskin lifeless in Steve Rogersarms.Before the Professor died however he urged Steve to protect his wife.Erskin’s wife also reminded Steve of some one from his past.In this issue we find out that that someone was Cynthia Glass.
Steve’s professed first love who gave her life and saved Steve back in the early days of Captain America.She apparently was there the day he signed up for the experiment and as it turned out she was a Nazi spy but in the end gave her life to protect Steve from dying in a hail of bullets.Steve is now battling his own demons as he needs to find out what or who has the drop on the Super Soldier Formula and why this woman looks like his ex love as well as dealing with the emotions of Sharon and what she would make of all this (let’s not forget kids he does have a lady back home).Steve follows Erskin’s wife to a house near a beach where he confronts her and she admits that she too feels as though she knows him. They walk back to the house and BAM!! As Admiral Ackbar is fond of saying..”It’s A Trap!”They then introduce the fact that Erskin’s wife is a robot who absolutely feels as though she is real. We then get to see the mad master behind all this mayhem and it is none other then Machinesmith!Wait Machine who?Yeah pretty anti climactic villain there Bru!! I hope you plan on making him less lame cause right now that is an up hill battle.
However next to femme bots he pretty much has the market cornered on sexy robot women so good job there!Then probably the coolest thing in this comic happens..the once stoically chiseled physic of COMMANDER STEVE (Looks like Cap Steve got a promotion) is turned back into his pre super soldier days self!! That’s right folks he looks like most of the Cos-Players I saw down in San Diego now this leaves us in a situation where Commander Steve must outwit his enemy with his brains..not his brawn. All and all a pretty cool concept. However I fear that the predictable thing will happen and Steve will prevail and at the last minute the Wife Robot (having all the knowledge of the original woman) will save Steve by giving him the real formula right before she dies and goes to robot heaven to kick it with the Apple 2, and my old IBM Compatible…ahh 5 1/2 floppy drive you are missed..not really though. I hope I am wrong but considering this is the halfway mark in this series I can’t see how else it could end.
Final Verdict:Look I think it is clear how much I love Brubakers writing and Eagleshams work is nice if not a little to early 90’s pop looking for me.I need it darker more super spy. Honestly I would skip this mini series. The only thing I like is the connection with his early life which I feel should be explored more and more. I also LOVE the new costume…it isn’t often that a redesign of an outfit can both hark en back to the original while simultaneously be fresh and new.On that go read Secret Avengers as that is more deserving of both our time and our attention.
Sheldon Lee
Sheldon@comicimpact.com