Late to the Party: A Review of Captain America #1

written by Ta Nehisi Coates
drawn by Leinil Yu (pencils) and Gerry Alanguilan (inks)
colored by Sunny Gho

A new day begins for Captain America, but this one promises to be a pretty dark one. The story begins with a mysterious Russian woman held captive by HYDRA agents being violently liberated by the life-force sucking mutant Selene, formerly the Black Queen but now apparently dabbling in something a bit darker than behind-the-scenes power brokering and S & M 18th century cosplay.

Meanwhile, back in America, in no less than Washington D.C., Steve Rogers a.k.a. Captain America finds himself fighting reproductions of Nuke, a cybernetically-enhanced domestic terrorist he'd fought years earlier, in Hell's Kitchen of all places. With the help of Bucky Barnes a.k.a. the Winter Soldier, Sharon Carter and what remains of S.H.I.E.L.D., Steve is able to put them down, but the threat is far from over, especially when Thaddeus "Thunderbolt" Ross taps both Carter and Barnes after the battle, hoping to track down the brains behind the deadly attack. Steve, quite conspicuously, is left out of the loop, which is basically direct blowback from the events of Secret Empire.

Okay, THIS is the kind of story I wanted to read when I'd heard that two of my favorite creators, Mark Waid, and Chris Samnee, along with colorist Matt Wilson, were taking on Captain America together. I may be writing this review EXTREMELY late but I really couldn't care less; this story absolutely hit the spot for me, whatever impossible-to-please/please-don't-put-your-politics-in-my-comic-books fanboys may think of Ta Nehisi Coates' "SJW" leanings.

For one thing, Waid's almost flippantly inconsequential six-issue run ultimately failed both as the heavy-handed political commentary it was conceived as, and as a part of Captain America's greater narrative. While I was kind to some of the individual issues, reading all of it now just really makes me sad that one of my favorite writer-artist teams ended their Marvel tenure on such a weak note.

Here, Coates dives headlong into the consequences of Captain America having been the face of HYDRA, and while that may be slightly problematic from a continuity aspect (i.e. why didn't people seem to mind back when Waid was writing the book) it does feel like a much more organic response to a really big status quo shakeup. I also really liked the not-so-subtle references to Cap's brief but pivotal appearance in the now-legendary "Born Again" Daredevil storyline by Frank Miller and David Mazzuchelli in which the character of Nuke was actually introduced. Nuke was basically the avatar of America's Reagan-era foreign policy, deployed (at the time) in Latin American hotbeds like Nicaragua, which made Wilson Fisk's act of siccing him on Daredevil and ripping an entire civilian neighborhood to shreds in the process particularly horrific. He may have appeared in many comics since then, but this story clearly hearkens back to that first appearance, particularly with Steve's line that he remains "loyal to nothing but the dream" being a direct callback to Miller's dialogue from that classic story.

I get that Coates' storyline is explicitly political, as is his choice of adversary for Steve in this first issue, but then, so was Ed Brubaker's Winter Soldier storyline, so infusing politics into a storyline does not have to detract from it. I quite enjoyed how Coates explored the damage to Steve's psyche that has resulted from what happened, something that Waid swept aside in one issue, never to mention it again. Rogers has gone from being the poster boy for all that is good about America to one of the least-trusted men in America, and unlike his immediate predecessor on this title, Coates is keenly interested in exploring that concept. That alone is not quite enough to get me hooked, but the way Coates, now more sure-footed in his scripting than he was in his Black Panther issues from two years ago, tells the story hits all the notes for me.

Of course, it helps that this issue boasts extra helpings of some of the very best artwork I've seen from Leinil Yu, Gerry Alanguilan and Sunny Gho in quite some time. Coates gives them quite a bit to do here, from the shadowy maneuvers of Selene and her mysterious partner in Russia to Cap and his team taking on the squad of Nuke facsimiles, and as much as I hate to wax cliche here, boy do they deliver the goods with some solid action sequences. There's nothing here as off-the-wall insane as the Hulk ripping Wolverine in half, but this is some properly strong work from this team. One of the pitfalls on Coates' Black Panther work was that his artists, whether it was the excellent Brian Stelfreeze or the highly competent Chris Sprouse, didn't really make his battle scenes, which were admittedly few and far between, really jump off the page. Yu, Alanguilan and Go are more than up to that task here.

All told, this book is off to a very, very good start. Coates started off strongly in his run with Black Panther two years ago, only for the later issues to severely taper off in quality, so I'm hoping he holds up here, and that his advocacy, while admirable, doesn't get in the way of effectively telling a story.

9/10