The following is a review of the graphic novel “Captain
America: Death of the Dream” as presented in Marvel Modern Era Epic Collection
format.
Soviet general Aleksander Lukin and the Nazi villain
Johann Schmidt/Red Skull had been sharing a body due to Lukin murdering the
Skull and his use of the Red Skull’s device the Cosmic Cube. Steve Rogers/Captain
America and his S.H.I.E.L.D. liaison/secret girlfriend Sharon Carter/Agent 13
arrived in London in an attempt to bring down Lukin at his company Kronas’ London
Headquarters Opening Gala. The met up with British superheroes Joseph Chapman/Union
Jack and Jacqueline Falsworth/Spitfire to achieve this goal. Meanwhile, Bucky
Barnes/the Winter Soldier planned to assassinate Lukin, while villains Brock
Rumlow/Crossbones and the Red Skull’s daughter Synthia Schmidt/Sin planned to
attack the Gala. Cap and the British heroes snuck onto a Kronas ship and
battled the Skull’s minions the Master Race. The Skull has planted a bomb on
the ship planned it out to implicate Cap and Union Jack in the explosion. Sharon
got clearance for Cap and Union Jack to investigate the Master Race with
S.H.I.E.L.D. All parties converged on the Gala, where the Skull activated his
sleeper robot to cause mass destruction on London and the Kronas Building. The
heroes and the Winter Soldier teamed up to battle the robot, and Crossbones and
Sin’s attempt to assassinate Lukin was thwarted, and the villains escaped, and
Red Skull revealed his association with Lukin to the pair of villains to plan a
new attack on Captain America.
The Superhuman Registration Act was enacted after a
battle between superhumans caused the deaths of hundreds in Stamford, Connecticut,
requiring all heroes to register their identities and submit to training and
oversight. Heroes such as Tony Stark/Iron Man saw this as a natural evolution
of the role of superheroes in society. Captain America was called to hunt down
heroes who defied the law, but he refused and became Public Enemy #1, leading
the anti-registration resistance, while Iron Man led the pro-registration front.
Maria Hill, the new Director of S.H.I.E.L.D. became aware of Sharon’s relationship
with Steve and attempted to use it to capture Cap, but Sharon misled S.H.I.E.L.D.
and allowed Steve to escape. Hill submitted Sharon to counseling with
S.H.I.E.L.D. psychiatrist Doctor Benjamin, who had been killed and replaced by
mind-controlling villain Doctor Faustus, who was working with the Red Skull to
condition Sharon and several other S.H.I.E.L.D. Agents to his cause. Former S.H.I.E.L.D.
Director Nick Fury went underground, and his absence was covered by a Life
Model Decoy, a robot replica programmed to replace Fury. Fury asked the Winter
Soldier to break into a S.H.I.E.L.D. facility to hack into a Fury L.M.D. to
give Fury access to S.H.I.E.L.D. information. The Red Skull paid a visit to
Latverian Dictator and supervillain Victor Von Doom/Doctor Doom to upgrade his
sleeper robot which had been destroyed during the battle in London. Maria Hill
tasked Sharon into the force dedicated to finding the real Nick Fury. Cap infiltrated
a Hydra base, where he was almost apprehended by S.H.I.E.L.D. Agents tasked with
bringing Cap in, but Sharon helped him escape. The Red Skull formed an alliance
with evil genius Arnim Zola in an attack on Captain America.
The Winter Soldier, now free from his conditioning, spent
his first Christmas back in the world. Nick Fury learned the unregistered
superhero team the Young Avengers were about to attack a Hydra base he had been
spying on, the teenage heroes thinking it was one of Tony Stark’s secret
factories, and asked the Winter Soldier to protect both his source of
information and the young heroes who were about to bite off more than they
could chew. After the battle, the Winter Soldier visited the grave of Jack
Monroe/Nomad, a hero the Winter Soldier had killed while he had been programmed
as a weapon by Lukin, where he was tailed by the Young Avengers, who learned
the Winter Soldier’s true identity. The Winter Soldier recalled the last
Christmas he remembered, from 1944, and met up with Namor, who was present for
this same Christmas to learn of the life of fellow war hero Thomas Raymond/Toro.
Cap realized that the Superhuman Civil War was causing
more harm than good and surrendered to Iron Man, ending the War. As Cap was
being brought in for his arraignment, Crossbones fired a shot at Cap. During
the commotion, someone snuck in and fired three more shots at close range at
Cap. Cap’s former superhero partner Sam Wilson/Falcon and the Winter Soldier
were able to apprehend Crossbones. Though he was rushed to the hospital, Steve
Rogers did not survive.
James Howlett/Logan/Wolverine was not convinced that the assassinated
body belonged to the actual Steve Rogers, so he had Doctor Stephen Strange, Sorcerer
Supreme, cast a spell so he and Matt Murdock/Daredevil could sneak aboard the
S.H.I.E.L.D. Helicarrier to examine the body. Wolverine and Daredevil took a
detour to interrogate Crossbones to learn the identity of the actual killer of
Steve Rogers, only to find out that Crossbones knew nothing, and Wolverine
confirmed Rogers’ death. The Mighty Avengers fought to stop supervillain Tiger
Shark from using the Horn of Gabriel to destroy a top-secret nuclear warhead
installation while the New Avengers met for a game of poker. Peter
Parker/Spider-Man was having a tough time dealing with his grief and got into a
fight with Wolverine. The newly revealed returned from the dead hero Clint
Barton/Hawkeye called for Iron Man’s attention at the destroyed Avengers
Mansion. Iron Man knocked him out and revealed that he was going to keep
Captain America’s actual shield and donate a fake one to the Smithsonian and
bury a fake one in Rogers’ coffin, then asked Clint to pick up Cap’s shield and
be the new Captain America, but Clint insisted there is no Captain America
without Steve Rogers. Iron Man and Clint teamed up with the Young Avengers, one
of whom called herself “Hawkeye,” to fight supervillain Firebrand. Clint donned
the Captain America costume and took up the shield to stop the threat, then Iron
Man asked Clint to apprehend the young unregistered heroes, but Clint allowed
them to escape and gave the shield back to Iron Man. Peter Parker went to the cemetery
to visit the graves of his deceased parents and Uncle Ben, where he ran into
Aleksei Sytsevich/Rhino, who was there to visit his mother, and mistakenly got
into a fight with the supervillain. A funeral was held for Steve Rogers, but
the body buried in Arlington Cemetery didn’t actually belong to Steve Rogers, and
Tony Stark thought of the perfect place and person to ensure Steve’s body
rested in peace forever.
Sharon in her grief quit S.H.I.E.L.D. The Winter Soldier
learned S.H.I.E.L.D. was moving Cap’s actual shield, and tailed it, only to
learn it was being moved by his former lover Natasha Romanoff/Black Widow. The
two fought, and the Winter Soldier made off with the shield. Natasha revealed
to Tony Stark that Stark was the Winter Soldier’s next target, and Sharon and
Falcon took it upon themselves to secretly protect Stark. Sin formed her own
team of supervillains, the Serpent Squad. Tony Stark received a letter from
Steve Rogers. Sin and the Serpent Squad learned of Crossbones’ transfer to supervillain
prison the Raft and disguised themselves as S.H.I.E.L.D. Agents and broke him
out. The Winter Soldier went after Lukin but was defeated by Sin and Crossbones
and held hostage by Doctor Faustus. Falcon and Black Widow went to talk to
Sharon, but Sharon took them out. Tony Stark tried to contact Black Widow after
deducing Sharon was under the control of Doctor Faustus, but this attempt failed,
and Iron Man was forced into action.
Okay, some of you may remember from three years ago that
I wrote a review of the prose novel “The Death of Captain America” by Larry
Hama if you’ve been with me for that long. If not and you’re reading this post,
please feel free to check that one out. Anyway, this is not a graphic novel
with the exact same content, and I was actually very secretive in my previous
review, so the reviews are nothing alike and this one is full of spoilers that
my previous review did not have, but there are a few details I chose to leave
out in order to surprise you. I’ve gotten a lot more thorough in my reviews
over the past few years, so my style is quite different than it used to be. Anyway,
I will say that I highly enjoyed this book. Yes, it was extremely depressing,
and surprising that they would kill off so major a hero as Captain America, but
I felt like the writing was well done. I enjoyed the whole concept of Lukin and
Red Skull sharing a body. Some of you may know I am partial to Civil War, so
reading the Captain America Civil War issues again was enjoyable. Winter Kills had
an interesting concept. Fallen Son was particularly entertaining to me, seeing
all the ways the Marvel characters reacted to Captain America’s death, especially
seeing how hard Spider-Man took it and the rage it caused in him, and Iron Man
trying to reason with Clint, saying if there can be a Hawkeye without Clint
Barton, there can be a Captain America without Steve Rogers. And I loved all
the big plot twists with Sharon, I never saw any of them coming. I loved the
artwork in this book, I thought it was all superb. I will say, however, that
this book did end in the middle of the storyline and left so much hanging, so
that was disappointing, but I’m getting used to Marvel Modern Era Epic
Collections doing that at this point, I’ve noticed several of the volumes have
done that. The inclusion of “Twenty-First Century Blitz” and “Fallen Son”
prevented this volume from being able to contain the complete storyline, which
is a little unfortunate, but I found those stories to be highly enjoyable, so
that fact is forgivable. But overall, I found the experience of reading this
book to be a pleasant one and I hope for another volume, which Marvel better do
as this left so much in the ar.
Okay, now we’re moving on to accessibility. Bear with me
if you know what I mean by this because there are some people here who have never
read a Tim Cubbin review before. So, when I say accessibility, I mean if you
can know little or nothing about Captain America and read and understand this
book. I found this book to have a huge accessibility flaw. Now I have to tell
you, this book is a Vol. 2 and reading Vol. 1 really helps understand this book,
but what makes this book have especially low accessibility is the fact that
this takes place before, during, and after Civil War, and knowing Civil War is absolutely
essential to understanding this book. So, if you’ve never read a Marvel Comic
Book before, I’m expressly saying this is not a book for you. Yes, the book
does give a brief summary of the events of Civil War, but a paragraph can only do
so much. And no, I’m not talking about the film “Captain America: Civil War,”
that will not prepare you to read this book, the storyline and
characterizations are completely different. I honestly think that this book is
highly inaccessible if you’ve never read Civil War, and if you know nothing
about Marvel’s Civil War, this book is just going to be so difficult to get
into and properly understand.
Okay, I’ve gone on for long enough, you’re probably
getting antsy and want to move on with your life, so I’m just going to move on
and get to the single most important part of a Tim Cubbin review: the numeric
score. Now, some of you know the drill by now, but I know some of you are newbs
who need an explanation, so I’m going to give you one. I score on an extremely
basic scale, a solid one to ten. One means this is a stinky pile of trash that
should never have been printed, ten means this is one of the best graphic
novels I have ever read. Now, if you’ve read one of my reviews before, you know
I’m not in the business of handing out tens. I give this book extremely high
praise. However, there are some things holding me back from scoring this book
higher. It’s not perfect, and it has flaws. I can’t quite put my finger on all
of these reasons, but I feel like I must give some point deductions. Now, as
this is a graphic novel, I must take both story and art into consideration when
I give my score. The story was particularly good, and the art was excellent,
but there were just a few hiccups here and there. So, taking everything,
putting it in the blender, and turning out the score in the mix, I must give
this book a score of… eight! I have my reasons for not being able to give this
book a higher score, but I just can’t quite put them exactly into words, I don’t
know why.
Okay, we’re going to move on now to my recommendation. This
is just a simple matter of do I personally recommend this book, and regardless
of that, to whom do I recommend this book. As far as my personal recommendation
goes, yes, I do personally recommend this book. However, I will say that if you
want to read this book, read Civil War #1-7 first. If you’re a fan of Steve Rogers,
this book is going to be difficult for you, but I think there’s so much you’d
enjoy from these last moments and the aftermath of his untimely passing. There
are many plot twists and shockers, I left a few things out for you to discover
when you read it, like exactly who pulled the trigger. I would particularly recommend
this book to any fan of the Winter Soldier, he has some really good story arcs
in this book, especially Winter Kills. I recommend this book to anyone who read
Civil War and enjoyed it, this had good tie-in and follow-up story arcs.
Okay, I think I’ve gone on for way too long at this
point, I’ve kept you for a while and you want to go on with your life, you have
more important things to do, and quite frankly, I’ve been at this for over three
and a half hours, I need to move on with my life. Anyway, as usual, I will tell
you I have literally written dozens of reviews just like this one, you can
browse through the archives and see if there’s anything else here you like. If
you want, you can check out my review of “The Death of Captain America” by
Larry Hama for comparison purposes, although that review is extremely vague. I’ll
be back with you in less than a month for another new Marvel Modern Era Epic
Collection review, and I might have something else to sneak in in in the meantime
between, so keep an eye out. I post on a very frequent basis, so there’s often more
to see. I make it my mission to collect every Marvel Modern Era Epic Collection
released, so you can always expect lots of content here. I’ve also written
short stories, poetry, essays, articles, and editorials, so there’s plenty more
to see, keep on browsing. And I will sign off now, and simply finish with a few
more words. They are Tim Cubbin… out!