"The Death of Captain America" by Larry Hama

            The following review is for the novel “The Death of Captain America” by Larry Hama and not of the graphic novel by the same name, which is the basis of the novel.

            Writing a review of this novel is very difficult. I say this as since Captain America is killed very early in this novel, a follow-up review would be fraught with spoilers. As such, I will mostly give my reaction, telling very little of the plot so that if you wish to read this novel, I won’t ruin it for you.

            I’ll start off by saying this novel is an immediate continuation from “Civil War.” In fact, the start of the story coincides with events from “Civil War.” I reviewed this novel at an earlier date, so I’ll have to talk about the ending briefly with a spoiler to “Civil War.” Steve Rogers/Captain America has turned himself in as the leader of the anti-registration superhuman faction and Tony Stark is now director of the Strategic Homeland Intervention Espionage Logistics Directorate (S.H.I.E.L.D.). As Rogers is being brought in to court, he is shot by a sniper, and soon dies.

            There are many players, human and factions, involved in this novel, so I’m going to touch on them a little bit.

            There’s Sharon Carter/Agent-13 in S.H.I.E.L.D., Steve’s liaison (the novel never uses the word “girlfriend”). She has become the unwitting pawn of Doctor Faustus.

            James Buchanan “Bucky” Barnes/Winter Soldier fought with Captain America in World War II and was believed dead in an explosion disabling a device of the Red Skull’s which would do massive damage on United States soil, but found frozen and used to become a Russian hitman who recently broke his programming and is now attempting to redeem himself.

            Sam Wilson/Falcon had a long history of partnering with Captain America against villains. He has a friendship with Sharon as well. He has a psychic connection to a bird named Redwing and can view what the bird sees and even able to partially control it.

            Natalia “Natasha” Romanova/Black Widow works as a S.H.I.E.L.D. liaison and works with Sam and Bucky.

            Tony Stark is director of S.H.I.E.L.D. and led the registration force during the superhero Civil War. He is involved in trying to solve the death of Cap.

            Doctor Faustus has infiltrated S.H.I.E.L.D., posing as a psychiatrist. He has been using hypnotism to mind control several agents to do his dirty work, including Sharon. He has implanted control words or phrases to initiate his influence. Doctor Faustus has been working with the Johann Schmidt/Red Skull.

            Red Skull is the leader of Hydra, a terrorist organization established during World War II under Schmidt’s leadership. Schmidt was a Nazi. However, Schmidt had been killed, his essence placed in a Red Skull mask, which has been connected to Aleksander Lukin.

            Lukin is a Russian oligarch and head of the Kronas Corporation. He now shares a mind link with Schmidt whenever he dons the Red Skull mask.

            Schmidt has a daughter named Synthia/Sin. Sin is highly unhinged, a nihilist who only wants to please her father, who resents her for not being a son. She leads a group called the Serpent Society, a group of terrorists who model themselves out of snakes.

            Sin has a boyfriend named Brock Rumlow/Crossbones, who is proficient with weaponry and also a terrorist.

            Arnim Zola is affiliated with the Red Skull and does some of his dirty work. He is in control of robot bodies which he can switch consciousness between, so killing him is basically impossible.

            The other terrorist factions include Advanced Idea Mechanics (A.I.M.) and Radically Advanced Ideas in Destruction (R.A.I.D.).

Red Skull has also worked on a device with Doctor Doom, but the device’s purpose would involve a spoiler, so I won’t go there.

Cap’s death has left a deep void in the superhuman community, so a new Captain America seems definitely needed.

Now we’ll discuss my opinion. First off, my rating on a scale of one-to-ten, one being the lowest, ten being the highest. I will give it a seven. The title guarantees that Captain America dies, and delivers this. Of course, the question of how, when, and why he dies is unclear, and what will follow his death also seems unclear based on the title. The assassination of Captain America is rather early in the book, so the further events of the novel really can’t be predicted, so it kept me going. However, the ending was not truly conclusive, so while I thoroughly enjoyed the meat of the story, an up-in-the-air ending detracted from my score. Also, the narrative was slightly difficult, as it was told in present tense in both first- and third-person. The first-person narrative was always Sharon’s, but Faustus’s control over her mind made changes the narrative quite often, making it slightly difficult to follow. Sometimes the wording about Bucky also changed depending on his state of his mind at the moment, which was not to my taste. Also, Hama used very short chapters, so this book was a very easy read. You might think this would be good, but one-page chapters were rather frustrating because it suffers from lack of description.

As for giving recommendation, my regular readers know I give accessibility ease. I give it a very low recommendation rating to readers who have never picked up a comic and only read this book because they like Captain America from the movies. This is firstly given because it is an immediate continuation to “Civil War.” Not reading “Civil War” is a definite negative as details from this novel coincide with “Civil War” and will detract from picking up some early details. If you read my “Civil War” review, you know I gave it a relatively low accessibility rating to casual readers, so this like watching a second movie in a series without watching the first movie. However, if you read “Civil War,” you might potentially enjoy it, as I did, but again, there are the flaws I discussed, but a fan of Cap can find something to like. I know the abundance of spoilers made this review very weak, but I’m just not going to ruin the surprises for you should you choose to read this book. All-in-all, I will say this was worth my time to read, so if this review interests you, it might also be worth yours.