"Captain America: Death of the Dream"

            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!