"Captain America: The Burden of Dreams"

                The following is a review of the graphic novel “Captain America: The Burden of Dreams” as presented in Marvel Modern Era Epic Collection format.

                Steve Rogers/Captain America is dead. The Red Skull, with the help of megalomaniacal psychiatrist Doctor Faustus, manipulated Sharon Carter, former Agent 13 of S.H.I.E.L.D., into taking the life of the man she loved. Mentally blocked from telling anyone what she’d done, Sharon spiraled out of control, fighting to hold onto her sanity. But when she found out she was pregnant, she lost control of her mind again, shot her allies, Sam Wilson/Falcon, and Natasha Romanoff/Black Widow, and fled. Meanwhile, Bucky Barnes/Winter Soldier sought vengeance on the men he felt responsible for the death of Steve Rogers. But on his hunt, he fell into the hands of the Red Skull, who had secretly been sharing the mind of Bucky’s former master from his Winter Soldier days, ex-Soviet General Aleksander Lukin. Bucky was faced with Faustus’ mind-manipulation as well, but having been previously programmed, he was resistant. Falcon and Black Widow recovered on the S.H.I.E.L.D. Helicarrier, having only been stunned, leading Director Tony Stark/Iron Man, who was aware Sharon killed Steve, to believe Sharon was not completely gone. Falcon and Black Widow tracked the R.A.I.D. base where Faustus was hiding and infiltrated it. Faustus and Sharon escaped in an aircraft, taking Winter Soldier with them, but to cover their escape, Sharon kicked Winter Soldier out of the aircraft. Black Widow arrested the Winter Soldier, and the Winter Soldier was brought to the Helicarrier. Winter Soldier escaped and attacked Iron Man. The two fought until Iron Man talked him down. Iron Man showed Winter Soldier a letter left to him by Steve Rogers in the event of Rogers’ death, explaining Rogers’ wishes for there to be another Captain America and for Tony to save Bucky. Tony decided to kill two birds with one stone and make Bucky the new Captain America. Bucky agreed but said he would not work for S.H.I.E.L.D. Lukin faked his death in a plane crash. The new CEO of Lukin’s company Kronas Vladmir Morovin, who was secretly not even a real person, started to cause financial troubles for the American public by doubling oil prices and foreclosing mortgages. Stark was immediately suspicious about the existence of Morovin, but his theory was ignored. The new Captain America debuted against a R.A.I.D. faction. As a crowd demanded action from the government outside the White House, the S.H.I.E.L.D. agents stationed outside, who were under the programming of Faustus, went wild and attacked the crowd. Senator Gordon Wright contracted Kane-Meyer Securities, secretly a subsidiary of Kronas, to keep Washington, D.C. safe. Wright was under the influence of Faustus. A riot erupted outside the White House, and Captain America sprung into action to defuse it. As he entered the Senate Building, he was confronted by Synthia Shmidt/Sin, Brock Rumlow/Crossbones, and the Serpent Society. Captain America won the fight, but not the public’s affections. Arnim Zola, Red Skull’s scientist, discovered Sharon was pregnant. Sharon, who was fighting Faustus’ programming, discovered what appeared to be Steve Rogers alive in the Red Skull’s base. Red Skull deduced that Bucky was the new Captain America.

                Wright announced his candidacy for Presidency of the United States of America by forming the Third Wing Party. He negotiated with Kronas to halt the foreclosures and to reduce oil prices. This was all part of the Red Skull’s plan to take over and destroy America. Falcon confronted Stark, unhappy with Stark making Bucky the new Captain America. Clint Barton/Hawkeye confronted Bucky, telling Bucky Clint would be watching Bucky’s actions. Falcon came to Bucky and asked to team up with Bucky to save Sharon. Sharon came to rescue Steve, but discovered the person Red Skull was hiding was William Burnside, the Captain America of the 1950s, who was programmed to believe he was Steve Rogers. She was about to put him down but was discovered and stopped by Faustus. Falcon and Captain America confronted Zola at a R.A.I.D. base, and though the base was destroyed, Zola escaped. Sharon attempted to escape Red Skull’s base by taking a recovering Sin hostage. Bucky, who was following Wright, was confronted by Burnside. The two fought first, but Bucky tried to reason with Burnside and almost succeeded until Faustus reactivated Burnside’s programming. Sin fought off Sharon and stabbed Sharon in the stomach, causing Sharon to lose the baby. Red Skull turned on his daughter for ruining his plans. Red Skull had Zola working on a machine that would separate Red Skull from Lukin. Faustus decided to betray the Red Skull, causing Sharon to forget she was pregnant and releasing Sharon from Faustus’ control. Sin was tasked to take out Wright’s opponents at the presidential debate, but Sin, furious with her father, planned to take out Wright instead. Falcon and Black Widow discovered Red Skull’s base and infiltrated it. Red Skull’s machine failed. Burnside escaped. Red Skull set his base to explode. Falcon, Black Widow, Sharon, and Burnside had to stop Red Skull, Lukin and Zola, while Bucky had to stop Sin.

                Back in 1942, Steve Rogers/Captain America, Bucky and Jim Hammond/Human Torch saved Professor Zhang Chin. In 1968, the Winter Soldier was assigned to kill Chin, but Chin was saved by his experiment, the Man with No Face. In the present, Georges Batroc was hired by Chin to steal an archive drive from a United Nations Scientific Research Facility. Bucky was unable to prevent him from escaping. Captain America and Black Widow decided to investigate. Captain America found Batroc involved in a transport and tried to stop it and fought both Batroc and the Man with No Face. Captain America was almost defeated until Black Widow jumped in to help him, and the villains escaped. Captain America saw what was being transported and was furious.

                Bucky and Black Widow teamed up with Namor to go after Chin. Bucky decided to go in as the Winter Soldier. Bucky fought Chin’s agents and was abducted and brought to Chin’s laboratory. Chin created a virus from what he had stolen from the United Nations and planned to unleash it to eliminate half of earth’s population. He tested it airborne, and it was a success. He next attempted to transmit it through water and use it on Namor. Black Widow infiltrated Chin’s lab to rescue Bucky, and Bucky, Black Widow and Namor had to work together to stop Chin from releasing the virus and defeat the Man with No Face.

                Okay, now that we’ve got the plot summary out of the way, let’s progress to my input for this review. We’re going to start with my own personal opinions about this graphic novel. Honestly, I really enjoyed this graphic novel, and I looked back at previous reviews I wrote on the “The Death of Captain America” prose novel from several years ago and last year’s “Captain America: Death of the Dream” and I really enjoyed those as well. So, let’s talk about what I liked in particular. This book did have a lot of plot twists. I feel like Ed Brubaker wrote a compelling and cohesive story that wove past and present in perfectly. It was a big decision to kill Steve Rogers and replacing him with Bucky Barnes did seem like both an odd and logical choice at the same time. This gave Bucky a true shot at redemption for his actions as the Winter Soldier, and I did enjoy that, seeing him find himself again and be a hero. I don’t know if I’m more jaded now because of the MCU and future Captain America stories that I’ve read since where Sam Wilson was Captain America, and that in turn made having Bucky being Cap seem a little weird. I enjoyed how the supporting characters all had important roles in the drama as well and that the story wasn’t entirely centered on Bucky. I liked how the villains were written, the Red Skull’s machinations, Zola’s sycophantism, and Faustus’ betrayal were all excellent in my opinion. I thought the Red Skull’s plot with Wright, attempting to control America by getting his pawn elected President, was cleverly written. I found Chin to be an interesting mastermind. Watching Sharon throughout the course of the graphic novel was actually one of my favorite plotlines and I liked following her progression, even though it was full of tragedy, but it showed that a superhero’s non-powered girlfriend doesn’t always have to be helpless, which was what made her story so interesting, that she wasn’t just some damsel in distress, she actually fought for herself. I appreciated that Bucky wasn’t accepted as Captain America right away. If it were written that a superhero had just died and a new person showed up wearing a similar costume using the same name and everyone immediately loved them, that would be poor writing. Steve Rogers was Captain America since the 1940s and died, a guy who shows up in 2008 being the new Captain America should not be accepted in the mantle on his first public appearance. And I will say that I thought Bucky’s Captain America uniform was a lot cooler than Steve’s. I will say, though, that I was a little offput by the Superhuman Registration Act’s effect on Bucky’s ability to be officially backed by S.H.I.E.L.D., my longtime readers know how I am about unregistered heroes, and for those who don’t know, I’m actually pro-registration, so reading about an unregistered hero was a little bit of a turnoff. Now, I would be remiss in my duties reviewing a graphic novel if I didn’t discuss the visuals. As far as my liking of the artwork in this graphic novel, I found it to be acceptable. I’m not going to rave about it, I didn’t love it, but at the same time, I didn’t find it to be displeasing, I just thought that it was adequate and didn’t make perusing this graphic novel unappealing. I’d also like to touch on the title. I actually thought the title was perfect. There honestly were four given choices for a title, or the editors could have come up with something else, but I thought “The Burden of Dreams,” which was a title of one of the story arcs, was the best title the editors could have picked for this collection. I feel like it succinctly sums up the story, as Bucky takes up the mantle of Captain America and has to live up to the ideals of a symbol of a nation.

                Next up on our agenda is going to be the segment where I discuss accessibility. I know at this point I’ve explained this over six dozen times, but it’s something I always have to go over again for my newbs every time I do a review because I always have new readers who have never read a Tim Cubbin review before and may not know what I mean when I throw out the word accessibility like this. So when I say “accessibility” in association with a graphic novel, I mean if a person who has never heard of Captain America before can discover this book in their favorite bookstore, or website, or local library, or from a friend or relative, decide they want to read this book, then read the entire story and comprehend all the details they have just read. This book is extremely inaccessible. This collection is marketed as Vol. 3, and picks up in the middle of a story left off from Vol. 2, which had a storyline built from Vol. 1, so if you have not read the first two Modern Era Epic Collections of “Captain America,” do not try to read this volume. It is a direct continuation of an unfinished storyline, and you will have no idea what you are reading if this is the first Marvel graphic novel you ever pick up. This volume is absolutely not a place for a person who wants to begin reading Marvel Comic books to start with.

                We’re going to continue this review by me giving this graphic novel a numeric score. My scoring system is extremely simplistic. I score on a scale of one through ten, using exact integers. If I give a book a score of a one, that’s my lowest score, and that means that this book is a pile of trash that should be avoided at all costs. If I score a book at a ten, however, that’s my highest score, which means that this book is sheer perfection. When I review a graphic novel, I’m looking at a combination of three things: story, art, and title. The majority of the score usually goes to the story, while art and title will give point deductions if I don’t like them. I also am usually not one to give a book a ten unless I do truly feel the book is in fact perfection, so usually I start scoring a book at a nine and take my deductions from there. So, let’s quickly review what we’ve got going on here. I really enjoyed the story, I thought the art was acceptable, and I thought the title was spot on, so we’re looking at a relatively good score here. So, if I put all these factors together, the score I’m giving this graphic novel is… a seven! This may seem a little low, considering that I really did enjoy this book, but it is what I feel is appropriate.

                Next up is my recommendation segment. This covers two topics. The first topic is, do I personally recommend this book to anyone reading this review or to anyone unfortunate enough to have to hear me talk about this book in person? The second topic is regardless of the fact of if I would tell anyone to read this or not, who do I think is the best audience for this book? To answer the first question, yes, this book does get the personal Tim Cubbin recommendation. As for who I think the best audience is, we’ll look at the obvious first, fans of Captain America. Another target audience is fans of Ed Brubaker. Fans of Bucky Barnes/Winter Soldier would very much appreciate this story of his redemption and evolution as a character. Beyond that, I feel this book is good for readers of comics who like spy stories or tales of espionage. It’s also for comic readers who like political intrigue stories. Finally, I think it’s good for readers who like war and soldier stories.

                Okay, we’re getting to the point where I have said almost all I have to say. There are a few more things I have to touch on first. Let’s begin with the contents of this blog. I’ve been writing for five years now and have published over 175 posts. In addition to over six dozen other Marvel Epic Collection reviews, I’ve reviewed prose novels and manga, as well as written a few short stories, poems, articles, essays, and editorials, so if you want to try other material, keep checking out timcubbin.blogspot.com for plenty more content. I’ve previously written reviews of “Captain America: The Winter Soldier” and “Captain America: Death of the Dream” if you liked this post and want more Captain America content. I post on a very frequent basis as I purchase every Marvel Modern Era Epic Collection and Ultimate Epic Collection as soon as I can after they are released and try to post a review if possible. I usually do at least one post a month. I’m expecting to do a post of “Spider-Gwen: Ghost-Spider: Gwenon” sometime in the next two weeks, so keep an eye out for that post, and expect plenty more to keep coming as I’m going to keep doing this blog for as long as I possibly can, so that until I can’t see or type anymore, which I don’t expect to be a long time from now. I think that’s it for now, so until next time, Tim Cubbin… out!