Captain America Vol. 4 #2
Written by John Ney Reiber
Drawn by John Cassaday
Published by Marvel Comics
Sparse dialogue, maybe a few captions, and a greater reliance on art. This isn't a bad thing, it just gets redundant fast. -- d. emerson eddy, talking about something else entirely
A jingoism ate my baby.
Both vacuous and pretty, and pretty vacuous, this new Captain America series has spent two issues now on the subject of terrorism without telling us anything at all about it, except of course that it's bad and the people who do it are evil. Even an a soul-dead, swindling mouth-breather like George W. Bush knows this, so it's hardly any great accomplishment, what's being said here. The fact that it's marginally better than the three-issue tree-killing mini-series that directly preceded it does not prompt me to dance in the streets.
I had hoped, early on, when preview images were first being made available, that Captain America would avoid the easy, mindless patriotism that we've seen so much of in the past months since 11 September, and instead really try to examine the subjects of patriotism and heroism and terrorism. Tell me something new, something I hadn't thought of or had spoon-fed to me by CNN, Fox News or the New York Times. Over 40 pages in, I don't know about you, but I've learned this: Captain America's chainmail shirt looks a lot like an angora sweater from some angles.
"The sky should be bleeding or burning if God's watching this," Cap thinks to himself, in regard to violence and explosions caused by terrorism. Reiber fails to mention that to terrorists, god is cheering and high-fiving angels as he watches the fruit of their labours. Reiber fails to explain why God is used as both motive and defense on both sides, or even to bring it up. Because, of course, God is on our side. Yes, yes, of course he is. Praise Allah. I mean, Amen, brother.
"Before this is over," Cap swears to himself, "Somebody's going to tell you how that could happen here. Three hundred miles into American airspace." 300 miles? Well, of course -- this story takes place in a made up town, the antagonist a made-up terrorist dropping landmines, landmines I say, and taking over a church service and threatening good, clean, Christian parishoners. I don't believe, frankly, that anybody is going to be telling us how this could happen. Cap will no doubt learn the methods used by his fictional terrorist foe, probably that he had help from someone in the U.S. military or government -- but again, what does this say? What statement does it make about terrorism? Yes, the United States created and paid for Osama Bin Laden (Usama for you extremist Fox News-watchin' patriots out there -- gotta remember to put the USA in "Usama," after all), but somehow I suspect Reiber is not going to point this out, and even if he does, he'll be pointing it out about a fake terrorist.
Maybe you're thinking that I am expecting too much, in asking Reiber to have something new and relevant to say on the subject of terrorism. But when 3000 real, living, breathing people have died because of it, and you give me two issues of Cap sifting through their remains and vowing to FIGHT TERROR, as this issue's cover says, well, I expect you to give me something more than a fake villain, sparse dialogue, a few captions, and a great reliance on the lovely artwork of John Cassaday. This book, sadly, has already turned redundant. Much as I love Cassaday's work, and I do, so far the biggest innovation here is Cap's angora chainmail. Forgive me for expecting just a bit more. Grade: 2.5/5