Cap!Reborn ReCap
Oct. 1st, 2009 12:38 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tsukinofaeriiI've noticed that no one is doing a Reborn Recap. Not that I can blame anyone. >.> IT'S SO THRILLING. /sarcasm. *ahem* Anyway, I decided to do it, for giggles and so that someone has it laid out. As of this point, three issues have come out, so it'll take me a bit to get all three of them done.
I have a theory that they're using the Reborn series to set up a convenient jumping-off point for incoming Cap fans. That would explain why it seems to be mostly a flashback episode. They're laying out Steve for new fans who won't want to wade through decades of history. It would also explain why we don't see anything of Tony, even though the Steve v. Tony thing is still a giant dangling thread. This is Steve's story. Getting Steve's story mixed up with Steve & Tony's story would be too confusing for people who only know them as two separate movies.
This does not make the lack of Tony less fail.
So! Cap Reborn Recap: Issue One of Five. On the sliding scale of Win, I give it a...
Which is exactly why no one's flailing over it. Panel-by-panel commentary after the cut. Hopefully, I can make the commentary worth reading. I'll consider it a challenge.
We open up to a very awesome symbol—Cap's A, a star, and some wings. Truly awesome. Made for tattooing. In the single panel below, we see some soldiers, WWII era probably, and some serious BS. The next few panels are pretty much the same. Hello, D-Day! (waves) Is that the only part of WWII they could think to use, or is it just that he drama was irresistible? The art isn’t too bad, though. Dull colors, lots of blue and kind of heavy on shadows, but not too shabby. We also get a very nice shot of Cap in a pose, supposedly yelling encouragement to the troops he's about to lead. The pose is a little lol-able, though. He looks a little like a wrestler about to made a dive from the ropes: elbows up at ear height, teeth gritted, eyes slightly unfocused. Amateur-tip: for immediacy in art, have your subject looking at the "camera". This pic would be much more effective if he weren't staring at my keyboard.
This story, if you go by the narrator, is about the Legend Of Captain America. Yeah. Sure. And it has nothing to do with the movie they're making.
The story of Captain America is filled with as much myth and lies as it is with truth... but that, after all, is how you build aa legend. You leave out the ugly bits and the hardship and you focus on the parts everyone can digest easily. The natural born hero. The super-soldier built in a U.S. Laboratory. The finest of his generation. Always the first into battle... always leading the way... always the victor... That is the story everyone knows about the life of Captain America.All I want to know is, who let 1610 Tony narrate?
And then... random jump to the moment on the courthouse steps. We all know what that means. Is it my imagination, or does the art suddenly go a little wonky? This one is color-coded yellow—everything is kind of yellowish. Even Cap's mail has a tint. WTF. And cap looks kind of vaguely like Clint Eastwood. Random wrinkles, why? Tony!voice continues, explaining that the death of Cap was a lie too, which we can kind of figure out by the fact that he's coming back.
Random shot of the Helicarrier goes here. We're back to shades of blue, or maybe violet.
And back to the yellow. This seems to be pretty much a case of, "In our last episode..." with color coding. I really can't see any other reason to be dragging out a recap of Steve's death like this. Unless they're sadists. That's completely possible, at this point. We get to see someone who I've got to assume is Sharon running up to Steve and delivering the killing bullets off-panel. This is another moment where the art makes me go o.O It should be a lot more dramatic, but Sharon looks almost zen, and Steve looks like he's a confused puppy. Again, no eye contact with the reader. Drama: fail.
Violet again! Random shot of nuCap and the Black Widow, flying some sort of mini-jet while she clings to his back sort of monkey-like. Is it my imagination, or is she looking a little ScarJo? Anyway! According to ScarJo there, they only get one shot that "this", whatever "this" is.
Aaaaand now a big panel with Cap laid out dead on the courthouse steps. I see blood, but no bullet holes. Was it really impossible to draw tears in his costume? Really? But other than that, we have dramatic posing and expressions. Finally. There is a random star on the steps by his shoulder. Yeah, IDGI. Quoth the narrator: "But that is how Captain America died... and America lost its symbol of hope..." OOOH, buzzword!
Violet! Brighter shades now, so I must assume we're in the present again. The Helicarrier is also a clue, but I'm going to use the color as definitive. Ooh, and we have text drama! "... or so most people thought." So... did we not really lose our symbol of hope? Or is this just going back to the, "his death was a lie, FOOLED YOU" thing? There are pictures of ScarJo and nuCap kicking ass, with her doing this random split-legged kick thing that really looks kind of painful. Also, we get confirmation that Bucky is nuCap. YOU DON'T SAY?
New narration color! We are listening to a conversation! Which means that some idiot is actually telling some other idiot how Cap died. Because that's good story-telling. Also, narrator2 doesn't seem to know that Bucky was alive. o.o Okay then. There is more ass-kicking, which really doesn't make much sense. Bucky and ScarJo are breaking into the Helicarrier. Great. I'd like to know why now please. There are three pages of random ass-kicking and pointless narration telling us what we already know. People in power hid that Sharon had the kill-shot, blah blah blah.
New setting! This one is done in shades of dull green and is purported to be Hank Pym's Private Lab. Okay then. We have Vision, Falcon, Hank and Sharon, who looks like someone bleached ScarJo's hair blonde. Also, a gigantic Cap Bot in the background. I'm hoping for Chekhov's Gun. I'll settle for awesome background. The dialogue makes no sense, so I'll just mention the important part. Sharon says that she shot Steve. Hank is surprised. Exposition happens, with telling what we already know. She was brainwashed! Angsty stuff. Sharon is upset. Sam is like... randomly in a playgirl pose, with his leg bent at a very fetching angle that still manages to make him look like he might tip over sideways. Clearly, using human models was not in the budget this year. Here's something that seems important:
Sharon: After that day... After Steve died, or... Well... I was gone. I wasn't me...
We find out that Sharon was able to spy on the Red Skull, and that Arnim Zola is involved. There's some more random dialogue that makes sure we know these people. Finally, we have... Dr. Doom. The three villains were working on some sort of Time Platform thingy. Okay then.
RED. Like, really vivid red. Not even tinting this time; it looks like a crayon puked on the page. Sharon, it seems, was part of their experiments, as evidenced by a super close-up of her looking kind of dazed.
Next page shows everyone's favorite baddies playing bondage and a random door thing that looks suspiciously akin to what we first saw over Cap's crotch in the cover art. Looks like our Big Bads are trying to bring Steve back. Because that's what villains do. They revive their biggest threats. So Sharon (still in bright reds) broke free somehow and kicked ass, then escaped.
Oh, whew. Green again. After the crayon puke, it's kind of soothing.
Hank: Wait— are you trying to tell me that Steve Rogers is still alive? And they were using this platform to somehow revive or... bring him back?
NO SHIT SHERLOCK. Or, possibly, bwuh? He's alive. We just were TOLD that. Outright told by Sharon. YOU CAN'T REVIVE SOMEONE WHO'S ALIVE.
Somehow, Sharon has the gun she shot Steve with. How she got this is not explained. It is not a normal gun.
Sharon: Zola kept referring to me as the constant... and I didn't know what that meant... but... now I'm thinking they needed me to make the whole thing work.
Since we just saw her chained up and being used in an attempt to bring Steve back, yeah, I think so.
Next scene, Yesterday. 1300 hours. NuCap and ScarJo plot infiltration of HAMMER. Congratulations, caption, you just completely removed the point. Normal colors, ahoy! I suppose you could call this "shades of brown", but there's some non-tinted in there that makes me think it's just the setting. Nick Fury gave them some help. More importantly, we're finally given a reason as to why they're doing it.
Nick: All the stuff seized from the Skull's base is being held in tech storage on their base ship for now. No record it's even been examined... lost in the shuffle between SHIELD and HAMMER, looks like.
And that's that. Can we please, please go more than a couple of pages in the same frigging time frame? We're back to a half page of NuCap and ScarJo kicking ass. Below that, wee!Hank verifies that Doom made the gun. (waves a yay flag) And that the ammo isn't normal—it has a tachyon field. Or something. You may remember tachyons from Land of the Lost, recently in theaters, starring Will Ferrell. Star Trek has also used them a couple of times. Hank needs Reed to be sure. ("Damn it man, I'm a biologist, not a physicist!")
Another clue! NuCap and ScarJo are after the device Zola was building to bring back Cap, and are due to report soon, according to Sharon. Anyone who knows tropes knows that she just pulled the equivalent of 'what can go wrong?'. A third of a scene on the Helicarrier and we're back to green. Hank brings up a good point. There's some serious tech sitting in the Helicarrier, and they're betting Osborn doesn't know about it? Suuuuure.
More violet! NuCap and ScarJo are finding out that what they're after doesn't seem to be there. Also, there are no bits of Zola. Something is wrong! This is verified when a hand rips open the ceiling.
Aside: I love the Ults ad on the next page. Cap looks old and, again, like Clint Eastwood IMO, but very loving attention was paid while drawing in the flagpole. Gotta love the Ultimates.
Next page, still violet. We have Ares (God of War, and doesn't that just say it all?), Venom and a whole ton of soldiers, with a teeny-tiny inset of our heroes' reaction.
nuCap: Aw, crap.
Exactly my thoughts, Bucky. Exactly.
GREEN. Brighter green. Now we're at Thunderbolt's Mountain Base, HAMMER Nationat HQ. WE MEET OUR NARRATORS. It has been Zola and
Gobby: So let me get this straight, Zola... you're saying that Doom's device froze Captain America in time?
Zola: No. It locked his body in time and space.
Completely ignoring that Cap's body was recovered... Anyone who knows ANYTHING can tell how shaky that statement is. Just... really, wha? Come on, Marvel. Throw us a bone here. Use common sense, please!
Basically, we're being told that Cap was/wasn't dead, and that Skull-boy and Zola were trying to pluck him out of the timestream. Things explodes and now... oops! Cap has come unstuck in time.
We're treated with a very nice, dramatic pic of Cap on D-Day, on the beaches of Normandy. It's even captioned that, so HA. (Color coding is back to dull blues.) Lots and lots of dead people, but what do you expect on D-day? Steve is realizing that Something Is Wrong. He's not supposed to be there. Steve might be the only one whose scenes actually work. He's supposed to be confused, whereas everyone else is just confusing. Just for a extra-special treat, we get to see Bucky say "am-scray". ♥ Adorable.
Back to warm brown tones and dull colors. Now Steve is at the bedside of his mother just after she's passed away. This part wrenches my heart. He's so tiny! ;-;
Hello, D-day again! Steve is a confused puppy. So are we, Steve, so are we. He's so confused that he almost gets taken out by some bombs and Bucky has to tackle him. Fortunately, Bucky foregoes the Robin-esque crotch-dive and takes him down by his chest.
Final page! Extreme close-up! Cap is looking pensive and thoughtful and for once looking at the reader. It would work better if he didn't remind me of a lovelorn teenager batting his eyes up at the reader.
Cap Thoughts: Oh, God... What's happening to me.
TA DA.
So! To summarize: Sharon "killed" Cap, for a certain unknown value of "kill", and is somehow needed to bring him back. Cap is bouncing back and forth in time, and he's aware of this bouncing. Sharon, Hank, Vision and Sam are waiting for nuCap & ScarJo to get the machine that will help them bring Cap back. Meanwhile, nuCap & ScarJo kicked ass yet still managed to get cornered by Villains. Nick Fury was somehow involved. Zola & Gobby are Planning Evil Yet Strangely Unspecified Things, and Skull-boy wants to bring Cap back.
We have six different groups here. Is it any wonder that nothing really happened with any of them? The color coding helps keep them straight at a glance, but there's way too much happening to fit it all, and apparently when given a choice between plot and flashback, the writers chose flashback.
Thus ends Captain America Reborn Issue 1. I need coffee. =
