Cap!Reborn ReCap 2
Oct. 6th, 2009 09:41 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tsukinofaeriiHello again, and welcome to the second edition of "can we just jump to issue five and have Cap back now please?" (Sad to say, the answer to that has been "no" thus far, but hope springs eternal, or at least for another few months.) On the cover (or at least, my cover), we have Cap choking Hitler. Isn't that nice? He's still managing to avoid eye-contact with the reader, which makes the artist inside of me shrivel a little. On the back cover, Bucky manages it, so that helps a little.
The sliding scale of Win gives this issue....
If you were hoping for anything informative or vaguely plot-like... I'm so very sorry.
In our last issue, we saw that Cap is bouncing back and forth in time. Sharon is the Constant, whatever that means, that is required to bring him back. Evil Bad Guys Are Evil. And finally, ScarJo and nuCap suck at espionage.
We get to open up to another Cap Flashback. The colors are dim, but not blue, so I'm thinking they gave up on the color-coding from last issue. We can all hurrah at that, at least. The first shot is of a castle, 1944, and Cap saying he remembers this day. (There castle.)
Our next page is a tribute to the art of "working within limited space". The top is a whole two half-page spread of Cap running. Or possibly doing a forward split in mid-air, since I've never seen a human being run like that. I can only assume it was drawn that way so as to use the available space. Either way, no complaints here. Cap has some very nice legs. In the two panels below him, we have Master Man about to toss a tree and Cap trying to save some soldiers. According to Cap!Thoughts, Red Skull is up in yonder castle, about to try and bring demons to Hitler's aid. Why do bad guys always resort to deals with the devil? Anyway, he knows he won, but most of the soldiers there died.
Next page, narration/Cap continues, while Cap saves soldiers and battles Master Man. This next bit needs to be quoted:
Cap: So why am I reliving this day again? Is this some trick of Faustus's or the Skull's? Am I strapped to a table in a lab somewhere?
Hands up for who thinks that would be a better plot than Time Bullets. Or, possibly, the start of a really good porno?
Cap decides that no, it's too real, and no one could fake that. I'm guessing no one's explained past life regression to him. Or even just basic hypnosis. Anyways, Cap is discovering that he's pretty much just along for the ride in his own body. If he tries, he can control it, but for the most part his body just goes through the motions just like he had before. In the art, he's still fighting Master Man, including a Robin-esque crotch-dive that would be much more homoerotic if it weren't for his shield.
Still fighting. Since Cap's body is controlling things for him, he's free to ponder deeper thoughts, such as the ability to change the past. He decides not to think about it. Seriously. "It's too big to think about..." oO; I suppose that the writers didn't want to get into the nature of paradoxes, which is really just another level of fail. What, I ask you, is the point of playing with time travel if you don't 1) change the past or 2) find out the past is immutable? I squee'd on the next thought though.
Cap: I need Tony Stark or Reed Richards... someone who would understand this...
It's one of the few, precious mentions of Tony that we get. (hugs it) They need clinging to. But before we can get anything more, Cap goes through a fade-to-white that seems to be the indicator of a time jump, and we get a "Damn it!" That should tell you how frustrated Steve is. And it only gets worse.
This time, he's talking to the President, about to go out and do the Press Conference thing. Apparently, the PotUS considers Cap a good luck charm against reporters. Good to know.
Cap: I need a scientist... someone to help me find a way out of this nightmare... a way back to my own time...
A moment to reflect on the characterization changes this line signals. Cap's classically been something of a fish out of water when it comes to the timestream. Technically, he is in his own time right now, and the problem isn't getting back so much as figuring out how to stop bouncing around it like a rubber ball in a glass house. That he's thinking of the modern-era as his time seems significant. Or it's simply that the writer didn't want to think that deeply.
Oh, look, we're back to violets with nuCap and ScarJo. Never mind on the lack of color coding, then. They're still getting their asses handed to them by Ares, Venom and a lot of soldiers. ScarJo's ponytail has revolved from the back of her head to the side.
nuCap: Okay, Bucky... you always liked facing unbeatable odds... looks like you've got your wish—this time, maybe literally. Not only did you walk into a trap... but now you're facing some of Osborn's evil Avengers... Ares, the actual Greek god of war... and... I don't know what Venom is... some kind of monster...
Just in case you missed the last issue. (facepalm) Also, am I the only one who thinks it's a little odd for Bucky to be thinking of himself as Bucky? It reeks of identity crisis to me.
The fight continues, with an affirmation that nuCap and Bucky are, indeed, there to try and save Steve. They finally run out of mooks to fight and come up against Venom and Ares. ScarJo's ponytail has moved again, and is revealed to be a magical, bandless ponytail. ScarJo tells Bucky to grab a flying car and beat it while she covers his escape. With typical chivalristic stupidity, nuCap refuses, even though their signals are jammed (not that we've seen them trying to signal a thing) and someone needs to make sure the others know Osborn has The Device. Meanwhile, they're still trying to shoot Venom and Ares, which makes you wonder if Cap never discussed tactics with nuCap. There's also some more random aerial splits from ScarJo. IDGI. Finally, the ass-kicking finishes with Venom catching ScarJo and Ares taking out nuCap, with only the ominous line of....
Ares: We aren't in the habit of being merciful... but you two are in luck this night... because we have orders to bring you in alive.
And then we're treated to an uber close-up of a fist and a panel of blackness with a gold splash of light. Very effective. (applauds)
Limey greens now, and we're supposedly in the Baxter Building. Reed is scanning Sharon in something that looks worrisomely like a dentist's chair. We're now a day later—last night ScarJo and nuCap went silent and never reported in. Sam and Vision went on recon to try and find them. Reed has found something odd in Sharon's bloodstream—something familiar, but he can't pin point it. He mentions that before Tony went underground, he sent him Cap's autopsy (shudder), and that he hadn't liked the rapid cellular decay. Again I will say \o/ for mention of Tony's existence. And mention of Cap's autopsy seems to be the only reason these pages exist, because next we get to see Osborn. In greeny-yellows.
Gobby is Crazy. That's pretty much our over-riding theme here. He's talking with Crossbones and Sin and giving them a choice: either run a little errand for him, or die. Crossbones is cuffed. Sin isn't. IDK why, except perhaps they forgot. Basically, Gobby's brand of crazy comes together like this: he wants Cap working for him, in order to help cement his power. One way to do that, in his very sane opinion, is to put the Red Skull into a Reborn Cap's body. Because working with a guy even Hitler was afraid of, who happens to be in the body of one of the most beloved American icons of all time, is a good idea.
Whoops! 1940, here we are. Cap is young, skinny and oh-so-precious here. He's now talking to Doc Erskine and right on the verge of being REBORN... for the first time. Since Steve was just thinking that he needs a scientist, I am suspicious, but alas, I don't have enough faith to think that maybe it's a deliberate move. Steve, being a bright boy, asks about time travel, and covers it by saying it's fictional. He asks about the good old Kill Hitler thing (which I'd first learned as an ethical question, but in this case, we're looking at physics). Rather than explain that, by killing Hitler, you would remove your own purpose for killing Hitler and thus create a paradox that would make everything that is or ever was go bang, the good doc explains thusly:
Doc: I am sure many must dream of this... of course, the trouble is, in doing this, one would alter the future... and in this altered future, you or the ones you love... may no longer exist.
So it's not a temporal paradox that's the problem. It's that you might accidentally commit suicide-via-time machine. Gotcha. From there, we go on to see Steve becoming the great big hunk we know and love today. This is a little heartbreaking. Steve knows what's about to happen, but Erskine pretty much just told him flat out that he has to let it happen. He's just trapped in time. No second chances here. (And lo, any chances of an interesting subplot die upon the field.) So he drinks the serum (which is, of course, in a vial, because a glass would be too common place), "[bathes] in the rays of Dr. Erskine's machines" and... voila! He is REBORN. We have a very nummy picture of post-serum Steve wearing only a very tiny, very tight pair of shorts. Omnomnom.
Biggest Scan I Could Load on photobucket. Here's a bigger one.
Here's the heartbreaker. The good Doc is shot by a Nazi sympathizer waiting up in the rafters. Steve curses again and leaps up a good 15 feet to take out the shooter, but he's too late, just like he'd been the first time it happened.
Cap: God... this is torture. Why am I here?
This, I think, is a sign of things to come. More on that in... well, things to come, AKA: Issue 3.
Away from normal colors and back to violets, meaning we're about to se ScarJo and nuCap. The location is the HAMMER helicarrier, which we're not supposed to recognize even with it taking up 1/3 of the page. I think the mixing of the two scenes confused someone, because Gobby still has his greens, but everything else is our nuCap violet. Gobby is going the Supervillain Gloat in front of our captured
Gobby: I suppose you're wondering what exactly it is you're doing here?
nuCap: I figured it was because you wanted my autograph. Just unshackle me and I'll see what I can do about that.
PLOT! WE HAVE PLOT! *\o/* Gobby has released Sharon's name as the second shooter
I'll get back to you when I figure out a logical reason why he doesn't just off nuCap as soon as ScarJo is gone. Villains always make the mistake of keeping the bait alive.
Our last panel is a super close up of Gobby, being dramatic and threatening to kill nuCap. DO NOT WANT.
To summarize: Cap's still bouncing back and forth in time, and has figured out that he can't change the past, thus removing the entire point of time travel tropes. Sharon has something freaky in her blood that is vaguely related to Cap's autopsy in ways that aren't being explained. Gobby plans to put the Red Skull into Cap's body. To that effect, he's captured nuCap and ScarJo, and is going to hold nuCap hostage until Sharon turns herself in.
Wow, that's even less forward movement than last time.
Stay tuned for Issue 3, which is probably going to be just like Issue 2, except moreso.
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Date: 2009-10-09 07:53 pm (UTC)