As I whined about mentioned one or two times, German translations of American comics are usually one or two years behind. On the other hand, they tend to come in trade collections and aren't as expensive as the originals tend to be, which is nifty. So yesterday I was able to read something completely why I had only read two or so issues of before (grabbed during visits to the UK): Ed Brubaker's Captain America: Death of a Dream and Captain America: The Burden of Dreams, which, Blake's 7 fan that I am, I am irresistably tempted to call "Brubaker pulls a Blake". Explanation: after the first two seasons of B7, Gareth Thomas, the actor who played the titular character, Blake, went back to the RSC and hence left the show (though he was available for two guest appearances in the s3 and s4 finale respectively). This led among other things to everyone's favourite ambiguous character, Avon, promoted to leading man for the later two season, which in turn did, err, interesting things with Avon's characterisation, but that's another matter. The show, however, remained called Blake's 7, and you could say that Blake in absentia had a far more powerful hold over Avon than Blake present. My point of comparison being that Brubaker had to pull off writing a title with the title character gone due to the end of the big Civil War crossover event, and to eventually promote one of the supporting characters to his place. This he did with style; it's also a really well written aftermath of loss, experienced differently by the various characters in the comic (to wit, Sam aka Falcon, Bucky Barnes, Sharon Carter and Tony Stark; admittedly it was the Tony angle that made me read the story in the first place, after reading Brubaker's Winter Soldier, Aka The One Where Bucky Comes Back, first, but he's by no means the only reason why I can recommend the story). I have two complaints, more praise, and some irreverence beneath the cut.



The quote I used for the cut is how an (admiring) Matt Fraction described the comic in an interview a while ago. You see his point. As I said, the death of Steve Rogers and how everyone guilt trips about it, and deals, or not, is the major theme. To get my complaints out of the way first, the character drawing the short straw here is the late Cap's on again, off again girlfriend, Sharon Carter, aka Agent 13 of SHIELD. Who falls victim to two, shall we say, questionable plot devices: a) it turns out she was and in this comic still is (though she's fighting against it) mind-controlled by one of the villains, and b) she's pregnant. I'm less than fond of mind-control plots when it comes to something major a character did in general, whether it's someone male or female, but if you write a female character mind controlled and make her pregnant at the same time... let's just say the only time I was able to stomach is was when a lot of people weren't, in Angel's season 4, because at least this retconned Cordelia's horrid season 3 characterisation and made sort of sense out of it. If Sharon's offspring, should she have it, is called Jasmine, you read it it here first, though.

My other complaint is ideological in nature: permanent Captain America villain Red Skull (i.e. a Nazi) teaming up with Aleksandr Lukin (relatively new villain, introduced in the Winter Soldier arc, an old Communist) and eventually becoming one with him creates an equation between the two ideologies as a subtext which I find both wrong and lazy. Mind you, we get the Hitler-Stalin alliance invoked as a justification, and I can see why they needed to use Lukin to begin with - considering the central position Bucky has in this narrative - but I still don't like it.

On to all the other things I did like. As I said, this story starts with everyone except Sam on a massive guilt trip. Sam is basically the only mourner who deals with losing his best friend in a healthy way: he's sad Steve is gone, but he doesn't feel personally responsible, or compelled to vengeance. This means he has the thankless job of dealing with grieving Sharon and set-on-killing-people-and-especially-Tony-Stark Bucky. The whole quiet support thing is a very effective balance to everyone else's high drama, I must say. Another character used effectively as balance is Natasha Romanova, the Black Widow. Giving her a past with Bucky makes sense (former Soviet spies, unite); moreover, she's the only character in this comic who isn't massively angry at Tony (they have a matter of fact rapport which is quite refreshing, and recently came in handy in the Skrull Invasion) and by being around competently reduces my problem with the Sharon storyline just a little bit ( because it means Sharon isn't the only female character with lines, and that the other female character isn't victimized or made into a tool but remains active).

But the plot thread that provides the core of the story is the one that leads to the confrontation between the two guilt-tripping, self-loathing guys who haven't even heard of the "acceptance" part in the mourning process. Brubaker was the one who brought back Steve Rogers' WWII era sidekick Bucky and made him into a KGB brainwashed assassin and a symbol of the ongoing scars of the Cold War, which was inspired, so it's not surprising Bucky would become a narrative focus in the post-Steve Rogers Captain America. Brubaker is also one of the Marvel writers (along with Bendis and Cage, and as opposed to Slott, Millar and JMS) who in the "Tony Stark in and after Civil War: flawed hero or complete bastard? question falls on the flawed hero side of the characterisation, so his version of Tony here is definitely on an atonment route. Which brings us to the set up of Bucky deciding that that the way to deal with Steve's death is to kill Tony, and Tony getting an "in the event of my death" letter from the late Steve Rogers in which he's asked to save Bucky (from a backslide into being a killer, that is). This is the stuff angsty drama is made of, and even if you can see the solution to the problem (especially from a Doylist pov since you know Brubaker can only drag this Captain-America-without-Captain-America thing out so long) coming, I still love the way it's brought about. Because basically:

Fight Scene: *ensues, ending in a stalemate/Mexican stand-off situation*
Tony: You know, all appearances to the contray, I neither want to commit suicide or kill you.
Bucky: And I should care why?
Tony: Because I'm going to prove my manipulative skills by pulling off the biggest act of persuasion since I made Peter Parker unmask, and I'll do so in a credible way.
Tony: *uses own experience in guilt to guilt trip Bucky into becoming the next Captain America*
Natasha: This isn't exactly what that letter said, is it?
Tony: No, but it's the only thing I could think of to get Bucky off the killing trip and into wanting to live again, once more with ethics. If Also, didn't you read Fallen Son? I've been trying to find replacement Caps so I don't have to admit he's gone for a while now.

Okay, seriously now, it's an excellent scene, and I love that extra layer of characterisation that comes with Tony interpreting "save Bucky" as "make Bucky into the public me". (Also, in terms of the Steve/Tony relationship, that letter is gold because it was written during Civil War and indicates a level of trust that hasn't been eroded despite all.) Brubaker doesn't let that immediately work in all regards, btw, he's too good a writer for that. The first time Bucky tries to make an inspirational speech, he well and truly sucks at it. But he gets the going after the bad guys business done, and is quite clear on the concept that being Captain America means he has to work on that relating to the people business as well. (Even if he sucks at it.) Plus I like the little vocabulary touches, whether it's Bucky referring to Sharon as "Steve's girl" (a very WWII era thing, and that is the time he's from) or him calling Black Widow not Natasha but Natalya.

I should maybe say something about the villains other than complaining about the ideological equations in the Red Skull/Lukin thing. The one doing all the hypnotizing is Dr. Faustus, basically channelling audience fear of psychiatrists as well as evoking Rasputin with his fearsome beard. But the villains really are secondary here; this is all about the interpersonnel drama. Keep it going, Brubaker.