Marvel Comics Review: Captain America: Reborn #4

Rating: *** 1/2

After a delay of about a month, the mini-series Captain America: Reborn continues. I’ve really enjoyed this series so far and would recommend it to non-Cap fans as a good example of a good Captain America story. After reading this issue, however, I’m starting to get a bit disappointed. We know Steve Rogers will be “resurrected” and return as Captain America, but we’ve wondered exactly how the story will end with that conclusion. Well, after reading this issue, I think I’ve got the conclusion figured out. It should be good, but I was hoping for something new and different. Maybe I’m wrong and there will be something different, but I doubt it. Before I give my theory of the conclusion, a quick recap.

The Red Skull has more than nine lives. He’s cheated death once again and is now inhabiting a new robotic body. The Red Skull, his daughter Sin, and her boyfriend Crossbones have arrived in Latveria the homeland of Dr. Doom. Doom has the machine that the Skull needs to recover Captain America, who is currently stuck in time. Sharon Carter is the key to getting Steve back; she has surrendered herself because the Skull’s accomplice Norman Osborn revealed to the media that she was the second shooter in the assassination of Captain America.

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Marvel Comics Review: Captain America: Reborn #2

Rating: *** 1/2*

Another very good issue from the team of Ed Brubaker and Bryan Hitch.  Captain America: Reborn picks up right where issue one left off.  Steve Rogers is not dead and his friends in the Marvel Universe are trying to rescue him.  Steve is stuck in time as his consciousness is living inside his body in the past.  He keeps jumping from one moment in his life to the next.  In the last issue, we saw Steve as he stormed the beaches on D-Day and in this issue we see moments such as a battle between him and Master Man and Steve visiting President Roosevelt.  He also goes back to the moment where he took the Super-Soldier Serum - more on that later.

Back in the present, the current Captain America, Bucky Barnes, and the Black Widow are battling the Dark Avengers and Norman Osborn’s HAMMER.  They are looking for the device that the Red Skull and Arnim Zola used that resulted in Steve Rogers getting stuck in time after his assassination.  Unfortunately, the Dark Avengers are able to defeat and capture them.  They are interrogated by Norman Osborn.

Under the influence of the Red Skull, Sharon Carter shot Steve Rogers.  However, there was another assassin who took part in the crime: Crossbones.  To the general public, he is the lone gunman and has been incarcerated for the crime alongside his girlfriend, the Red Skull’s daughter, Sin.  Norman Osborn has a discussion with them and a deal is struck.  Which brings us back to Bucky and the Black Widow.  Osborn is interrogating them and reveals that he has released the information to the public that Sharon Carter was in on the assassination and that she is now wanted by the law.  Bucky and Widow are angry of course, but they’re powerless as Osborn tells Black Widow that he is going to release her, but she must bring Sharon Carter back with her or he will kill Bucky.  Why is Norman doing this?  Power.  The deal he made with Crossbones and Sin is to help bring about the return of Steve Rogers as Captain America and I think he needs Sharon to help bring this about.

A Captain America leading his Dark Avengers, under his control?  How deliciously evil!  Go, Norman!  Norman Osborn has really become the number one bad guy in the Marvel Universe over the past year.  Kudos to Marvel for really using the character in this manner after years of simply just being another resurrected Spider-Man villain.  Norman has become Marvel’s answer to Lex Luthor.

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