Saturday, April 20, 2013

Captain America 6, Captain Marvel 12

Captain America 6
Remender (w) and Romita Jr., Palmer, Janson, and Hanna (a) and White (c)

Cap is PISSED. Just looking at the cover of the issue should really define what happens next. Captain America gets angry occasionally. Dude hates injustice and cowardly actions and terrorism and everything else on those lines. So he occasionally flips out at some villain or gets worked up at some other hero or person or something. But he's not usually angry. Angry is more sustained and less reactionary. Cap often shouts about stuff at villains while he's hitting them with his shield. He has kind of a low-level disappointment with a lot of the things in the world and in his country and in the people, but he's not often really angry. Right now, Cap is angry.
Ian is back with Zola and demands answers from Jet about why she would side with Zola, who murdered the innocent Phrox. Jet gives him the corporate lines about how Cap is a kidnapper, not a father, and how Zola is just trying to get his family back together. However, Jet is having her own problems finding Steve as negative after he spared her life. On top of that, she's never really had interactions with other humans, let alone human males, so she has all sorts of conflicting emotions about Cap. It's an interesting development, and one that makes some amount of sense given her upbringing, and one that's made all the more interesting by the end of the issue. BUT WE'LL GET THERE. Cap storms the mutates of Zolaland like never before and annihilates his way through their forces on his way to Zola and Ian. Ian gets more of a talk from Zola about how Zola only wants the best for his family and how Ian will have to understand that, even if it means reprogramming him to feel that way and brainwashing him to show Cap as figurative vampire who takes in younger men and trains them to be murderers before they die themselves (Bucky, Nomad, other Buckys, etc.). It's a compelling enough argument for Zola to make, though Cap has raised Ian for ten years or so now and it seems tricky to convince the boy that his father is an abductor with ill intents. However, he does look a bit brainwashed by the end, though this could be a ploy like one Bucky tried to use when Faustus tried to brainwash him into hating Cap. Meanwhile, Cap has tracked down Jet (showering, it's a little weird, honestly) and threatens her with a gun he's taken from the mutates. She remains calm, saying that he won't shoot her, he's too good of a person, but that he also won't ever get to Ian and doesn't deserve to. Cap fires the gun. It had been point blank on Jet's face but we don't actually see her in the panel that he shoots it, so all bets are off.
There are still a ton of interesting things happening here. Jet's feelings towards Cap paired with Ian's feelings towards Cap (very different feelings) make for a somewhat unpredictable dynamic as Cap tears through Zola's base. Also, Cap sees the doorway that had been the portal that brought him here and contemplates going out and getting help before returning to Ian, but decides against it. He also reveals that, because Marvel time is so messed up, he's actually spent more time now in Dimension Z than he has in the present day, presumably since being frozen in ice. This is his normal now. It's an incredibly interesting idea and it'll be interested to see where it goes or if it gets resolved or something. Cap's anger pervades this issue and demands your attention as a reader, really pulling you in and gripping you as we watch Cap struggle with losing Ian and with seeing Zola's mutates (which have Cap's face in horrible, twisted ways). Another strong issue. Excited to see where we go as this arc continues.

Captain Marvel 12
DeConnick and Sebela (w) and Andrade (a) and Bellaire (c)

Captain Marvel's fight continues against Deathbird, as does her inability to fly. The two come at odds somewhere in the middle of the issue as Carol can't really help herself and lifts off just enough (after totaling her flying motorcycle when she picks it up and uses it to hit Deathbird) to sap the power right out of her. It's enough, fortunately, as the fight ends with Deathbird in custody though it does leave Carol sick and weak. Throughout the issue, there's also a dialogue going between Carol's doctor and a doctor who had a patient with similar symptoms to hers, despite her Kree physiology. That doctor reveals his patient was none other than Helen Cobb, friend and idol of Carol as well as a fellow pilot. Cobb's doctor reveals that she had started hallucinating before her death, but that her reports of these hallucinations were so vivid that they seemed real, to the point where she even smelled like she had been places the doctor knew she couldn't have. Carol's doctor, who has more experience with superheroes, points out that things that are impossible happen every day in this world, so they can't rule anything out. They decide that maybe this is foul play and that someone is pulling these strings, including Helen Cobb's disease and the fire that took her life and which seems to also include Deathbird's attack and maybe even Carol's disease. The culprit is revealed to be Yon-Rogg, a Kree officer who had allegedly died in the same explosion that gave Carol her powers waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay back in the original Captain Marvel titles.
This is a very interesting decision, delving so far back into Carol's history and pulling a villain out of the ether to torture this new Captain Marvel. Yon-Rogg has a long-seated hatred of Carol and is clearly a bit unbalanced. He's also obviously not one to object to using Carol's loved ones as cannon fodder in his hatred. On top of that, she still can't fly and her powers are waning but she's going to be angrier than ever when she finds out what's happening. Now we're going to head into Captain Marvel's very own event, "Avengers: The Enemy Within," which will start in May with a one-shot prelude and continue through July in four parts, spanning DeConnick's Avengers Assemble book in issues 16 (part one) and 17 (part three) and Captain Marvel 13 (part two) and 14 (part four). This will put Carol at odds against her Avengers teammates as she makes decisions that DeConnick promises will be devastating and important, but also the decisions she truly believes Carol would make. If that's not the most worrying sentiment, I don't know what is. This will definitely be an event to pre-order and pick up as it goes on. Trust DeConnick to know what she's doing here, as she's sculpted two wonderful books for Marvel in Captain Marvel and Avengers Assemble already. Very excited and more than a little nervous.

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