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January 11, 2005
Subway Reading: Captain America and Tom Strong
SPOILERS AHEAD!!
Captain America #2 - This weekend I had a conversation with friend and loyal Pickytarian Tim-Man. On my suggestion, Tim-Man picked up the first issue of Captain America. He enjoyed it to an extent, but he posed a question to me which I could not answer: "Why is everybody so mad at Captain America for killing a couple of terrorists?" He has a very good point. I suppose that the response is that S.H.I.E.L.D. and Nick Fury are worried that Cap was shaken up by the recent dis-assembly of The Avengers and the related deaths of Hawkeye and The Vision. My question is: why does Nick Fury have this Dr. Phil-like interest in Cap's feelings? The two men are soldiers, right? They have presumably survived countless deaths of their fellow soldiers over the decades. Captain America famously watched his loyal boy-pal Bucky die. I would think that Nick Fury would give Cap the benefit of the doubt.
It is possible that there is more to it than meets the eye, of course. Fury and Sharon Carter's interest in Cap's feelings may be due to some as-yet unrevealed plot point. It's sort of irrelevant for now, because this second chapter of Ed Brubaker's story moves away from the touchy-feely and towards the whammo-smacky. Cap and S.H.I.E.L.D. begin investigating the murder from last issue and the related terrorist plot. Machine-gun fire and shield-chucking ensues. The dialogue contains some gems, such as Cap's disbelief that the aforementioned murder victim is actually dead. I also appreciate the way the Brubaker drops in brief expository nods for those of us who are not aware of obscure-yet-relevant history from these characters' long continuity.
The visuals, courtesy of artist Steve Epting and colorist Frank D'Armata, continue to impress me. The underground sewer environment is portrayed as shadowy and dark, but the action is not obscured by overly murky coloring. Epting's drawing style is highly naturalistic, but it is done with a loose line that keeps the action dynamic and fluid. I can't express how happy I am to see Epting's work again after the unfortunate demise of CrossGen's El Cazador title. The appealing art combines with an above-average if not exceptional story to earn this issue 3.5 stars.
Tim-Man's question about Captain America led to a discussion of Identity Crisis and the school of superhero writing that places the character in a more "real-world" setting. While I do not want to get into the various manifestations of this tendency and their relative merits, I do want to mention it as the context for my next review...
Tom Strong #29 & #30 - Ed Brubaker also wrote this 2-part Tom Strong story, and the tone could not be further removed from that of Captain America. For me, the joy of Tom Strong has always been its lack of "grim n' gritty" real-world darkness. Their constant hopping between timelines and alternate realities leaves the Strong family with little time for existential angst. And how melancholy can you get when you have Solomon the talking ape and his British accent around to cheer you up?
Ironically, this story maintains that fanciful tone even while dropping Tom into an extremely grim alternate future. The reason is that the alternate future into which Tom falls is a cheerless world without super-heroes, where political corruption, poverty, and war have turned Millennium City into a bleak dystopia. Tom himself becomes is an overweight factory worker, trudging from his unhappy marriage to his miserable job, trying to understand why he has dreams and memories of a life as a science-hero.
Duncan Fegredo has long been one of my favorite artists. In this book he shows off a couple of different variations on his style, splitting them between the "real" Tom Strong timeline and the "fake" one. In the bookend current timeline scenes Fegredo uses an unusually fine line, almost as though he is drawing at a larger magnification than usual. The alternate timeline scenes are depicted with more of his trademark thick lines, but there is a loose, un-connected quality to them that help communicate the dream-like haze of Tom's experience. The coloring also shifts in tone, abandoning its usual bright primary-color palette for a muted grays, browns, and considerable white space. Ultimately I think I prefer Fegredo's tried-and-true style, but the experimentation definitely worked in this context.
If, like Tim-Man, you have grown weary of the constant tragedy and brooding that has made such a resurgence lately in super-hero comics, I suggest you take a break from it with this or any other Tom Strong story. 4 stars.
Posted by jdonelson_nyc at January 11, 2005 07:24 PM