Broken Frontier

Continuing from the pages of Civil War, Captain America is to stand trail for crimes against his own country, but an unforeseen assassination attempt sets the wheels in motion for his ultimate demise.

Warning: This review contains spoilers.

Okay, I am going to admit that I didn’t see this one coming at all. I never thought that Marvel’s upper brass would ever allow the events that transpired in this issue to come to pass, but yet they did. So with this major spoiler revealed here, Captain America does indeed bite the bullet for real! This is not a joke and certainly the darkest day in Marvel’s history has now unfolded in these very pages, effectively killing off an iconic figure and ultimately ripping out the heart of the Marvel Universe in the process.

So where does this all go from here? That’s a really good question and although you will have to continue reading this series for most of the answers, there will no doubt be other titles in the Marvel Universe feeling the adverse effects of Cap’s demise. Mainly in books like New Avengers and Iron Man where the ripple effects will be noticed more often than not, but I would also bet that writer Ed Brubaker will keep his fingers on the pulse here with this title. He certainly set the wheels in motion with certain events that have been building ever since issue one and what he unveiled here was an elaborate conspiracy laden plot now focusing on Falcon, Winter Soldier and Agent 13 (Sharon Carter).

Ed’s script did stay true to the historical significance of Captain America and I liked the fact that he was very respectful of every aspect of the legend. He chose to open the issue by briefly retelling Cap’s origins and that was juxtaposed well against all of the supporting players in this book quickly arriving onto the murder scene to figure out exactly how the good Captain was felled. Most of the dialogue was crisp, never corny sounding and in doing so, expertly told a sound story to open an arc that will no doubt become an instant classic. For my money’s worth, there’s obviously a good story to be told here, and Brubaker’s skills as a writer will work feverishly on the post mortem for the next few months to come.

His partner in this heinous act was artist Steve Epting and I have to say that this may have been the man’s finest moment as chief illustrator of this run. There were panels here that literally left me speechless (particularly the flashback sequences) and others that proved his abilities to render quality action sequences like no other artist. Certainly a man of his considerable talents shouldn’t have any problems picking and choosing his next big plum assignment after he decides to retire from this series. If anything else, this issue will be held in high esteem not only because of the riveting story, but also because of the stellar art that accompanied it.

So now that we’ve had time to digest the momentous events taking place here, let us examine the key facts. For one, Captain America is without question an iconic symbol through and through, so whoever else wears the mask beyond Steve Rogers will have big shoes to fill. Secondly, with his passing the landscape that is now effectively the Marvel Universe is a very pessimistic place to be living in. Cap essentially was the heart of this universe, and it will now be up to other heroes to fill the void left by the now dearly departed Captain. I’m not sure this can be done, but you can sure as hell bet that Brubaker and company will do their best to make you not forget him.