Broken Frontier

Ed Brubaker continues to intrigue as he takes the time lost Steve Rogers on a frustrating trip through his own history.

This time, Brubaker references Rogers’ time as Nomad and then revisits Namor’s violent encounter with the iceberg containing the frozen Cap, before having the confused hero show up in the middle of the Kree-Skrull War. The continuity is somewhat fluid and the sequence in question is not immediately identifiable as any particular part of that classic story. But, the presence of Captain Marvel and Clint Barton as Goliath give the impression of the Kree-Skrull War – and for the majority of readers that’s likely enough.

Unlike Cap’s previous intrusions into his own past, though, this one has a purpose. Cap convinces android Avenger the Vision to listen to, record, and then bury in his memory core, a message intended for his friends back in the present day. What that message will prove to be, we don’t yet know. But clearly, Cap is unwilling to simply resign himself to his fate or wait for others to rescue him.

Back in the present meanwhile, the new Captain America is in the hands of the Thunderbolts, at least until the Falcon shows up to rescue him. Bucky actually comes across as somewhat ineffectual here, which may be deliberate – a reminder that there’s only really one Captain America and it isn’t him. Still, with Falcon’s help he does eventually escape, unlike Sharon Carter. The guilt-ridden former SHIELD agent has apparently turned herself in to HAMMER. Carter’s actions baffle me and seem totally illogical. But then I guess I’ve never shot the love of my life after being brainwashed by a psychiatrist turned super-villain, so what do I know?
 
In yet another plot strand, Reed Richards and Namor have traveled to the Arctic to check out Captain America’s last resting place (in a scene that neatly mirrors the flashback to Avengers #4 earlier in this issue). They are understandably confused however when, having raised Steve’s coffin from the sea bed, they watch him vanish before their eyes. I would guess this is linked to Steve’s actions in the past, but how I’m not sure.

No doubt we’ll see how it all knits together later, but right now the whole time travel thing at the centre of this is utterly confusing—it’s still not clear on how Steve can be a corpse in the present and alive in the past, let alone usurping his own past selves’ places in history. At least the Red Skull, trapped in one of Arnim Zola’s robot bodies, also seems to suffer from some kind of mental breakdown.

Don’t panic: only another two issues to go and it’ll hopefully all make sense. In the meantime, it is at least very well written and Hitch’s art is gorgeous.