Broken Frontier

The return of Marvel’s What If spins an intriguing yarn with the good Captain fighting the good fight during the Civil War.

I have always been a big fan of this classic era signature series from Marvel Comics. The series dares to tell alternate stories of the Marvel Universe and twist them for good measure. This time around Captain America is the focal point.

The story is set during the Civil War and it begins with Corporal Stephen Rogers of the U.S. Army struggling with his own conscience. He’s witnessed too many questionable actions from other members of his Redlegs Regiment, and this puts him into direct conflict with his Field Commander Colonel Buck Barnes. It seems Stephen refuses an order to take part in killing a group of women and children, and in doing so it irks the Colonel greatly. So a struggle ensues between them and Stephen ends up getting shot and Colonel Barnes injures an eye during the fracas.

It looks as if the conflict has ended there, only Stephen (being left for dead) receives a gift from the spirit WE-PI-AHK the eagle chief who endows him with great strength and courage. Stephen undergoes great change and becomes transformed into Captain America. It doesn’t take long before the good Captain’s heroic deeds change the outcome of the war and that leads to great change and sweeping reform in the United States as well. Captain America is born unto the Old West and it doesn’t take long before a new threat arises, but I’m afraid you’ll have to pick up the issue to find out the twist on an old villain. That’s all I’m saying, folks!

Anyhow, the writer responsible for this alternate take on the good Captain is Tony Bedard. I am not that familiar with much of his writing, but I will point out that I like what I read here. He was able to tell a compelling and thought provoking read for my tastes, and I really enjoyed the twist with the use of Native American mythology replacing the super-soldier serum mythos. It was a decent enough hook, and it’s one that certainly fits like a glove in the What If series. Now on the flip side, the writing was supported with strong art work from Carmine Di Giandomenico, Again, I am not familiar with his work, but I enjoyed his pencils and thought his European style worked well with the story being told.

So if you like twisted and even demented storytelling, then I suggest giving this issue a try. I have always been a big fan of the classic era What If tales and this one is no exception. It’s really nice to see Marvel returning to the type of storytelling they were so noted for back in the day.