Captain America #4 - Mobile Edition

Marvel Comics
Captain America #4
By Hervé St-Louis
December 6, 2011 - 07:12

Marvel Comics
Writer(s): Ed Brubaker
Penciller(s): Steve McNiven
Inker(s): Jay Leisten
Colourist(s): Justin Ponsor
Letterer(s): Joe Caramagna
Cover Artist(s): Steve McNiven, Justin Ponsor
$3.99 US

Captain America is on the moon with Sharon and is about to be interviewed about world peace and how it was achieved. But something goes wrong and the fabric of the reality he’s in is destroyed only to reveal that he still is in that dream world created by the World War Two boy and corrupted by Hydra agents. Can Captain America get out of this dream before the boy is killed?

Not much has happened with this story and we are at the fourth issue, and it still feels like this is the first issue. Brubaker could have exchanged this story with any of the previous issues and it would not have mattered. We are still being introduced to the dream world and its effects. The story is not bad. It is well-crafted. However, it’s going nowhere and that is a problem. Sure Captain America’s allies are homing in on the villains, but everything ends in a cliff hanger and nothing is resolved.

McNiven is good here. The illustration and storytelling are fine, but I still feel like his work is like a bunch of photographs. So even though he can move through the story visually and make it clear for readers to know what’s happening, it feels stilted. It’s really difficult to understand what’s off. Check out the picture of the Falcon flying on page four. He just stands there in the sky on top of a city as if he had been stuck there. It’s hard to feel that he’s in the air floating. Well, much of the comic book has this feel. So gorgeous art work and decent storytelling, but it feels stiff, monotone and non-moving. There is no kinetic energy to the drawings.
Rating: 8/10