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| ALL-NEW CAPTAIN AMERICA No. 4, April 2015 |
Featuring brutal
brawls between the titular character, Armadillo, Cobra and Baron Zemo, Rick
Remender’s narrative for Issue Four of “All-New Captain America” certainly
doesn’t lack for pulse-pounding action. But whilst these dynamic sequences, enthusiastically illustrated by Stuart Immonen, provide Steve Rogers’ “long-time friend and colleague” with plenty of
opportunities to demonstrate just how different an incarnation of the Sentinel
of Liberty Sam Wilson is, doubtless many of this comic’s 41,222 readers also
thought the former’s Falcon’s battles with Hydra’s more exotic henchmen equally
proved how frustratingly inferior a fighter the Harlem minister’s son was as
well.
Indeed, despite being an Avenger, the supposedly “skilled
martial artist and gymnast” actually fails quite miserably to best any of his
foes, and instead has to rely entirely upon a change of heart by Antonio Rodriguez
in order to thwart Klaus Voorhees from snapping his neck and ‘eating the bird
for breakfast.’ Such pugilistic inadequacies and superhuman shortcomings hardly
suit a comic book figure supposedly destined to succeed the superhero “IGN Entertainment Inc.” voted as its publisher’s ‘second
best’ of all-time in 2014.
Unfortunately, Cappy’s heavy reliance upon a man “bonded
with that suit in order to save your dying wife” is dishearteningly just the
first of many such disappointments the American author has in store for both
Wilson and this twenty-page periodical’s audience, as the colourfully-dressed
crime-fighter soon has to entrust Misty Knight with defeating both the Viper in Madripoor, and a Moscow-based Hydra Cell, just so he can quite spectacularly fall before the sword of Baron Zemo
somewhere within a Florida-based secret Hydra headquarters.
Admittedly this final confrontation does at least depict the
“newest” Captain America (finally) beating the “expert military tactician” and
“skilled hand-to-hand fighter” Crossbones. Yet even this victory is decidedly
hollow on account of Sam somewhat cowardly dispatching Brock Rumlow with his
shield, having secretly thrown it at his surprised opponent from the safety of
some shadows... An act which sadly falls far short of the openly honest rematch between the two combatants the
majority of this magazine’s bibliophiles would arguably have expected or wanted,
and certainly one which is soon forgotten on account of Stan Lee’s co-creation
subsequently being battered behind the ear by Helmut’s blade and conceivably even
cold-bloodily murdered; “Your mind is unfocused. Emotions dictate your actions.
And your greatest sin -- you failed to finish your opponent. Unfortunately for
you -- I am a soldier.”
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| The variant cover art of "ALL-NEW CAPTAIN AMERICA" No. 4 by Phil Noto |
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