Posted in: Comics, Marvel Comics | Tagged: avengers, captain america, HRL, hydra, iron man, new tian, Sam Wilson, secret empire, steve rogers, the underground, tony stark, Wakanda, x-men

Captain America #25 Review: They've Been Looking For It For Months, And He Just…Barfed It Out

*Ties in heavily to the Secret Empire crossover

Secret Empire is heating up as it Steve Rogers and Sam Wilson go to war. Steve Rogers and Hydra have invaded both New Tian and Wakanda, while Sam Wilson and the Underground take the fight to the Inhuman prison on New Attilan. Both operations yield great rewards, but what will happen in the aftermath?

Captain America #25 is a rollercoaster of quality if I've ever seen one. I'm going to go ahead and throw up the spoiler warning, because I'm going to talk about this thing in detail, as it's the best way to explain this disaster.

The opening, with Hydra and Steve Rogers toppling the mutant kingdom of New Tian and the overthrow of the Black Panther in Wakanda, both victories giving Hydra a fragment of the Cosmic Cube, were more acts of depression in this already downer of a story.

Then Sam Wilson, in his Captain America duds, offers a pretty nice speech, and the Underground manages to liberate the Inhumans of New Attilan. This was cool, and it was a "hell yeah" moment to see Sam really live up to the title once again and see the Thing pound some Hydra suckers.

Then an Inhuman named Barf shows up, who can regurgitate functional copies of whatever he sees, and he pukes up a shard of the Cosmic Cube. I'm not kidding you. This happens, and I now realize that this comic just does not give a shit anymore. Deus Ex Machina gets thrown around a lot when describing superhero comics, but this is the most ridiculous instance of storytelling laziness I've ever seen.

It would have been one thing if the Underground just kept going forward and one with their grit and determination. But just having this thing literally drop in their laps like this? I couldn't give a rat's ass if this character has been established in some previous Inhumans comic book; this is the stupidest damn thing I've seen out of a comic in quite some time. It gives the reader zero sense of resolution and speaks nothing to the determination and heroism of the protagonists, which is the theme this comic had just been about a page before.

I think Nick Spencer is a very talented writer. Sam Wilson: Captain America is one of the best comics to come out of All-New, All-Different Marvel. I would still drop this sucker if this wasn't the last issue of Captain America for a while with a new creative team on the way.

To rub a little salt in this gaping wound, they soon figure out that they can will minor things into existence with single shards of the Cosmic Cube. Why they don't have Barf just vomit up the rest or a whole cube, I don't know, and don't care to hear an explanation that I'm sure someone could deliver. Anyway, they're going to wish their way into the remaining fragments of the Cube.

Also Barf is effectively a god, right? Couldn't he just puke up Infinity Gems, too? Maybe a tiny Mjolnir?

The art is mostly functional throughout the comic. It does that really annoying thing where they parcel out pages to three different artists like Dark Days, this time the artists being Jesus Saiz, Joe Bennett, and Joe Pimentel. However, the artists all have more cohesive styles in this one, so it looks a little better than The Forge and The Casting. It looks pretty good overall, but you can still notice the difference between the pages. Some panels, like the one above of Steve saying "war," fall into the uncanny valley area.

The color art works, too. Rachelle Rosenberg is a great color artist, and she really knows how to make the pages pop.

Ultimately, though, steer clear of this one. It's so amazingly wrongheaded. Tales of heroism lose meaning when they can just wish for victory, or vomit it up, as it were. This is a perfect story to test the wills and tenacity of our protagonists, and it just disappeared with an Inhuman that can vomit up god-like artifacts. It has decent parts, but they lose meaning in the face of the last third of the comic.

At least the Winter Soldier comes back at the end. That does help a little bit. He is Marvel's greatest hero, and you can fight me on that one all you want. You'll still be wrong.

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