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Captain America #610: Review

Sep 2010
Ed Brubaker, Butch Guice

Story Name:

No Escape—Conclusion

Review & Comments

Rating:
4 stars

Captain America #610 Review by (October 3, 2010)
Review: Brubaker’s strategy in his Bucky-as-the-new-Cap stories finally becomes clear: he needs to earn the honor of being the Captain America. And now he’s going through the wringer first with the torment by Baron Zemo (who knew he was a Tough Love therapist?) and next with the trial of Captain America (starting next issue). I must confess, I wasn’t thrilled with the “New Cap” move, as Steve Roger is my favorite Marvel hero but I can accept why they did it, and go with the extended arc. The Nomad story arc ends like “Conjunction” (her first storyline): instead of an action climax, we get the characters talking about their feelings, and even that doesn’t seem very significant. I know writers get tired of writing about guys in Spandex whomping on each other but a full switch to girly comics seems to move too far in the opposite direction. Surely there’s a middle ground?




 

Synopsis / Summary / Plot

Captain America #610 Synopsis by Peter Silvestro

After their battle with Iron Hand Hauptmann, Steve Rogers, the Falcon, and Black Widow are at a loss; they do not know where Baron Zemo has taken the kidnapped Bucky. Sharon Carter contacts Steve to tell him he has a call from the President; while trying to avoid the call, Steve suddenly realizes where Bucky is…

…On the North Sea island which was the first Baron Zemo’s base, Bucky Barnes has been stranded in the rain, without his Captain America mask and shield. He makes his way to the castle where he confronts his enemy. Zemo holds the shield and uniform but does not consider that they rightfully belong to Bucky. Suddenly, Zemo’s men pour into the courtyard and attack. Bucky fights them off but Zemo conks the hero with his own shield. The Nazi taunts Bucky, telling him he does not deserve to be Captain America, that he has not earned his redemption. Bucky pursues his foe into the castle and rips off his mask, exposing the burned flesh beneath. Zemo continues to insist that Bucky is a soldier, a killer, and not a hero—which made him the ideal assassin as Winter Soldier. Bucky recovers the shield only to be knocked out by a booby trap placed on it….

He awakens to find himself strapped to a drone plane as he was many years earlier. Zemo explains that Bucky is still battling his guilt and that from now on he will have to earn everything he has. Then the plane launches. Bucky struggles with the thought that perhaps he deserves to die because of all the blood on his hands, but at the last minute he ears himself free and plunges into the water as the plane explodes. He swims to shore to find his mask and shield waiting for him, now that he has made his first step in earning the right to be Captain America. An hour later his friends arrive to take him home—to the "whole other hell" waiting for him….



Story #2

Welcome Home—Conclusion

Writer: Sean McKeever. Penciler: Filipe Andrade. Inker: Filipe Andrade. Colorist: Chris Sotomayor.

Synopsis / Summary / Plot

After Steve Rogers’ raid on the urban terrorist gang’s base, he gives the credit to Nomad. When she has recovered consciousness she wants to know if he was following her. He tells her he was merely following the same trail and it led him to the same place. Distraught, she tells Steve she’s staying (as Nomad—see last issue) and runs off in tears. Later, Steve tells Natasha he’s disappointed in himself: he lied to her. He did follow her out of fear for her safety. Natasha tells him she wouldn’t have given Rikki the Nomad costume if she didn’t think she could handle herself. That night, Nomad tells Arana that she failed to rescue Steve at the raid because her body shut down on her. Steve is like her second father and she lost him when he left the pocket universe (Heroes Reborn) and again when as Captain America, he was assassinated. She feels that the only way she can cope is to distance herself from Steve. Instead she invites him to a bowling alley to challenge him to a match—just like old times. "This is how you welcome your friend home."



Preview Pages
Click sample interior pages to enlarge them:




Butch Guice
Butch Guice
Frank Martin
Marko Djurdjevic (Cover Penciler)
Marko Djurdjevic (Cover Inker)
Marko Djurdjevic (Cover Colorist)


Characters

Listed in Alphabetical Order.

Baron Zemo
Baron Zemo

(Helmut)
Black Widow
Black Widow

(Natasha Romanoff)
Captain America
Captain America

(Steve Rogers)
Captain America
Captain America

(James "Bucky" Barnes)
Falcon
Falcon

(Sam Wilson)

Plus: Arana (Anya Corazon), Nomad (Rikki Barnes).

> Captain America: Book info and issue index

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