Captain America #41 review

The Man Who Bought America part five

Bucky and the Falcon are stashed in a crappy little motel while Falcon's bird keeps an eye out on the Grand Captain, who's laying low in a diner. Things get heated when AIM agents corner him behind the diner and capture him. Zola and Red Skull receive the news and Zola is getting pissy that they're having to clean up after Faustus. They start discussing their plans for seperating the Red Skull from Lukin. Being stuck together is causing both of them to go insane so Zola is working quickly to finish building a device bought from Doctor Doom (oh, Doom is in on this now, sweet!). Moving on to Sharon, Faustus is sitting next to her informing her she's ost her baby. Faustus implies that he intends on betraying the Skull and Zola and leaves Sharon her SHIELD GPS locator and another device. Cutting back over to Cap and Falcon, they're heading up to Albany when they're joined by the Black Widow. Her and SHIELD are following up on a tip that's leading them to the Red Skull's base, where Cap and Falcon are headed. Widow also mentions that not only are they going to hit the base, but also keep Senator Gordon Wright from being assassinated. Back on over to the Red Skull, AIM agents wheel the Grand Captain into an immersion chamber while Zola fidgets around with a device that looks kinda like an Ultimate Nullifier (though I can't really tell, too many little CGI FX obscuring the device). Zola says it's either gonna work or not but the other device to split Skull from LUkin is ready to go. They are quickly informed by an AIM agent that Faustus is nowhere to be found. Zola interrogates Sharon to ask her where Faustus went and she has no idea. Pulling Sharon towards him, the device Faustus slipped her falls to the floor and explodes followed by the Black Widow, the Falcon and a team of SHIELD agents infiltrating the base. But preparations are complete and Zola rushes Sharon to her destiny. In the meantime, we're at the Presidential debates not far away. It seems that the plan for Senator Wright is to make him look like a hero. One candidate will be killed and he'll save the other one looking like a hero. However, the Assassin, Sin, has other ideas and decides she's going to kill Wright instead. However, Caps shield blocks the bullet. And while Sin is firing wildly, Captain AMERICA on the attack.

CAPTAIN AMERICA! Hell yeah! Bucky has been in the costume for a few issues now but this is really the first time he calls himself Captain America. This right here is the debut of the new Cap. A totally kick ass ending to a damn fine issue.

Everything is really coming to a head with this issue. The Red Skull and his plans and finally Bucky really taking on the mantle, it's great. As for the Red Skull, I figure his plan is to take over the body of the Grand Director. As for that Ultimate Nullifier looking thing (I really can't tell) I'm not sure what's gonna happen with that. Lots of crazy, kick ass things going on.

Granted, some of the happenings made more sense on a re-reading. It did seem to jump from one local to the other a bit too quickly and sometimes the characters are less then clear about what's going on. "So you're all..." "Uh-huh." "And so then..." "Yeah." "So we'll all..." "Yep." "Okay, cool." Dude!

But the highlight of the issue, aside from the end, is the little moment where Faustus is sitting with Sharon and, basically, grows some balls. It, in a way, felt kind of out of left field. Maybe I was just missing something with the character, but it also made for one of the best character moments in the book. It's unusual to see a villain just let their guard down so suddenly like that, admiring Sharon Carter not only as a scientific subject but as a person.

There's not much more I can say. All the players are in place and the shit is about to hit the fan and I just can't wait until next month's issue to see how everything plays out. What's Skull's plan, what happens with Sharon, Bucky...exciting!