I decided to do it. I’ve decided to look at each tie-in I own and see if they merit inclusion beyond New Avengers, also. But New Avengers for sure. Each issue of New Avengers during Civil War features a different big name artist. Unfortunately, this one’s Howard Chaykin. Bendis had this kind of awkward thing during his Marvel years where he’d engineer situations where he could work with his heroes, even when those heroes were not so good anymore. I mean, I get it. You grow up idolizing Chaykin, you want to work with him. But the guy drawing this is not the guy who wrote & drew important classics like American Flagg anymore, as we saw in Blade. The Chaykin Bendis wants to work with was really a generational talent, but this is him 20 years past his prime. Ah, well. With what will quickly be revealed as Mark Millar’s utterly wretched take on Cap in the main book, any chance to see him written by a grownup outside of it was very welcome. Chaykin is colored by Dave Stewart.
Steve Rogers used to make a living as a commercial artist, in the periods when he wasn’t essentially an agent of SHIELD that didn’t have to wear the uniform. At one point, he even drew for the in-universe version of Marvel Comics.
I forgot how much Bendis’ Cap lines up with Millar’s. Makes sense, I guess, they were friends. It’s just such a rotten version of Cap. And a pretty hypocritical one, since he’s been in “Agent of SHIELD” mode since Disassembled, moreso than he ever had before. “They want us to work for the GOVERNMENT!” You literally work for the government already. SHIELD is paying for his apartment, which is being raided by SHIELD stormtroopers in the “Cape Killer” uniforms Steve says Tony Stark made for them. Did he? I don’t know. If he did, where’d he find time in between supporting and opposing the act at the same time? Steve spends a few pages taking them apart. You really miss Mark Gruenwald’s thoughtful, introspective Cap in a moment like this. His Steve would be up late at night wondering if he was doing the right thing, even if he was sure he was.
If it seems weird that New Avengers is so directly handling Cap’s side of this story, well, it is. The Captain America book, at this point by Ed Brubaker and Steve Epting, did tie-ins that mostly focused on anyone but Steve. Sam Wilson, the newly returned Bucky, Sharon Carter. Cap rarely appeared in his own tie-ins. I have often wondered if it’s because they made such a terrible mess of his side of this that Ed Brubaker wasn’t sure what to do with it, but that’s pure conjecture. Well, you can really see how this is gonna fracture the Marvel U as we knew it. Lines are being drawn that aren’t easily erased. Sam says he’s on Cap’s side, their longstanding bond still intact, and he says he wonders what happens next. He worries what happens when Dr. Doom or someone does something terrible and the heroes are too busy fighting each other to stop it. Which is another reason this story sucks. It’s the so-called heroes making exactly that possible with their squabbling. Cap says they need to assemble a team. First person he checks is Spider-Man, who seems to have sided with Tony (We’ll get to him a minute). Falcon is surprised, but Cap understands he and Tony have become close.
“Our rights.” Your right to put on a mask and beat up people in the street if you think they deserve it? The second you start talking about superheroes like this, they become reprehensible. Love this event.
SHIELD Agent Captain America, who served on multiple incarnations of the Avengers who answered to the US Government, says “we worked for NO ONE.”
It’s the goon squad, of course. Cap breaks Hank’s nose with his shield as he and Falcon make a run, and then a fly for it.
We havin’ fun yet? Well, we better see to our guy.