Imagine my surprise to notice I got a variant cover for this issue. I don’t even like Simone Bianchi’s art, why do I not have the regular one? Ah, well. The same gang as last issue is back to make round 2, beginning in the present, this time…
It seems to be! Comics this month feature an ad for a game called Too Human, which is only notable to me for having a character who appears to look just like Ronin:
Weird. We flash back to New York, 1942, where young Steve Rogers is watching a newsreel about World War II when his friend Gail finds him, introducing him to her friend, Patrick Loika, who is named for my friend, longtime Bendis Board member and all around comics evangelist, which is fun, and who is shipping out to war. Steve leaves them to the movie and tries to enlist. It’s more or less the usual Captain America origin, with some small differences. He’s recruited by Sergeant “Not Dum Dum” Dugan. The day before he gets the serum, he’s informed the Axis powers are working with “people who live on this planet that were not born here.” The serum makes him explode into a fireball and get orange glowing eyes for a second, like Fury did last issue. And he and Dr. Erskine are shot by a Nazi posing as a US Soldier, because there’s no press. I always wondered why the name of the scientist was changed in the 60s. Any nerd can tell you it was Professor Erskine who created Captain America at this point, but in 1940, it was Professor Reinstein. Maybe they just forgot by the 60s, I don’t know. At any rate, the now super but wounded Steve Rogers picks up a round tray and throws it at the attacker. Get it?
Next, Steve is visited by the President, who, in a pretty dramatic variation from history, wants Captain America to win this war, because if he doesn’t, Roosevelt says they’ll have to drop a bomb on a country that will “commit genocide,” and he doesn’t want to do that. A very modern take on the bombs.
This issue kinda feels like a waste. Why spend a whole issue on Cap’s origin if it’s not gonna be much different from the story everyone reading already knows? I didn’t even take many pictures because I was just assuming it would jump to another event (Obviously I don’t remember this too well). Last issue took place across, I think, 5 different time periods, and then when they go to rehash Cap’s familiar origin, it gets a whole comic? That’s weird. Not too satisfying.