Hearts and Minds

[colonel_green]

Four scans from Captain America: Reborn #5, along with a preview for the imminent Who Will Wield The Shield? and a few pieces from Reborn #4.

Steve finds himself trapped in a special "box" inside the Red Skull's mind that looks like a Nazified New York City:




When you stop to think about it, realize that this is the first time Steve and the Skull have actually confronted each other in several years of publication time.

They fight; meanwhile, Skull-Cap is simultaneously leading his evil minions against an ad hoc group of heroes out to stop him (New Cap, Black Widow, Hank Pym, Falcon, Ronin, and Vision, but they neutralized the latter). Bucky fights Skull-Cap:




Skull-Cap raises the shield to slice off Bucky's head, declaring "Time for a new morning in America..."

The fate of the Skull is really the only thing that's up in the air at this point, but this was a good issue anyway.

The CBR lettered preview for Captain America: Who Will Wield The Shield?

Looking over that issue's "Previously" page, one bit I found interesting was the mention that Steve, on his voyage through time, got "a glimpse of the future". That could be something yet to be revealed, but there were two images in the big double-splash of him getting pulled through time in #4 that aren't past events:



and

Comments

[darkknightjrk]

Y'know, it's annoying that Hitch is slow, but seeing the art, especially when Steve jumps out of the Swastikas to get to Skull, I can take waiting a bit for the art. I mean, it's not like there's going to be massive spoilers--Reborn is in the title of it, for crying out loud.

[colonel_green]

Schedule-wise, the reason for the spoilers isn't even really Hitch, it was the decision to add a sixth issue. They could have delayed IIM and those annuals by two weeks; but two months (including Siege in January) wasn't on the table.

[kingrockwell]

Well, they could've still been okay with that if it weren't for the October skip. Though I guess it's fair to assume they were related.

Yeah, what you said

[jazzypom]

Because when Hitch is on, he's on.

[kd_the_movie]

Given all the shit they've put Steve and Sharon through PLUS Bru wanting to leave a lasting impact on the book, it wouldn't surprise me if they make Steve and Sharon parents.

[colonel_green]

Bru wanting to leave a lasting impact on the book

He hasn't already?

It's conceivable, though comics companies are notoriously averse to babies (though for understandable reasons; they quickly become continuity annoyances in the vague passage of time). Though it wouldn't really affect Cap's basic character setup much (he was never known for his extensive adventures on the dating scene), and family would fit into his wholesome image like a glove.

[neuhallidae]

I thought Sharon stabbed herself in the internals. She's still got the baby? Or is this supposed to be the distant (likely will never happen once Bru's off the book) future?

[colonel_green]

No, that baby died (seemingly; given what we saw, it would be beyond easy to say Zola has the fetus in a tube somewhere, though the way everybody acts after she does it that wouldn't seem likely). Possibly it's the latter thing, though I was bringing this up because the Previously mentions Steve's glimpse of the future as a plot point.

[neuhallidae]

Okay, I was just making sure I wasn't losing my mind there, because I'd been sure that the prior baby was gone.

[joysweeper]

Really nice symbolism there.

And heh. It seems like mechanical limbs are always the ones that catch damage.

[nothingbutcake]

Wow, those first two pages are great.  I really like how the box lines make swastikas.

[jlbarnett]

I felt this issue was really weak.

[lamashtar]

Yeah. Parts of it were interesting, like they'd been planned. Others seemed very slapped together. I think when the Skull is speaking in Cap's body around his minions and it sounds regular American was when I really felt it.

[thatnickguy]

I'm sure I've said it before, but it bears repeating:

Brubaker is making such a huge mark on this series that it's going to be impossible to follow. He's had this set up from the beginning and has said that this entire epic has been planned as a 3-Act story. The first act ended with the death of Steve, the second ended after Bucky's first story in the Cap outfit and this would be the end of the third act, I would assume.

When this is all said and done, no matter the resolution, people are going to look back on this with awe. I know I sure as hell will. In my opinion, it's going to rank right up there with Lee/Kirby on Fantastic Four, Morrison on JLA, Waid and/or Johns on Flash (either was just as great as the other in their own ways), etc.

As I said, it's going to be damn near impossible to top.

[kingrockwell]

The last panel, could that possibly have been Steve's mother? I think that's what I took it for when I first saw it.
Though whether that oxygen mask existed in the '40s or they just didn't research hospitals from the period might be important.

[colonel_green]

I originally thought it was Mrs. Rogers, but, yeah, the mask looks very modern.

The three possibilities that I could think of:

1. Mrs. Rogers (with possibly period-inappropriate oxygen mask).

2. Peggy Carter (who we were recently reintroduced to as an old woman of similar appearance).

3. Distant-future Sharon, though that would mean that Brubaker subscribes to the idea that the serum makes Cap more or less immortal (see: 1602).

[valtyr]

I'm sure we saw Steve, much younger, at his dying mother's bedside earlier in this run? So I doubt it's that.

I had thought 2) but did not consider 3). Hm.

[ian_karkull]

Though I'd really much rather have the book continue to be about Bucky, Sam and Natasha (and occasionally Clint) for just a while longer, this is a really good read.

Wouldn't it be great though if the Red Skull stayed in the driver's seat and everybody and their little revolution got royally bumfucked in the end..?

[colonel_green]

It would definitely be an interesting premise (they should get Brubaker to do a What If? with that when they do the next batch next year, so we can see how badly the Skull would have fucked Norman over).

[sinisterlink]

That panel of Sharon and Steve with a baby got me thinking...Okay, I don't read Captain America, but I usually look through the scans that have been posted so I know about how Sharon was pregnant and then stabbed herself and killed it, but wasn't there some guy that made her forget she was pregnant, afterwards? Did this ever get touched on again, like did she remember later?

I know everyone seems to really like this run of Captain America, but that whole baby thing just seemed really skeevy to me, like it was just used to cause extra angst for Sharon or something. And can you imagine her explaining that whole thing to Steve later? Like, "I was pregnant with our child, but then I purposely stabbed myself and killed it so The Red Skull couldn't get a hold of it". Ugh.

I know I'm kind of ranting about this, but from what I've seen, Brubaker's run seems pretty good, so I just get kind of irked by the baby thing.

[colonel_green]

The main point of the baby was to give her something to fight for at a point in her life when she'd been conditioned to think that she herself wasn't worth saving (Brubaker said in interviews that he saw the kid as having saved her in that sense). She does remember it now.