Oh, thank god it’s over! Ed Brubaker’s 100+ issue run on Captain America ends on yet another sub-par volume, this time co-written by Cullen Bunn. It’s a shame because there were a lot of highlights during the run like re-introducing Bucky in the Marvel Universe as the Winter Soldier, the death and rebirth of Cap, and Red Skull got up to some fun shenanigans. But this last book is just generic and uninspired.
Arbitrarily evil supervillains called Discordians (because they cause discord - brilliant!) are attacking major American cities, creating fear in the populace who’re being brainwashed by right wing talk show hosts to turn against Cap and somehow make Hydra great or whatever. It’s terrible! And not for nothing Ed Brubaker but you don’t need to mind-control people to follow right wing demagogues, there are plenty of halfwits out there ready to do that - just look at the rise of Trump!
Storming the floating Hydra Island was kinda cool but otherwise the action is bland while the rest of the story is weak and forgettable. Scot Eaton’s art is fine even if the Discordians’ designs looked like Kang the Conqueror rip-offs. It was good to see Steve Epting join Brubaker on the final issue even if the story of William Burnside (the ‘50s Cap) was a weird choice to go out on.
Ed Brubaker wrote a lot of great Cap books but this one and the last few were pretty bad. I feel like he should’ve called it quits after bringing Cap back rather than run the title into the ground like this.
Captain America, Volume 4
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