New Comics: The Captain America Edition (HERE BE SPOILERS!)

I didn't think I was terribly behind the times, but two issues each of "Captain America" and "Captain America and Hawkeye" seems to prove me wrong.

Captain America #10:  Brubaker wraps up his "Powerless" arc nicely here.  As a result of making a deal with Machinesmith, Sharon learns that Bravo, while he was holding Steve captive, injected him with a nanotech virus designed by Machinesmith to shut down Cap's powers whenever his adrenaline began to pump.  (I don't quite remember when exactly Bravo had Cap captive.  Was it the first arc of this series?)  Machinesmith designed the virus to mimic the appearance of red-blood cells when scanned, anticipating the tests that Tony Stark would run.  I thought Brubaker played up this plot twist rather well, using it to showcase the characters.  We see Tony acting like Tony, appreciating Machinesmith's genius despite its evil purposes.  It's a nice contrast to Cap, who would just be horrified by someone doing something evil.  We also see Sharon at her best, getting the information about Steve by releasing Machinesmith.  But, she neutralizes him as a threat, introducing her own virus into his system that eats his memory banks.  I thought the most interesting characterization moment came at the end, though, when Steve rails against the media for telling lies and then berates Sharon for making a deal with Machinesmith.  Although Steve's power fluctuations might not have come from him doubting himself, as Bravo and Machinesmith led him to believe, it's pretty clear that they did succeed in getting him to doubt himself and the world around him, from the state of the American media to his faith in Sharon herself.  Brubaker actually managed to save the Bravo character a bit for me, because it's clearer now where Brubaker's going with him, getting him to serve as the device that shakes up Cap.  It reminds me of the circumstances that led Cap to adopt the "Nomad" and later "Captain" personas.  Brubaker is a student of Cap's history (and seems particularly fixated on the Gruenwald era lately), so I wonder where he's going with it.  I don't think Cap will give up being Cap, but Brubaker could be building to something similar here.  We shall see, I guess.  At any rate, for a somewhat ho-hum arc, it was a pretty solid ending.

Captain America #11:  OMG, Diamondback and Scourge!  I've previously mentioned how happy I was with the return of the Serpent Society, but I'm all the more thrilled with the return of Diamondback and Sourge, since it seems that Brubaker plans on totally reviving Gruenwald's legendary run on "Captain America" from the mid-80s to mid-90s.  Crossbones can't be far behind!  I liked how Brubaker hinted that Diamondback could be the leak, but made it clear that Steve didn't seem to be remotely concerned that she was.  (It was very Dumbledore/Snape.)  I'm also intirgued that HYDRA seems to be behind the new Scourge (and equally pleased that Brubaker didn't use it as an opportunity to foist Bravo and Queen HYDRA on us yet again).  I haven't been super-thrilled with the last few issues, mostly because of the focus on Bravo and Queen HYDRA, but Brubaker seems to right the ship here by changing the focus to a more street-level threat (and a less direct involvement of HYDRA) while maintaining his excellent use of Cap's deep bench of supporting characters.  As a result, I'm very excited about this arc.

Captain America and Hawkeye #629:  OK, I really hope that, one day, I won't have to mention the following complaint EVERY TIME Hawkeye appears with Captain America outside the "Avengers."  But, today is not that day.  I don't understand why we have to have the now standard "Cap and Hawkeye fight about their different styles" scene EVERY TIME that they appear together.  They've worked together for years; they get it.  They can still jokingly refer to it, like Cap does here when he tells Hawkeye how it's always good to get constructive feedback.  But, they don't have to belabor the point.  Bunn (like other authors) disagrees, feeling the need to hammer it home by having Cap scold Hawekeye for treating everything like a video game and Hawkeye telling Cap that he needs to stop treating him like a sidekick.  In almost all of Hawkeye's appearances with Cap over the last few months, they're constantly at each other's throats in this way, at least at the start of the story.  At this point, I really think we can skip that part.  I'd like to see their interactions be more like what we eventually see here, with Cap expressing outrage over Hawkeye noting how fine the Director of Operations for the Damocles Research Facility is, given that he's dating Spider-Woman, and Hawkeye later teasing Cap when said Director hits on him.  It's those moments that show us the charming maverick that Hawkeye is and the boy scout that Cap is.  We don't need to be hit over the head with how different they are all the time.  All that said, the rest of the issue gets pretty interesting.  I mean, Cap and Hawkeye fighting dinosaurs?  Awesome.  Bunn doesn't just make it about the dinosaurs, though, giving us a shadowy organization that didn't report the fact that the dinosaurs were attacking its research facility (or that people were becoming the dinosaurs).  I'm excited to see where Bunn goes with the story, but I hope we can keep the banter between Cap and Hawkeye light and not so adversarial.  Fingers crossed.

Captain American and Hawkeye #630:  Cap gets turned into a lot of things, doesn't he?  I mean, he's been a woman (almost), a wolf, a corpse. I love thinking about the fact that, at some point, someone clearly pitched this story as "Captain America...and Hawkeye...and DINOSAURS!"  The good thing is that the actual story is as good as that fantastic premise sounds.  I'm glad that Bunn clarified the fact that the dinosaurs are imbued with symbiotes.  It makes a lot more sense than it did last issue when it appeared that people were becoming dinosaurs who were becoming symbiotes.  But, I still have some questions left, since Stegron seems only responsible for the reanimated dinosaur humanoids, not the apparent symbiote plague.  Kash seems to know more about the symbiotes, since she refers to a "hybrid" (presumably of the dinosaurs and symbiotes), though I got the sense that she was more studying the combination than responsible for it.  We also don't know why the symbiotes are taking over the dinosaurs and the humans or why they feel the need to attack the Damocles Resarch Facility.  But, Bunn manages to raise these questions as a result of advancing the plot, making them interesting (and not annyoing).  Moreover, he ups the intrigue, since we learn that "Kash" not only knew all about the symbiotes (and didn't tell Cap and Hawk) but also works for some sort of mysterious employer that isn't Archstone, the purported force behind the research facility.  (Given the way the Cap books are going lately, I assume HYDRA is involved.  I mean, Hawkeye even mentions the mythological creature after which HYDRA is named in this issue.)  This series is starting to have a lot more of an "Avenging Spider-Man" feel, a little light on continuity a little heavy on action.  If they keep giving us issues like this one and continue finding fun folks to fill in the "and ..." blank, then I think Marvel will actually justify why we're getting two Cap titles a month.