Despite my disappointment in this series of "Captain America," with its odd focus on a disillusioned Steve, I had high hopes for Brubaker to find a way to make it worthwhile with this last issue. Brubaker has always grasped Steve in a way others haven't, making him more complex than the single-minded Boy Scout that other writers often make him into being. This issue really shows that depth of understanding, managing to give me new insight into a character whose comics I've been reading for 25+ years.
Other authors have talked about Steve being motivated to join the war (and later take the Super-Soldier Serum) because he was a bullied child and that experience inspired him to fight injustice. Brubaker plums a darker side of that story here, with Steve talking about the shame that he felt with ever lost fight, because he was letting down his mother. Epting really sells this story, depicting a heart-breaking scene of a black-eyed young Steve sitting in silence at the dinner table with his mother in a crumbling apartment. But, Brubaker goes further, expanding on how Steve's shame was compounded by the fact that his mother was the central (and really only) person in his life. Here, Brubaker takes us on a tour of the Depression mindset, with Steve noting that he had an irrational fear of losing his mother, but one that seemed to reflect the way that everything could just go wrong in a moment in that era. Maybe it's because I'm taking a history class that focuses on the Depression, but this part of the book really rang true to me. I really felt the plight of the young Steve here, a kid who desperately clung to his mother as the only bulwark against the harsh realities of the world and who felt the disappointment for not being able to reward her with a stronger, more successful son. I feel like this motivation really adds something to Steve's story, showing not only why he was trying to join the army (to fight against injustice) but why he also agreed to take the Super-Soldier Serum (to become stronger).
Brubaker then moves from this tour of Steve's origins to a discussion of the burden that wearing the uniform is for Steve, a tour made all the more poignant for the fact that it comes in the form of a one-sided conversation that he has with the broken 1950s Captain America, William Burnside. Brubaker has done some great stuff over the course of his run with the previous Caps and Buckys and here he shows that Steve has felt their trials and tribulations deeply, often feeling as if they unjustly had to carry the burden that he alone should have to carry. Again, Brubaker really gets the myth of Captain America here, in part because he shows it to us through the eyes of the guy who understands it the most.
Overall, despite the difficulties of this run, Brubaker really ends on a high note here. I think it's time for some fresh eyes on Cap, but I have to really thank Brubaker for reinvigorating the character, from the addition of an improved supporting cast (and including Sharon Carter in it) and, of course, the resurrection of Bucky Barnes. They've helped show us a Steve Rogers who is an actual human being and not a stuffed iconic suit. I'm hesitant of Remender taking over the book, but I know, if it's not my cup of tea, I can return to the good ol' days of Brubaker's run and read the Cap stories that I want to read.
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