A review by iffer
Captain America: Sam Wilson, Vol. 1: Not My Captain America by Nick Spencer, Paul Renaud, Daniel Acuña
2.0
I wanted to like this; really, I did.
The short version:
I like Sam Wilson as Captain America. I like the art. I hate that there is too much text. It wasn't so much that there were politics and social issues in the arc so much as that the way that the were included made this boring and not fun to read.
The longer version:
This is definitely not for people who are fans of Captain America because they like the escapism of simple good guy punches bad guys. It's easy for a contemporary audience to look back at World War II and imagine it as a simple fight of Good vs Evil, and "keeping the world safe for democracy." It doesn't take much to suspend readers' disbelief (if they had any in the first place from at least one history class that touched upon the difficulties of rebuilding post-war, of complacency and fear paving the way, etc) that the fight was as simple as Nazis bad, Cap good. It is *NOT* so easy to caricaturize recent and on-going social and political ills so that Sam Wilson's Captain America can prevail against them. In Sam Wilson's case, there is no nefarious mustachioed villain (ahem Hitler) or Red Skull to fight.
After the Brubaker run (and evident in the most recent Captain America: Civil Wars film), Steve Rogers as Cap is literally a man out of time, and a "man from a simpler time" (supposedly). He has clear values and struggles with how to adhere to those values in a modern world that is seemingly more complex and all shades of gray. Enter Sam Wilson as Captain America, the guy who's stuck with trying to be the symbol of Captain America in these times, whose experiences of the world (and let's be blunt, including him being a black guy who grew up in a tough neighborhood in Harlem) have shaped him, including forcing him to internalize inequality at a young age and doubt the American people. I loved the lines, though somewhat heavy-handed, in which Sam thinks to himself that he's not like Steve, who "BELIEVES...his country will do what's right...[because] in [his] heart [he] can only HOPE it will."
Unfortunately, those lines were at the end of issue 2, and the rest of the arc, other than the amusement gleaned from the ridiculousness of Sam being turned into a werewolf, isn't fun to read. There's too much text, and it reads like annoying blog posts from liberals and Fox News clips pasted into bubbles above the appropriate characters (Sam's thought boxes for liberals and Serpent villain bubbles Fox News/big business).
The first two issues show that there's huge potential for Sam Wilson as Captain America, and I hope that the series eventually finds that sweet spot that the best cape comics have between dealing with serious, complex issues and being fun, escapism reading. Unfortunately, this arc left enough of a bad taste (maybe some soap from the soapbox ended up in my mouth) that I'm leery of continuing.
The short version:
I like Sam Wilson as Captain America. I like the art. I hate that there is too much text. It wasn't so much that there were politics and social issues in the arc so much as that the way that the were included made this boring and not fun to read.
The longer version:
This is definitely not for people who are fans of Captain America because they like the escapism of simple good guy punches bad guys. It's easy for a contemporary audience to look back at World War II and imagine it as a simple fight of Good vs Evil, and "keeping the world safe for democracy." It doesn't take much to suspend readers' disbelief (if they had any in the first place from at least one history class that touched upon the difficulties of rebuilding post-war, of complacency and fear paving the way, etc) that the fight was as simple as Nazis bad, Cap good. It is *NOT* so easy to caricaturize recent and on-going social and political ills so that Sam Wilson's Captain America can prevail against them. In Sam Wilson's case, there is no nefarious mustachioed villain (ahem Hitler) or Red Skull to fight.
After the Brubaker run (and evident in the most recent Captain America: Civil Wars film), Steve Rogers as Cap is literally a man out of time, and a "man from a simpler time" (supposedly). He has clear values and struggles with how to adhere to those values in a modern world that is seemingly more complex and all shades of gray. Enter Sam Wilson as Captain America, the guy who's stuck with trying to be the symbol of Captain America in these times, whose experiences of the world (and let's be blunt, including him being a black guy who grew up in a tough neighborhood in Harlem) have shaped him, including forcing him to internalize inequality at a young age and doubt the American people. I loved the lines, though somewhat heavy-handed, in which Sam thinks to himself that he's not like Steve, who "BELIEVES...his country will do what's right...[because] in [his] heart [he] can only HOPE it will."
Unfortunately, those lines were at the end of issue 2, and the rest of the arc, other than the amusement gleaned from the ridiculousness of Sam being turned into a werewolf, isn't fun to read. There's too much text, and it reads like annoying blog posts from liberals and Fox News clips pasted into bubbles above the appropriate characters (Sam's thought boxes for liberals and Serpent villain bubbles Fox News/big business).
The first two issues show that there's huge potential for Sam Wilson as Captain America, and I hope that the series eventually finds that sweet spot that the best cape comics have between dealing with serious, complex issues and being fun, escapism reading. Unfortunately, this arc left enough of a bad taste (maybe some soap from the soapbox ended up in my mouth) that I'm leery of continuing.