Comic Review:
Captain America: What Price Glory? #1
By Matt Martin

Marvel Comics – Bruce Jones (w); Steve Rude (p); Mike Royer (i)

There’s a method to Marvel’s madness when it comes to their choice of characters to give miniseries to (lots of alliteration there, eh?). Generally speaking, it seems that minis are given out based on who has an upcoming movie. For example, immediately prior to and during the Spider-Man movie hype, Marvel flooded the market with Spidey minis, one after another. Recently they pulled a no-brainer and started releasing issues of Hulk/Wolverine: Six Hours, a series that kills two birds with one stone, tying both the X-Men sequel and The Incredible Hulk flick together so that a timely trade paperback version can be stocked on bookstore shelves for the release of both movies.

As well, it would appear that, at least for the moment, Bruce Jones is the go-to guy as far as writers are concerned for these thinly veiled movie tie-ins. He’s currently doing the Hulk/Wolverine story, plus at least one of the upcoming Tsunami Wolverine books (possibly both, I don’t recall).

The problem I’m having here is that there isn’t, to my knowledge, a Captain America movie in the works. And since that’s the case, I can’t fathom why Marvel would see fit to put what is so clearly a rush job on the shelves when they could have just as easily taken their time, since there’s no Hollywood release date to match.

So, to be perfectly honest, the story is just lousy. Bruce Jones has already begun making a real name for himself amongst mainstream fans for his work on Incredible Hulk, and that fame is based in no small portion on his ability to write realistic dialogue. That is to say, he doesn’t script scenes that feel like what non-comics readers expect to read.

Well, that’s completely absent here. Jones writes Steve Rogers like it’s 1942 (which I actually thought WWII the time period for the story, until I realized that it was set in the present day): stiff and naïve, full of expository internal monologues.

Our story, such as it is, is this: Rogers’ friend Sal is a paraplegic, shot in the back during the Gulf War (the only reference that assures the reader that, yes, this story is in fact set during the present day) by his commanding officer, a man that Sal had thought was his friend (an event that we’re left clueless about throughout the entire issue). Both before Sal’s birthday party and afterwards, Cap encounters suspicious behavior at a local bakery, behavior that he thinks (read: is quite clearly) evidence of mob racketeering. The second time around, Rogers convinces the baker to give him a description of his assailant’s car, which leads to some old school Captain America ass-whipping. Then, however, Cap decides to go to the aid of another, seemingly unrelated, gangster, to hear of the plight of his daughter. The crime lord’s daughter, it seems, has been seduced and stolen away by a rival miscreant and, as she is “all he has,” he begs Steve Rogers to track her down and ensure that no harm has been done to her. A matter that Rogers immediately agrees to undertake because “an innocent woman might be in danger.” And that’s the issue.

 

E-Mail Author  |  Archive  |  Tell A Friend