Captain America: To Serve & Protect by Mark Waid

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


This book collects Volume 3 of Captain America Issues 1-7 from the late 1990s. Volume 2 of Captain America was the year-long Heroes Reborn saga that had Cap in an alternate universe along with other characters such as the Fantastic Four and Iron Man and Volume 3 features Captain America's return to the main Marvel universe. Mark Waid who wrote the brilliant Captain America: Operation Rebirth to close out Volume 1.

Issue 1 features Cap coming to in modern day Japan in time to thwart a terrorist plot. In his year long absence, Captain America finds he's become an iconic figure and that a movie was made based on his life after his disappearance in Onslaught. He bemoans the disappearance of traditional Japanese culture and is taken aback by the adulation he receives.

The next six issues are all interrelated as Hydra rears its ugly head and attempts to hijack a Submarine. Issue 2 is full of Shield-slinging action as Cap rescues the sub's crew and mentions a couple times about cool his Shield is and what an awesome weapon it is and wonders what he'll do without it. At the end of Issue 2, he loses his shield in the Atlantic Ocean and even Namor can't find it.

Issue 3 finds him struggling with his replacement shield. He can't aim it properly to throw it. But he has to use it anyway as he rushes in to save the Smithsonian institution from Hydra and in gratitude, the Smithsonian gives Cap his triangular World War 2 shield. He can't throw this one either, but it's something he had used before and its comforting. The only other real benefit to it is that it protects a greater area than the round shield.

Issues 4-7 focus on the rise of Capmania with the last titled, "The Power and the Glory" which features Captain America's popularity on the rise and the new Sensational Hydra is actually happy about it, while Cap is disturbed by the adulation he's receiving.

The book has a lot of positives. There are some solid plots, particularly taking each issue individually. Cap had a great series of guest stars here: Iron Man, Thor, Hawkeye, and Quicksilver among others. The action in Issues 2 and 3 was particularly thrilling old school Cap kicking tale and taking names.

The book as a whole served as a study in fame and asked some great questions in a fun way and raised the danger of celebrity and supporting personalities without actually understanding principle. If we follow great principles, we'll never go wrong. If only follow people, we can easily fall astray when people do.

Captain America makes this work quite well. He remains courageous, principles, and above all humble (despite him inexplicably saying in the concluding speech that he got caught up in Capmania.) The only flaw with Cap is that he occasionally walked the line between introspection and being whyin and having doubt in the principles he aspouses.

The book does illustrate a challenge with writing Captain America. Waid tries to bring him to standing FOR things rather than just fighting supervillains, but the political lines drawn in America these days make it so that at the end Cap only really delivers very general principles that pretty much everyone believes in. You go into too much policy stuff and you alienate people.

Without spoiling too many details, unless his only motive is to have revenge on Captain America, the Sensational Hydra's plot is a little dumb. You also have to wonder what it says about Captain America that he'd rather take a SHIELD that's less versatile than learn to use the new one Tony Stark made for him.

Still, this is a great book for anyone who is a fan of Captain America. Waid continues to do a great job with the character and I'll enjoy reading his next book on the series.




View all my reviews