Captain America #12 – Review

by Rick Remender (Writer), Carlos Pacheco, Klaus Janson (Artists), Dean White, Rachelle Rosenberg (Colorists)

The Story: Falcon comes and try to bring the old Captain America back as Nuke goes full-psycho with the help of a new ally.

The Review: Continuous stories are always challenging for writers. Not only do every chapters need to follow the others without destroying the narrative pacing and the elements that hold the whole thing together, but it needs to continue the development of the characters and the themes in a natural and progressive way. It may seem obvious, yet not all writers are able to satisfy all of these criteria’s, creating some stories that can feel a bit awkward to read.

This issue of Captain America, unfortunately, feels a bit like this kind of reading experience, as there are some very sound ideas, yet not everything connect in way that makes for a satisfying issue. As is usual for Rick Remender, there are many ideas and some executions of them that are rather interesting to follow as it’s fun to see him implement newer elements. Where it fails a bit, though, is the fact that he doesn’t implement them in any way that connects everything seamlessly together.

One of the new creation of Remender is a character that has been named the Iron Nail in interviews, as the writer gives us his origin story and his motivations. While some of the ideas on the page here are quite connected to what readers might expect from a capes comic, there isn’t much revealed here to render him interesting enough for readers to get immediately invested in him yet. While getting his powers from an ancestral dragon and wishing to be as he says ”a nail in the heart of the west itself” do make him a concept that could be goofy in a rather neat way, the characters is introduced then almost thrown away for the rest of the issue, with the exception of one major reveal near the end.

Right after the introduction of this villain, we get to see Steve Rogers as the Falcon tries to check on him. This leads to a scene where both characters have a chat about just what Steve has endured in Dimension Z, which is in itself both true to Steve’s character but also a bit bizarrely handled. While the idea that one of the person that is closest to Steve Rogers tries to understand him is sound, the way it is handled seems a bit far-fetched, with the both of them patrolling, doing acrobatics, which only results in Steve breaking down on top of a building after what could be calculated a few minutes of a conversation.

The very idea is a particularly sound one, as Captain America has always been presented as being one of the more morally tough characters in the Marvel universe, yet the breakdown seems to be perhaps a bit too soon for the character. It’s on par with how Captain America is emotionally, with him burning down everything from his past, yet even with his traumatic experiences, the scene doesn’t seem to warrant such big emotions. It’s not so much the idea rather than the execution and the context that makes it awkward.

However, the very next scene featuring Nuke is actually quite the contrary as the execution is good, with the violent personality and the very concept of the character being excellently put on the page. The brutality of the character, his philosophy along with the surprise twist near the end really do bring out the strength behind the very concept of Nuke. The only drawback, though, is that it doesn’t really connect to the previous scene in any way, which makes the whole issue a bit disjointed when ones look at it as a whole.

Of course, what the readers could also look upon is the artwork of Carlos Pacheco and Klaus Janson, which is actually a mixed blessing in this issue. While most of the characters are brought quite well in terms of actions and emotions, there is a weakness that breaks down the issue a bit. This downfall is due to the panels, with a good chunk of them being rather too busy, with either too many elements put in them or too much smaller details. While there is always a focus on the more important elements, with them being put to the forefront, the myriad of different objects, characters and background elements simply remove the focus a bit off them. Still, Pacheco and Janson are still quite able to bring out the weirder aspects with the relatively normal ones quite easily in some scenes, like the one with the dragon or the longer one with Nuke. It’s pretty, but it’s a bit too busy.

The coloring by Dean White and Rachelle Rosenberg possess pretty much the same problem, as every little details are colored pretty neatly, yet it drown out some of the other colors in the process. There are some scenes that are colored with a great emphasis on contrasts, like the Falcon and Captain America scene and that aren’t hyperbolized in clashing details. Other scenes, like the one introducing the Iron Nail are a bit of a chaotic mess as there are a lot of contrasts, yet too much of them to be actually effective. It retracts efficiency to the visuals rather than add to them.

The Conclusion: Despite some new ideas and some scenes that are quite effective, the lack of connection between some scenes, the ambiguously forced development of some characters along with the really busy art and colorization makes for a poor showing of the talents behind the creative team. A rather disappointing read from an usually enjoyable series.

Grade: C

-Hugo Robberts Larivière