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Wednesday 31 August 2016

Captain America: Sam Wilson, Volume 2: Standoff Review (Nick Spencer, Daniel Acuna)


The second volume of Sam Wilson: The Worst Captain America is entirely filled with the even crummier Avengers Standoff event. Pleasant Hill is a seemingly-idyllic 1950s-style American small town – but something’s not right. Beneath its sunny exterior lies a dark secret – and Sam Wilson’s gonna find out what it is!

I won’t spoil what Pleasant Hill really is but it’s pretty underwhelming stuff and a really weak set-up for any story longer than three issues. It doesn’t have the most nuanced take on modern covert government operations besides saying “Secrets is BAAAD!” followed by scene after scene of the usual Marvel drivel where characters brainlessly slug it out. 

About the only moment of note in this extremely dull book is that a major character undergoes a change though if you read Avengers Standoff, you'll already know what it is. If you don't, I'll post the spoiler wayyyy down after the end of the review. But it’s such an obvious and expected development that it doesn’t feel like anything except the Marvel machine continuing to spin its wheels. It’s also a literal Deus ex Machina so Spencer’s falling back on hack writing to make his garbage stories work. 

In a book about Sam Wilson, everything of note happens to other characters besides him but that’s probably because he’s super boring. I’m done with this awful series! Alex Ross’s take on the iconic Cap-punching-Hitler-cover was great though.





























Old Steve Rogers is made young again. 

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