Not So New Comic Review: Universe X – Cap

                What Cap-centric comic would be complete without a brief overview of Cap’s history.  This issue is no different.  We start with Cap’s origin, which I’m sure everyone knows by now.  After that prelude, we catch up with Modern day Cap and Marv, who are still on their fetch quest.  Why this is taking place in a “special issue” is one of the great mysteries of this series.  You would think that the special issues wouldn’t really hold anything too pertinent in case someone wanted to, or had to skip them for monetary reasons (though the special issues are only fifty cents more expensive than the regular issues, so I can’t imagine cost would be that much of a concern). 

                Anyway, Cap and Marv are in Washington DC, a special place for Cap, naturally, that is now reduced to ruins.  They are currently looking for Mason Harding’s Dimensional Doorway.  They find him and he explains that his dimensional door is on Mount Rushmore.  They use the cloak to travel there, but as they do it, it gives Cap some creepy nightmares.  They arrive at Mount Rushmore and are met with a deserted old timey town that had monster stuck on poles, Vlad the Impaler style in a field next to it.  The monsters are the inhabitants of the dimension that the Dimensional Doorway leads to. 

                As they admire the local handiwork, the natives show up to attack Cap and Marv.  They are obviously a little leery of visitors, and considering the fact that by their clothing they are stuck in the 1700s.  Cap and Falcon apparently stopped by to help these individuals control their monster problem at one point, then they got busy saving the rest of the world and couldn’t be everywhere at once.  Well, these people apparently hold quite the  grudge, as Cap is greeted with pointed flaming sticks.  Luckily, Marv has his cloak at the ready and they disappear as the disgruntled citizens strike. 

                Another trip through the cloak means another creepy nightmare for Cap.  This one shows that the Super Soldier program, the very one that birthed Cap himself, was nothing but a vehicle for the Third Reich to dominate.  I guess it wasn’t a coincidence that they chose Cap, with his blonde hair and blue eyes, as the original test subject.  This sends Dream Cap into a rage and he pummels the Red Skull, which is apparently okay with him as the Skull believes that if he is going to die, dying at the hands of his country’s greatest representation of the Aryan race is noble.  Then we get a nice shot of a bunch of Germans saluting Cap…and he comes out of the cloak.  They are outside on a roof, not too far from where the teleported from, and quickly find the Dimensional Doorway, which is in a basement.  Cap helps the citizens, even though they tried to kill him, against the monsters emerging from the Doorway.  Marv collects the Doorway, and makes sure to mention to Cap that Death is in the room.  The citizens prevent Marv from teleporting away and knock Cap out, causing him to have another fever-dream.  This one causes him to see the past, a past where he failed the Avengers by not being thee when they needed him most.  We get a brief history of Cap in the Earth X series, and then Cap wakes up in shackles.  These shackles are special though, as in the interior of the shackles, pressed against his wrists, are metal spikes designed to slice his wrist and kill him if he removes them. 

                To prevent Marv from being killed though, Cap slices his wrists and removes the shackles, saving Marv and hiding out in an abandoned schoolhouse.  Cap comes up with the idea to make a run for it, to get out of the town before the citizens can kill them, because they are on their way, and that’s definitely what the citizens plan on doing.  Cap does just that, bursting through the line of people as they shoot at him with Revolutionary War replica weapons.  He keeps pushing on, until the amount of bullets in him prevents him from going any further.  Cap dies as Death herself looks in on him, and we realize that Death was not there for Marv at all.

                Later, a small group of heroes assemble to save Marv and bury collect Cap.  Then Cap, like many of the other heroes before him, goes to the land of the dead, and his fight continues.

                Just as a quick aside before we wrap up, while Krueger remains strong as the writer on this issue, the artwork by Thomas Yeates is rough.  There is very little weight to the art itself and what really gets me is the layout choices.  On practically every page there are overlapping panels and just a general lack of flow.  Overlapping panels are okay every once in a while for a change of pace, but to do it through much of the book, and not have strong, striking visuals to counteract it seems like an experiment for the experiment’s sake.

Next Issue: Back to the regular series and Marv’s fetch quest continues.  Who will help him now that Cap is gone?  Who wants to help him since he seems a lot like Batman with his sidekicks?

Just a Little

This is just an assumption, no midget has ever personally told me they don't prefer the term "little fucker".

Meet the Cast!

Eat @ Shrimpy's has an extensive cast, so it's probably a good idea to get to know them a little better.  In the grand tradition of the comic trading cards from my youth, here's the cast:

What We Learned

I'll let this one speak for itself.

Better Things to do

Sometimes, the competitive spirit won't let you give up.

Not So New Comic Review: Universe X #4

                Issue four opens with a brief summary of Norse mythology, which apparently all came about because of aliens, yes aliens.  An alien inhabited Odin, and the stories that Odin told, about himself and others, became the myths that were passed down.  Everything that was created n terms of Norse mythology was just made up by an alien.  The worlds that were created, the nine realms, the rainbow bridge, was all basically due to an overactive imagination. 

                Back in New York, the mystery of Mr. Church and his connection to Gargoyle deepens and we learn that the Tong of Creel is fighting Xen out in Japan as Cap and Marv arrive for their next piece of the puzzle.  Unfortunately, Cap and Marv arrive in time to see Xen lose and another piece of the Absorbing Man claimed.  Cap gets on a video conference with Reed to find out what happened when he was out of commission.  Cap remembers nothing of the past, about when Johnny and Sue died, as well as the Avengers, which is good news for us as neither do we. 

                Apparently, as Reed tells it to Cap, the Absorbing Man was pretty dumb, but that all changed when he merged with Ultron, absorbing all of Ultron’s knowledge and power into him.  He became a deadly foe, becoming anything and everything he had to in order to counteract the powers of the Avengers, killing them off, one by one until the Vision infected him with a computer virus.  In order to counteract this, the Absorbing Man turned to stone, to isolate the virus.  At this point, Vision shattered him into multiple pieces, each piece given to someone else to safeguard with the thought that if he was ever put back together, the individual that killed the Avengers would continue his rampage unabated across the globe. 

                We then find out that Dr. Strange has been moved to Japan by his assistant, Wong.  We are then transported to a Hydra holding facility because Marv and Cap are looking for Rick Jones, who has the Nega Bands (which are next on the checklist).  Unfortunately, they see that Rick now only has one arm, the other one, including the Nega Band that was on it, is missing.  Unfortunately, the piece of the cosmic consciousness that was in the Nega Bands is now gone (maybe because the two are not together?) so they don’t need those trinkets after all.  It is then revealed that Hydra actually inhabits dead bodies, that they kill their victims and take their minds over, so being one of the Hydra is not a worry free life like we had once thought.  Cap decides to destroy everything in his path in his grief. 

 

                In New York, the torch is being defended by the heroes, while Immortus is trying to retreat to Limbo to avoid being changed by the Terrigen Mists, but he is locked out for some reason.  While in Hell, or New Jersey, I’m not sure which, Loki explains to the fire demon Surtur of Norse Myth that he is not actually trapped, that he’s basically just playing his part in a big play.  He is not really imprisoned, and he doesn’t actually have to cause Ragnarok, he can do whatever he wants to. 

                In the Hydra base, Cap destroys everyone and everything with the Spaceknight gun.  He then turns the gun on Death herself, as she is still following him around.  It crumbles in his hands and he does his best to shelter young Marv from its advances.

Next Issue: It’s another special, this time focusing on Cap.  Will death finally come? Will it bring cake? 

Tears

If you didn't expect me to make a joke about an atrocity that significantly diminished a native population and created a rift between races for generations...then you don't know me very well.