Captain America's endless war on crime and tyranny sets him against new enemies and old, from an army of robot replicas to the black deeds of Baron Blood Plus: Captain America for president Guest-starring the Avengers; S.H.I.E.L.D.; and the late, great Union Jack Featuring Cobra, Mister Hyde and Batroc the Leaper The complete Stern/Byrne run, culminating with the standard-setting version of Cap's awe-inspiring origin.

From my TBR shelf, published by Marvel Comics, in Hardback. In the introduction, Jim Salicrup mentions that he comes into the sub-editor space near the end of a story process, where no one was happy with the story, but it was too late to change anything. When he became editor, it allowed him to ditch the previous arc which was out of canon by doing what could be classed as a "Bobby Ewing in the shower" moment by having the previous arc as implanted false memories. It's this story that kicks off this collection. Captain Marvel works with Dum-Dum Dugan and Nick Fury from SHIELD to recover his original memories, as Cap has to face Dragon Man and Machine Man.

The storyline of Cap possibly running for President is as relevant in the current election cycle as when it was written; Mister Hyde has teamed up with Batroc the Leaper to blackmail the New York Harbour with a container of Liquid Gas in exchange for several billion dollars, only for the pair to turn on each other; Cap gets a phone call that calls him back to England to team up with his old friend Union Jack (James Falsworth), who is now bedridden and dying but has to confront the threat of Baron Blood the vampire. Interspersed with these stories are the fact that Cap is still coming to terms that all his old friends are now getting very old or dead whilst he is still in his prime (after being in suspended animation for decades). He is also trying to balance being a super hero (Captain America) against earning a living and paying the bills - something that I dont think is necessarily covered in the current batch of comics. He is also getting out and dating again, whilst wondering when to/if to reveal his secret identity and the reasons why Steve Rogers keeps disappearing at strange moments. Previous partners are either now much older (e.g. Jacqueline Falsworth/Spitfire), or have died as part of the life of the super hero.

This was written and produced in the 1980s, and I'm surprised this style of comic has survived this late. There's lots of exposition via text, lots of "BAM!"s and "THWOCK!"s, the cells are of standard size and colouring, and it's a straight linear narrative (top left to bottom right, same again on the opposite page). I'm much more in favour of the more modern style, where there's less story-dump-through-text, more variation in the cell sizes (where narrative can switch into across the two pages), and the colours are more varied and occasionally darker.


Author Details

John Lindley Byrne is a British-born Canadian-American author and artist of comic books. Since the mid-1970s, Byrne has worked on nearly every major American superhero.

Byrne's better-known work has been on Marvel Comics' X-Men and Fantastic Four and the 1986 relaunch of DC Comics’ Superman franchise. Coming into the comics profession exclusively as a penciler, Byrne began co-plotting the X-Men comics during his tenure on them, and launched his writing career in earnest with Fantastic Four (where he also started inking his own pencils). During the 1990s he produced a number of creator-owned works, including Next Men and Danger Unlimited. He also wrote the first issues of Mike Mignola's Hellboy series and produced a number of Star Trek comics for IDW Publishing.

Captain America's endless war on crime and tyranny sets him against new enemies and old, from an army of robot replicas to the black deeds of Baron Blood Plus: Captain America for president Guest-starring the Avengers; S.H.I.E.L.D.; and the late, great Union Jack Featuring Cobra, Mister Hyde and Batroc the Leaper The complete Stern/Byrne run, culminating with the standard-setting version of Cap's awe-inspiring origin.

From my TBR shelf, published by Marvel Comics, in Hardback. In the introduction, Jim Salicrup mentions that he comes into the sub-editor space near the end of a story process, where no one was happy with the story, but it was too late to change anything. When he became editor, it allowed him to ditch the previous arc which was out of canon by doing what could be classed as a "Bobby Ewing in the shower" moment by having the previous arc as implanted false memories. It's this story that kicks off this collection. Captain Marvel works with Dum-Dum Dugan and Nick Fury from SHIELD to recover his original memories, as Cap has to face Dragon Man and Machine Man.

The storyline of Cap possibly running for President is as relevant in the current election cycle as when it was written; Mister Hyde has teamed up with Batroc the Leaper to blackmail the New York Harbour with a container of Liquid Gas in exchange for several billion dollars, only for the pair to turn on each other; Cap gets a phone call that calls him back to England to team up with his old friend Union Jack (James Falsworth), who is now bedridden and dying but has to confront the threat of Baron Blood the vampire. Interspersed with these stories are the fact that Cap is still coming to terms that all his old friends are now getting very old or dead whilst he is still in his prime (after being in suspended animation for decades). He is also trying to balance being a super hero (Captain America) against earning a living and paying the bills - something that I dont think is necessarily covered in the current batch of comics. He is also getting out and dating again, whilst wondering when to/if to reveal his secret identity and the reasons why Steve Rogers keeps disappearing at strange moments. Previous partners are either now much older (e.g. Jacqueline Falsworth/Spitfire), or have died as part of the life of the super hero.

This was written and produced in the 1980s, and I'm surprised this style of comic has survived this late. There's lots of exposition via text, lots of "BAM!"s and "THWOCK!"s, the cells are of standard size and colouring, and it's a straight linear narrative (top left to bottom right, same again on the opposite page). I'm much more in favour of the more modern style, where there's less story-dump-through-text, more variation in the cell sizes (where narrative can switch into across the two pages), and the colours are more varied and occasionally darker.


Author Details

John Lindley Byrne is a British-born Canadian-American author and artist of comic books. Since the mid-1970s, Byrne has worked on nearly every major American superhero.

Byrne's better-known work has been on Marvel Comics' X-Men and Fantastic Four and the 1986 relaunch of DC Comics’ Superman franchise. Coming into the comics profession exclusively as a penciler, Byrne began co-plotting the X-Men comics during his tenure on them, and launched his writing career in earnest with Fantastic Four (where he also started inking his own pencils). During the 1990s he produced a number of creator-owned works, including Next Men and Danger Unlimited. He also wrote the first issues of Mike Mignola's Hellboy series and produced a number of Star Trek comics for IDW Publishing.