Captain America Reborn #1 (OF 5)

I have a feeling that Butch Guice is doing alot of the heavy lifting when it comes to art on this mini

Very excited for this. I'm not necessarily a supporter of bringing Steve Rogers back, but Ed Brubaker and Bryan Hitch rarely disappoint, so if the story is good, I'm all for it.

@kwisdumb, Exactly! Regardless of whether or not it's too soon to bring back Steve, in the end its all about reading a sick story (hopefully) and I'm confidant this team can deliver. 

come on, bryan, bring the heat

If you look close the lightning is spelling "Zoom"

Oh wait....

I'm wondering what's going to happen to Bucky (or even Bucky Cap) once Steve Rogers returns.

How does this not have more pulls than Batman and Robin? Granted its awesome but I thought for sure Reborn would be the cats meow. 

Batman... well is Batman. Nonetheless I'm looking forward to the series.

Finally getting around to reading Ultimates has me that much more excited for this, hopefully I'm not let down.

that cover is great, now I'm not sure which one I want

Should I jump on here or go back and read brubakers whole run? Or I could jump on here and read the whole run simultaneausly.

^ I imagine reading both simultaneously would be very rewarding.  I'm guessing there are little things Brubaker has hidden throughout the run that are relevant to Reborn.  So, have fun with that.

Brubaker owns the Marvel universe this summer (for better or worse) and it starts here.  I'm onboard!

i have a feeling just like the other marvel event books this is going to be a big let down

@Peterporker    The rumor is that Brubaker's story pitch from back when the new volume of Cap started is that return of Bucky, death of Steve, Bucky taking the mantle, and return of Steve were all included.  It has been said by Quesada in one of the CBR interviews that the only meddling that editorial has done with the project is sliding the time frame (include his death as part of civil war) and taking this project and making it a mini (it was supposed to just be part of the issues) 

So, it really is not a true 'event' in the same manner as any of the Crisis stories or World War Hulk

At least that is what they claim....

Fuck Steve.  I want Bucky to stick around more!!!

i dont mind the return of steve, it was inevitable but could this not have maybe waited until the release fo the film. I don't think we have had another time with bucky in the mantle of cap :(

Not for me. 600 was my jumping off point. The last thing I need is another 3.99 mini-series that I will read once and forget.

Didn't read 600 or anything before it but I think I might pick up the mini for something good to read ill see when I flip through it.

The fact that this is the book keeping Hitch and Millar from finishing their epic run on FF together is more than a little annoying, as is the fact that this could/should have been part of the main title, but I'd be lying if I said I'm not going to read it.

This will end with nothing interesting hapening, is my prediction.  And it will be boring.  I hope I'm wrong.

@KickAss

That is my my fear as well.  That this is not the 'return' but rather the beginning of the 'return.'  Given how Brubaker likes the long, simmering type of storytelling, it is possible that nothing will really happen, but that wheels will be placed in motion for something to happen

Really wish they weren't brining back Steve, and I should speak with my wallet, but I find it so hard to stay away from this series.

what ever u call it its hyped to death

Im excited to see how it all comes out in the end. I'm still undecided wheather or not i want steve back so soon, but i guess it doesnt matter as of tomorrow.

mj reborn? anyone?  :(

Meh. Can't say I really care...

They shoud have just called this Captain America: Rebirth.  I agree with Simmons - this $3.99 stuff is making me cut back my books a lot.  The sad thing is: because I am paying $1.00 more for one book, I end up eliminating a different book that is either $2.99 or $3.99.  So Marvel is actually going to make less money off of me.  Great planning.

This was good once they got the half-ass explanation of how Steve is still around out of the way. I don't care if Brubaker had it planned from the beginning or not, a gun that makes him jump around in time is just stupid.

But I do think the scenes of him jumping around were executed very well. However, that might only be in comparison to the craptastic art and coloring that came before it. The Cap book proper has been doing the darker coloring since the beginning, but this was just overkill. 

One nitpick, why did the HAMMER guys have SHIELD badges on their arms?

I just flipped threw this at the store....and it does seem like Brubaker is taking some ideas from Morrison when it comes to a certain Dark Knight

I agree with Parker though, if Rogers complete body or soul is stuck back in time....that's just stupid.

I had to give this issue just a 3 star rating-- largely due to the $3.99 price tag.  It was okay-- jury's still out on this time gimmick. But, I didn't feel like I got my $3.99 worth-- with so many recap pages at the beginning, and so little new content overall.

I just can't believe that they outright stole a concept from Lost.  They had to know that there would be substantial cross-over audience for the two products.  I won't go so far as to call it stupid, yet, but it is certainly derivative.

its not from LOST its more from Slaughterhouse Five

Yeah, leaping around in your own time has been done in a lot of different stories. Slaughterhouse Five and Quantum Leap are the first things that come to mind

The man out of time concept is indeed more of a Slaughterhouse Five homage. 

I doubt this is a physical man out of time scenario though. This feels more like a clone or recovered body experiencing the shock of reemergence.

I really wanted to like this. Unfortunately I had to give this one a two. Very heavy on the exposition (which I understand is needed for a #1) and really kind of convoluted. The art was equally as muddy.  

I wish Frank D'Armata had colored this.  And is is just me or does it already look like Butch Guice is doing some major finishes to make up for Hitch's slowness?

 Art aside, I'm not sure about the story yet.  So his consciousness is leaping throughout time.  And theoretically his body is still floating around the Arctic.  Marvel science certainly allows for the two to somehow be fused back together.  Hell, Skull has been in suspended animation, put into a cloned Rogers body, transferred into Lukin's body, and now in a Zola-esque body, so how can we cry foul over the science.  That being said, I have a feeling there will be some catch here.  Brubaker is going to pull something that will make this not as straightforward as it would seem, even with screwy comic book science. 

@Tony

While I would agree that the initial restrictions on the idea of what is happening to Cap could have come from Vonnegut, there were far more elements of control found in the novel (the aliens) that were not present in Reborn, at least so far.

In Reborn, there is no control, like Lost.  There is also what Sharon stands for (trying not to spoil), which is exactly like Lost and is not found at all in Slaughterhouse.

While it has some similarities to Slaughterhouse, it is exactly like what they did in Lost.

this is a pretty good book but i gotta say the method they are describing for bringing cap back is a bit...convuluted.

Whoops, not exactly, it is just his consciousness. 

As stated above, the jumping in your lifetime has been done in multiple venues, but what makes it stick out here, as it did in Lost, is the use of an anchor.  This is differentiating from Slaughterhouse in the same as Lost.

Just a reminder for those of you that may have missed it. Marvel put up a free prequel of sorts to this issue on their website featuring Sin. Check it out if you missed it.

I finished reading Criminal : Coward this morning before I went to my comic shop so i was so excited to read something else from Brubaker. Once I read Reborn I felt massive disappointment. I really didn't like this. I'm not sure if tis because I was expecting something else or what. I just felt like it was a bit much for the character. I think Brubaker is at his best when things are kept grounded.

Every time I see someone crying foul on Brubaker "ripping off" the concept from Lost, I die a little inside.  (Seriously, did you people read nothing in high school?)

 As it is, I really like the idea of Steve Rogers, Marvel's perennial "man out of time" is now literally outside of time.  Great start to the mini!

I am crestfallen by how little this book did for me. I am trying to chalk it up to the perils of Act I setting up.

For some reason I knew Cap coming back would have somthing to do with space and time. Sometimes it just comes off as a given.

 I thought this first issue was alright though, not great, but nothing terrible.

Oh boy... That was my first thought on putting this book down. Captain America #600 had made me fell a bit better about Steve coming back, truth told. Depending on what happens to Bucky Cap, I'm going to add/drop this book. But wow... I Just... I'm disappointed in this book. Heavy on exposition. Exposition that, technically, shouldn't be necessary after Captain America #600. As well, the art was just horrendous, muddy, unclean lines... it just looked ugly. My other first thought after reading this book was "Steve Rogers is no Dr. Samuel Beckett." As well, I could do without the "Indiana Jones"-esque race against the faceless bad guys to find artifact A with clues B and C. I can't believe this is the same guy who wrote the past 4 years of Cap. Upsetting, really. 2/5. 

Also there's a depth-of-field mistake on the cover. Somehow the stealth plane in the background is in front of a soldier's head - meaning it is the closer object!  Oh and since when did the Hammer/SHIELD agents start wearing Cobra Commander masks?

HAAAAAMMMMMMMMEEEEEEEEERRRRRRLALALALALALALALALA!

It's sub par for all the hype.  DC's stealing a lot of thunder recently.  The Batman books seem to be eclipsing everything right now.  Even some of my favorite monthly titles.

I have no problem w/ Steve coming back. I'd prefer he'd been out of action a smidge longer (I think keeping it 'til the Cap movie came out would've been a better idea, frankly) but he's my favorite comic book character, the favorite of a lot of people here I'm sure, and he's returning; I'm okay with that.

I like the position he appears to be in. I think it harkens back to the dream he kept having where everything was slightly amiss in WWII times when the cosmic cube/Winter Soldier arc was going on (if I'm not mistaken). I could be way off, but maybe those were hints that Cap's timeline was being altered.

@TNC
I doubt he's taking this concept from the 'RIP/Final Crisis/how-did-Batman-go-from-jumping-into-the-helicopter-to-gritting-his-teeth-in-Darksied's-machine Saga' (I ain't never letting that one go) since A) I'm sure Brubaker developed this outcome ages ago and B) even if he were to decide to snag the idea, I wouldn't consider the victim to ol' wacky Grant, I'd consider it to be DC editorial.

It is interesting how many coincidences are currently hitting Batman and Cap, though. Brubaker once pointed out that Bucky and Jason Todd returned on the same day (either in an interview or in the Cap Omnibus). Now, both titular characters have been succeeded by their former sidekicks and were both considered dead and now are both lost in time. I smelllll a crosssssover! (or a wacky sitcom)

Oh yeah, art sucked 'cept for the WWII stuff (mostly, at least) and the colorist should have his eyes checked or gouged. Red boots on Bucky Cap?? AAAAAARRGH!!!!!! </nerd rage>

I tried to write a review of this, but it just got jumbled up until the point where it was un-editable, so I'll just say this...

Steve Rogers is the reason I'm reading comics.

Do I want him back? Not necessarily, but if the story is good, why not.

Do I want him back in this way? Absolutelyh not.

After all the genius that Ed Brubaker has displayed over these past few years of writing Cap, I can't see why he would go down this path. To be fair, it is the first issue and we only have 20-some odd pages of story, but unless there are some major changes, I can't see myself liking this at all.

It just seems so contrived. He's lost in time and has been that way from the beginning, and he's wearing the Ultimate Cap outfit and then he's flashing back to the death of his Mother...I dunno. Maybe they can pull it off and bring back Steve in proper fashion, but for right now, I'm doubting it.

3/5.

It's just as contrived as the Red Skull upon being shot using the broken Cosmic Cube to will his consciousness into Aleksander Lukin's body, Steve using said Cosmic Cube to force Bucky to remember everything about his life, Sharon Carter discovering she was carrying Steve's child days after "killing" him only for Sharon to be stabbed by Sin, and then the Red Skull and Arnim Zola, after failing to transfer Skull's consciousness into that unborn child, transferring his consciousness into a robot instead.

Brubaker's run has had much that is grounded in reality, but let's not forget the amount of wacky, contrived, and convoluted plot elements.

Speaking as a Cap and Brubaker fan all I can say is "Bad Call Ripley". The idea behind this is too close to the idea behind the other "dead" iconic character. Who thought of it first? I am as dissapointed as when the Super-Soldier serum had turned on him. I hope one day we can get better ideas than the rehashed  soap opera death/ressurection plots for these "events".

@CaptainSweatpants: "Who thought of it first?"?

 Kurt Vonnegut.  

With the constant and the white flashes I can't blame people for pointing out the similarities this issue has with Lost. However, I've never read slaughterhouse five.

Captainsweatpants, its not at all similar. Apart from Cap being shot with a special gun, him being lost in time, his old sidekick taking over for a while.

Big meh. Brubaker you serious with this?

meh froen in ice frozen in time BLAH BLAH.  DROPPED

peterporker : Couldn't agree with you more. I love how everyone is calling bucky, bucky again. I can't wait to hear the ifanboy crew defend this steaming pile of *******.

Slaughterhouse Five huh? So cap is hanging out with Bruce, Billy Pilgrim and an eternally youthful Valerie Perrine? I thought Pilgrim was being transported to an Alien swing pad not lost in the timestream. Honestly H.G. Wells did the time displaced thing first as I can remember. Point is it is done to death and a cop-out device to get Steve into Dark reign and IMO probably give us a Bucky, Pepper, Ragnarok, Skarr, Daken staffed Dark Young New Reassembled Teen Titan Avenging Legion of Super-heroes.

Dont get me wrong I love Cap and the Brubaker run but much like JMS on Thor the event has consumed more quality. Bucky could have carried the shield just as Dick can wear the cowl. The deaths served to better the books, too bad Marvel didn't have the guts to make it permanent.

Cap #25 was meaningful before this.

it has a lot more in common with Lost that Slaughterhouse Five.  At least after the first issue it does.  All three have the man lost in time aspect.  Bust just two have the "constant" and white light wave.  The devil is in the details.  I'm really shocked by the blatant Lost aspect.  They’re so obvious I find myself hoping they are just distraction that, when we read the next issue, we will feel stupid for even thinking Lost…  really hoping…

 If you have a story about robots evolving to overtake the human race you can say it's homage to Asimov.  If the robots in the story are called Terminators and travel in time then... 

This is the best way you can bring back Steve?

@Ampersand Honestly... Lost's time travel aspect is itself a rip off of several other forms of time travel throughout literature & pop culture.

@Prax

No arguement that time travel is used throughout many forms of entertainment.  But the things that made the Lost form of time travel unique, for Desmond at least, were that 1) wierd science effect, 2) it was within his life time, 3) white light before shifts in time, and 4) use of a 'constant' to get back to normal.  Lost was the only piece to have all of these together.  This was what made Lost's version unique to itself.  Now all of these aspects were aped in this issue.  Considering how recently that episode was made, it is ridiculous for Brubaker and Marvel editorial to go forward with this idea.

All that having been said, I hope that Brubaker is pulling the wool over our eyes and has something better planned.

terrible and pointless

this makes lifields reborn a masterpiece compared to this crap

@prax

I totally agree.  Lost has constant references to all kinds of literature.  It has places called the "looking Glass" and a character called C.S. Lewis for example.  They’ve even mentioned Kurt Vonnegut on the show as a sort of easter egg.  The head writers talk openly about this.  That doesn't change the fact that this issue of Reborn had many aspects directly from Lost. 

The idea of time travel isn’t unique.  Now if a character uses a DeLorean to travel in time then it’s obvious where the idea came from.

@MisterJ  Three of the four aspects you describe are exactly the same as Quantum Leap (Except a white flash is replaced by a blue-white flash), and the idea of the "constant" could easily be applied to Sam's friend Al, an observer from his own time. Lost is one of those shows that wears its inspirations on its sleeves. As well, the bouncing around also bears striking similarity to Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, which could also be said to use all four of the aspects you mention.

@ampersand  My problem is, that, essentially, we have people arguing that an admittedly kitbashed concept is *the* basis for this issue's major conceit. Does it seem that Lost is most obvious place from where the concept is lifted? Yes. But Lost's time travel is essentially a distillation of Slaughterhouse 5 and Quantum Leap. 

@Prax  I would disagree that Al could be termed a constant as he did not aid in getting Sam back home.  Here, the constant is the object/protagonist back home.  That never happened in Quantum Leap.  Also, in Quantum Leap, I thought that the audience(not the characters) were the only people who actually saw the white light, but it has been years, so maybe I have 'misremembered.'  

As for Eternal Sunshine, that is memories, not time travel. 

My point is the same as ampersand's, that everything that makes what happened in this book seemingly unique has a direct parallel to what happened in Lost.  I do not buy into the 'distillation' idea because then we should be giving credit to Wells and not to Vonnagut or Bellasario.  Lost, Slaughterhouse, and Quantum Leap all head something that set each apart from the other.  So far, there is NOTHING in this book that separates itself from what happened in Lost.

@misterj Well, I guess.... Sam's body is his constant as that stays in the "present?" Interesting to look at Quantum Leap through the Lost lens. As for the flash... originally it was for audience effect, but later on it was revealed that children, dogs and the mentally different could see it. As well, I believe Al and other leapers were aware of the flash. (Bit of a Quantum Leap buff. ;-) ) As for Eternal Sunshine, that is exactly my point. There's a movie about memory that can bear your hallmarks of Lost time travel. It doesn't stand up to scrutiny, no, but I'm trying to illustrate that the tropes of Lost are just as derivative as this issue of Cap.

As for distillation? Certainly Wells deserves credit, but Vonnegut and Bellariso championed time travel without a conveyance.  By the same extension, Wells was not the first to use time travel, just the most popular. Merlin is a time traveler, in some regard. I think a time travel story was first "told" in the 1700s.

I will concede that you are right that there is nothing that separates this form of time travel from what happens in Lost. You are absolutely right.

Good call on the Leaping.  I totally forgot that there were some others who could see Sam as well (and I wish I could forget the evil leaper).  I wonder if the idea of the mentally different able to see Sam would fly nowadays.  I was also unaware of Merlin doing any time travel, interesting stuff.

All this being said, I hope that there is more to what is happening and Brubaker gets the last laugh on me.  I mean there has to be a deliberate reason why he would use a mechanism that had been used so recently and from such a popular show, right (he said, wished, and hoped :))