Captain America #39

Does Steve Epting leave stencils of his drawing style around the offices so when he can't make it, other people can basically fill-in for him without it looking like he's not drawing the issue?  First, Butch Guice and NOW Roberto De Le Torre.  I read Iron Man.  I know De La Torre's art.  I know how it looks and it does NOT look like the art I see here.  Maybe it's the inks but when I flipped back to see who was drawing, I was surprised big time.

Anyways, here we are at Captain America #39 with the cover that threw everyone off a few months back.  Granted we've known the "Steve" on the cover wasn't THE 'Steve" for a couple months, but still, this was a much anticipated issue and Brubaker did not disappoint.  Basically the Grand Director has returned to the costume of the Star Spangled Avenger in an attempt to bolster Gordon Wright's campaign by supporting him after beating the crap out of "attackers" of the Red Skull's puppet senator.  The ploy lures out Bucky where, snooping around Wright's room, he's assaulted by the Grand Director who's looking to kill Bucky for killing HIS "Bucky", Jack Monroe.

The B-plot is the state of Sharon Carter and her attempted escape at the expense of Sin, whose still injured from her fight with Bucky and STILL sore that Bucky shot her fascist love machine Crossbones in the chest.  As Sin prepares to be dismissed, Sharon cold-cocks their doctor and holds Sin to a scalpel, demanding her assistance in Sharon's escape.  I really hope Sharon actually makes an escape this time around and gets to SHIELD because her story here is starting to spin wheels while in the Skull's custody. 

This issue reminded me a lot of Iron Man 25 where it was all pretty much set-up to heads towards the big climax of a fight next issue.  In actuality, a lot happened here but not much really wowed me this time.  This issue suffered from a lack of some major players: Skull, Faustus, Zola, Tony Stark, and Black Widow.  Their absence doesn't mean the book sucked but it does take away some of the enjoyment I've had in Brubaker's depiction of them.  Still, this book maintained a level of quality you rarely find in other books and De La Torre's ersatz Epting pencils were nice and good, especially that first shot of the Grand Director.  Overall, this issue might have been a weaker one, but still, Captain America terms, that just means it was still one of the high books of the week with a surely exquisite fight coming down the pike.  If all "weak" issues in a story were this good...