Captain America Reborn #1 (OF 5)

Obviously the most anticipated comic of the week, and in part because of that it is hard to say that this comic didn't disappoint.

There is nothing particularly bad about Brubaker's writing in this issue, far from his best but nothing glaringly bad to criticize. The same can be said for Hitch who does a fine job, but none of the panels or splash pages really blew me away like I was expecting them to. Again, back to the point of the expectations and hype surrounding this issue.

The hype factor played another role in my enjoyment of this issue. Naturally with the Monday release and news coverage of this mini-series Marvel wants to sell a lot of these issues to people who have not been reading Captain America. I mean, when you think about it why couldn't this just have been Captain America #601? Well because what sells better #601 or #1. What all this lead to was this story containing a lot of panels where people sit around and get caught up on what has been happened. As someone who has been reading Captain America since about issue #22 this was kind of a chore to get through even though it didn't feel forced in there.

Aside from sitting and talking we do get some action from Bucky and Black Widow which will always be okay with me. Importantly, it added much needed suspense to the issue. Some people might complain about some Dark Reign-centric villains showing up, but again I felt this was a natural inclusion based on what was happening in the story.

Besides not meeting the hype my other main knock against the story is something I won't spoil for you. Needless to say I was less than pleased with the plot device Brubaker uses to introduce the idea of Steve Rogers returning. Having said that, I still have confidence that this will end up being a great story, but it could have gotten off to a better start.