Comics / Comic Reviews / Marvel Comics

Siege: Captain America #1

By Andy Frisk
April 18, 2010 - 20:29

During the siege of Asgard, The Sentinel demolishes the entire city leaving heroes, villains, and innocent bystanders trapped between the rubble and each other. A family of locals (Asgard was floating over Broxton, Oklahoma) who were trying to snap some pictures of the mayhem in order to sale them for much needed cash gets trapped in the debris. When the frantic father of the family comes across the two Captain Americas, and begs them for help with finding his wife and kids, which end up at the mercy of a nasty super villain, Bucky and Steve fall back into a natural fighting team routine, allowing Bucky the chance to muse if he really should wield the shield.

Bucky’s been filling in for Steve for quite a while now. Steve asked him to be Captain America (at least for now) and to “carry a burden he (Steve) can’t shoulder right now.” Bucky still has doubts though since Steve “never bothered to ask the big question…Should I be Captain America?” So, I’ll ask a question. Should Bucky even be asking himself if Steve should have asked this question? After all Steve asked Bucky to continue being Captain America…shouldn’t that be enough?

I’m a “Bucky Cap” fan. I think having Bucky Barnes carry the burden of being Captain America in an ever changing world of superhero allegiances and politics makes perfect sense and is much more interesting than resurrecting Steve Rogers and putting him back on the job. One gets the feeling that the big shots at Marvel Comics don’t feel this way though because now that Steve’s back from the dead, we’re getting stories like Siege: Captain America where we have to put up with Bucky’s moping and self doubting. If this is what we are in store for until Steve inevitably takes back over, then let’s get it over with. Go ahead and come up with some new identity for Bucky and have him give back the shield, etc. etc. Yeah, this Siege one shot tie in ends up with a newly reassured Bucky dashing off to save the day with Steve, but you know it can’t be for much longer that Bucky remains Captain America.

The two Caps will eventually revert to original form (or in Bucky’s case hopefully he’ll resort to some original form-as in some new super hero identity), so why dwell on it. It’s been fun with Bucky as Cap, but all good things must one day come to an end. At least for now we’re still treated to Bucky Cap’s cool duds and originality. Siege: Captain America’s artist, Federico Dallocchio does a good job recreating both Bucky Cap and Steve Cap. He’s got the human form and costume detail down pat, and keeps up the tradition of ultra realistic looking Captain America artwork currently running through Bucky Cap’s regular series. Some of his panel continuity and fight choreography is a little off though. For example, there’s a panel where Steve launches his shield at Razor-Fist (this issue’s nasty villain) and in the very next it’s on Bucky’s arm as he slams it into Razor-Fist. It’s not a completely illogical layout, but you get the feeling that you’re missing something between panels. This is a one shot though. We’ve got to move quickly, but a little more attention to action flow might have been worth it.

Overall, Siege: Captain America doesn’t really add anything of importance to the current Captain America storyline or the Bucky/Steve quandary. Honestly, it doesn’t add much to the overall Siege storyline either. It’s not completely a throwaway issue, but if you missed this one, you might as well wait for the inevitable collected trade paperback edition.

Rating: 6 /10

Last Updated: July 21, 2024 - 13:52