Captain America Reborn #1(of 5)

Yay, my comic book order finally arrived at my door today. I've got a lot of very good looking books to get through, but first and foremost is this comic, Captain America Reborn #1. I've been both looking forward to and dreading this comic since I heard it was coming out, and now that I finally have it in my hands, I can't wait to dig into it. The creative team for this mini is Ed Brubaker and Bryan Hitch! This should be good.

-We open with a flashback of Cap storming the beaches of Normandy back in WWII. Then we get a flashback of Cap getting killed after the events of Civil War.

-In the present, Bucky and the Black Widow break onto the HAMMER helicarrier in search of the Time Platform Dr. Doom traded the Red Skull. Following the schematics they received from Nick Fury, the two heroes head to the storage room that should contain not only the destroyed Time Platform, but pieces of Armin Zola as well. Bucky and the Widow find neither, and Bucky begins to smell a trap. He is proven right a few moments later when Ares and Venom, along with a mess of HAMMER agents arrive on the scene to arrest them.

-Sharon Carter and the Falcon head to Pym, and proceed to tell him everything Sharon can remember about her time spent as the Red Skull's captive. She also reveals to Pym that Zola and the Skull were trying to pull Cap out of the timestream using the Time Platform, and that the gun she used to "kill" Cap actually fired some kind of unstable bullets which froze Cap's body in the exact moment in time he was shot(or something like that).

-Norman Osborn has managed to repair Zola, and Zola reveals that due to Sharon's interference when he and the Skull were trying to transfer Cap to the present, Cap has become lost in time(or something like that!). This issue ends with Cap reliving various moments from his life while trying to figure out what's the matter with him.

I actually liked this issue. I did have some problems with the story, and some of the reasoning used by some characters bugged me, but all in all, this was a good, enjoyable first issue. First off, I'll tackle my issues with the story. I really don't like the whole "Cap's lost in time!!!" thing. It just seems to... Convenient I guess. I was expecting something more from a writer of Ed's immense talents. Cap being lost in time just feels uninspired to me. Plus the fact that I didn't understand what the hell Armin Zola has talking about didn't help matters... Damn those mad scientists and their incomprehensible mumbo-jumbo!

My other main problem is the entire idea of bringing Cap back at all. It just doesn't make sense from the Red Skull's point of view. I'm sure as this mini-series progresses we'll find out the Skull had some kind of nefarious reason as to why he wanted to bring Cap back to life, but my complaint is why would the Skull even bother? Its already been established that the Skull has always craved Cap's death at his hands, so why wouldn't he have just been satisfied by the fact that it was his master plan that resulted in Cap's death? Why bring back your worst enemy? My only guess is that the Skull wanted to personally finish Cap off, but still, the man was dead! Why not leave well enough alone? For a score I'll give this comic a 9 out of 10. This was a very strong first issue to this series, and I'll be waiting anxiously to find out what issue #2 has in store for us.