As Mark Waid’s run on Captain America comes to a close, the fate of the entire future hangs in the balance! Join us for the final chapter of “Promised Land”.
CAPTAIN AMERICA (2017) #704 “Promised Land Part 4”
Writer: Mark Waid
Artist: Leonardo Romero
Letters: Joe Caramanga
Cover Artist: Michael Cho; variant covers by: Julian Totino Tedesco
Colorist: Jordie Bellaire
Publisher: MARVEL COMICS
What You Should Know:
The Red Skull is free and fighting with the US government for dominion over the US in this far-flung future timeline. But when government conspiracy to turn the human race into Kree foot soldiers is uncovered by Jack Rogers, the Kree visit Earth with the intent to destroy it! The key to stopping the Kree and ensuring the survival of the human race may rest with Jack’s sickly son, Steve.
What You’ll Find Out:
The reason behind young Steve’s illness turned out to be that the Super Soldier derivative had a deadly reaction with Kree DNA, and anybody with recessive Kree genes, like Steve, was stricken ill. That discovery led to the notion that the serum could be weaponized against the Kree, to whom it was deadly, and weaponized it was. The defeat of the Kree left one other problem to deal with—a cosmic cube powered, revived Red Skull. Fortunately, the explosion in the final battle between Captain America and Red Skull resulted in the Red Skull becoming the cube, so all Jack had to do was hold the “cube” and use his hereditary will to command it to fix the world. Happy ending.
What Just Happened?
At its core, “Promised Land” was a tale of a world divided, and eventually reunited through the strength of will. It was a lovely, if slightly naïve, anecdote given the current state of affairs in the United States and globally. It feels as if there was an undercurrent about overcoming tyranny that may have been less than generic, but if it was indeed intended to be read that way, the message was lost in translation somewhere along the way. Perhaps it was just meant to be a love letter to the iconographic image of Steve Rogers, in which case, mission accomplished, albeit through a sea of rough waters.
The loss of the guest artist segments in this final chapter was unfortunate, as not only did they never really merge in a tangible way with the overarching narrative, but the artwork style in this arc aside from the guest pages never really clicked for me.
Rating: 6/10
Final Thought: The arc was okay. It was fine. Not great, not awful. Mostly forgettable, sadly, but not every arc can knock you on your butt and change the way you look at the world. That said, next up: Ta-Nehisi Coates!
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