Captain America #10
Cody White
Recap
As Steve continues to find ways to survive his imprisonment, the Daughters of Liberty send Sue Richards to meet with their man inside the prison to put a plan in motion to free Steve.
Inside the prison, Steve faces Strucker in a one-on-one "rehabilitation" session, hampered by the power dampeners in the prison. But this is Steve Rogers, after all. No surrender and no quarter given as the two go toe-to-toe in front of the entire prison. But a surprising development occurs that will even the playing field!
Review
Let me start by saying that this issue is the reason you bring on an artist like Kubert. The hyper detail in the series of two-page, heavily paneled spreads of the fight between Strucker and Cap is remarkable. Martin’s color work also took center stage in this issue, as the settings move from darkness to light and back again. This issue was truly a work of art.
As this arc moves ever closer to the conclusion, we see a distinct focus in this issue on names. From Wreckingball’s insistence on being called Dr. Eliot Franklin to the questions of who Dryad is, names carry power in this series. Not the least of these powerful names is Captain America as we watch it slowly being destroyed via false news coverage and manipulations on the part of the Lukins.
Aleksander Lukin’s name, for instance, evokes a sense of terror in the minds of long-term fans. Given the mind behind that face, it is no surprise, of course, but Coates does an excellent job in highlighting that notion of power in names through Steve’s recollections of his time as a beat cop.
Final Thoughts
Another excellent chapter of Captain America from Coates and Kubert, but what else is new? This series continues to exceed all expectations.
Captain America #10: A Rose By Any Other Name…
- Writing - 9.5/109.5/10
- Storyline - 9/109/10
- Art - 9.5/109.5/10
- Color - 10/1010/10
- Cover Art - 9/109/10
That one page has a nice reference to Sue Richards’s backstory as “The Invisible Girl.” Many younger fans would assume she went right to “Invisible Woman” and it would never occur to them that she changed her call sign because of things that happened to her that made her not want to be called “Girl” any more.