I’m not much of a Captain America fan. I’ve never picked up his solo title for long and found him kind of irritating in the context of the Avengers. (That’s not always a bad thing; some writers have used his disruptively inflexible presence to good effect.) So I’m really surprised by how much I’ve enjoyed the first two issues of the re-launch of Captain America.
I say I’m surprised because I find the character fairly creator-proof. There are writers whose work I routinely enjoy on other titles who just can’t make Cap work for me. But Ed Brubaker seems to have a very solid direction for the character, where he’s an uneasy player in a noirish world of espionage. I think it works for Cap as a character while opening up some interesting thematic possibilities. This take on Cap responding to these kinds of circumstances… it works for me. And he hasn’t given a single inspiring speech yet, thank God. (I love the art by Steve Epting, too, and there was the added bonus of pages by Michael Lark in #2.)
And, as much as I enjoyed the actual comic, I loved the fan letter from Kurt Busiek. His thoughts on writing for a shared universe are always worth reading, and this isn’t an exception:
“And what we value isn’t the consistency of it all, but the vision. The runs that stand out are those where a creator (or a team) had such a strong vision that they took the character someplace distinctive and exciting, someplace fresh — and the stuff we dismiss is the stuff that doesn’t have that kind of vision, when a series just sort of meanders about in between those good and memorable runs.”
It’s interesting to see him phrase it that way, as I think he’s a writer who has erred on the side of consistency. I’m not saying I didn’t have fun with the high-energy nostalgia of his run on Avengers, particularly those issues done with George Perez. I just think that, in a shared universe, he can get a little too reverent. Of course, I think that also contributes to his reliability as a craftsman of quality, readable super-hero fiction, so it’s not exactly a huge liability. (I wish I didn’t have such a viscerally negative reaction to the art in JLA, but I can’t quite get past it to pick up the book.)
Let me put it this way: if I were forced to choose between never reading his Avengers run again and never reading Arrowsmith again, it wouldn’t even be a contest. When he’s working from zero — no continuity, no franchises — on something like Arrowsmith or Shockrockets, he makes the jump from highly-skilled craftsman to real storytelling artist. Both flavors are worth reading; one is just more deeply satisfying for me.
It’s almost the reverse with Brubaker. I actually prefer his shared-universe stuff (Catwoman, Gotham Central) to his own creations (Sleeper). Though, as with Busiek, it’s a fairly fine distinction between loving a comic and liking it a whole lot.
(Unrelated gushing: I think Kurt Busiek should hold some kind of professional development course on how to interact with fandom. He’s unfailingly polite, though he sets reasonable limits if someone really insists on being a wad. He graciously accepts compliments and constructive criticism, provides clarification where relevant, and has a reservoir of comics trivia locked in his head that would daunt the entire cast of Desk Set, including the computer.)