TITLE: Captain America: Reborn
AUTHOR: Ed Brubaker
PENCILLER: Bryan Hitch
COLLECTS: Captain America: Reborn #1-6
FORMAT: Hardcover
PUBLISHER: Marvel Comics
PRICE: $24.99
RELEASE DATE: April 7

By Rob Siebert
Editor, Fanboy Wonder

This book felt…familiar.

And no, it’s not because it centers around the resurrection of Steve Rogers, the original Captain America. Rogers was killed off in 2007 following Marvel’s ginormongous company-wide event, Civil War. Rogers’ old sidekick, James “Bucky” Barns would eventually pick up the shield.

But in this book, we learn that Captain America did NOT die. Long story short, thanks to some nanotechnology invented by Dr. Doom, he’s trapped in the space-time continuum, reliving the major events in his life. This was all orchestrated by Rogers’ arch enemy, Red Skull, who when we open this book is trapped in a robotic body. With Doom’s help, he hopes to transfer his consciousness into Steve Rogers’ body, and become the leader of the Dark Avengers.

To me, this book felt very reminiscent of Geoff Johns’ work on Green Lantern: Rebirth and The Flash: Rebirth. I’m not suggesting Brubaker piggybacked on the Johns wave, because he’s a great storyteller in his own right. And obviously, all three stories have the same central theme: Rebirth, Reborn, you get the idea. Still, I couldn’t help but think: “Hey, I’ve read something like this before…”

Art from Captain America: Reborn #1.

Though the idea of Steve Rogers not actually dying, but being sent back in time seems a little corny (we actually SAW the bullets hit him, didn’t we?), it does provide good fodder for storytelling. The good Captain re-living some of his life’s defining moments, while essentially sitting in the passenger’s seat in his own mind, unable to change anything, allows the audience to get to see where the character’s emotional strengths and vulnerabilities are. I appreciated that, as I opened this book without much exposure to the main Marvel Universe (meaning I usually stick to the Ultimate line).

Red Skull comes out of this book looking great. There’s a really nice battle sequence that takes place in front of the Lincoln Memorial, where Bucky Barns faces off against Skull, whose consciousness is in Rogers’ body. We simultaneously get to see Bucky fighting Skull physically, while Rogers takes him on mentally. It’s a really clever scene.

Fittingly enough, like The Flash: Rebirth, Reborn drags a bit when it comes to explaining what actually happened to our fallen hero, and how he can come back. It gets a bit convoluted at times. Still, I give credit to Marvel for not actually killing Rogers. In a way, I prefer the convoluted technical explanation, as opposed to just saying: “He came back to life.”

I much prefer Brubaker’s more grounded work on gritty crime comics, but he turns in a nice story here. Fans with a decent knowledge of the Marvel Universe should appreciate it. For those of us who aren’t, if you concentrate on the main characters, you can still get a pretty good story out of it.

RATING: 7/10