Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2005)

What’s this – review déjà vu?  Au contraire; what we have here is the original Winter Soldier arc from the Captain America comics, in a series of stories by Ed Brubaker.  Even before I saw (and loved) the film, I’d heard rumblings online about how great the comic storyline was, and after I’d seen it, it was clear that this story couldn’t remain unread.

 

Luckily, I was able to track down a nice trade paperback of the collected comics with only minimal scrounging, and I read all thirteen issues in one sitting.  In other words:  yeah, I’d say it’s worth a read.  Don’t go into it expecting the movie, because it’s not, but it’s a heck of a story.  I can’t quite picturing being a longtime Cap fan reading it as it was first unfolding.

 

Let’s just get this out of the way first – the main story is completely different from the movie.  It’s super comic-book-y, with clones and magic doomsday devices and phantom Nazis.  This was my first “regular” comic book experience, and I wasn’t quite ready for how out there it is.  I’m mostly used to Doctor Who comics, which basically tell the same stories the show would if it had the budget to pull off the enormous scopes and incredible visuals.  But Marvel is a different animal.  The comics go into all sorts of wild stuff that the films wouldn’t touch, and it took a little getting used to, but I definitely enjoyed it.  However, I’ll cop to chuckling when a character would offer a big info-dump about back when So-and-So returned from the dead or lost their mind or inexplicably turned evil.  What a long, immensely complicated history they have.

 

So, we’ll stick with the basics.  At this point in the comics, as in the films, Cap is in the 21^st century.  He’s working uneasily alongside his ex Sharon Carter, trying to thwart a deviously tangled evil plan from a menacing baddie.  On the way, he’s disturbed by ghosts of his past, and he can’t figure out if they’re dreams, lies, memories.  A more tangible threat comes in the form of the Winter Soldier, a legendary assassin who seems to anticipate his every move.  With his incredible skills, ruthless efficiency, and brute force, the Soldier is a foe to be reckoned with.

 

If you’ve seen the movie, then you know who the Winter Soldier is and realize the violence, cabals, and cosmic cubes are just window dressing for the much more personal story between these two.  This is where the plot shifts from an inventive page-turner to a riveting gut-punch, where I can see why fans went into a frenzy of anticipation when Marvel first announced the title of the new movie.  Cap’s discovery of the Winter Soldier’s identity, and the comic’s slow exploration of the Soldier’s past, is simply stunning.  An entire issue is spent revealing this history through heartbreaking flashbacks framed by a dispassionate confidential report, and Cap is carried to the end of the story on a sea of conflicting emotions that threatens to rule his mind.

 

Reading the story, I realized that, as much as I loved the movie, it really just touches on the richness of this plot.  In the film, Cap’s reaction to the Winter Soldier and their subsequent interactions are spot-on, but the background of the Soldier himself is only given in glimpses.  I hope that future Captain America movies delve deeper into the revelations of this amazing arc.

 

Warnings

 

Tons of comic book violence, including a little gore, and some pretty heavy subject matter.

Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014, PG-13)

marvel-movies.wikia.com

I was a latecomer to the Avengers universe – I enjoyed the first Iron-Man at some point, and Joss Whedon’s involvement brought me to the first Avengers, which was the film that sent me on a crash course through the series.  I caught up quickly, and I’ve since seen all the post-Avengers offerings on their opening weekends.

 

Well, I literally just returned from the new Captain America, and I’m terribly pleased.  It might be my favorite post-Avengers movie of the bunch, I had an absolute blast.  Quick thumbnail – Capt. Steve Rogers has mostly adjusted to life in the 21^st century after the growing pains of The Avengers, working hard as a loyal S.H.I.E.L.D. man.  However, factions within S.H.I.E.L.D. are conspiring against him, and Cap finds himself on the run.  As his investigation throws up specters from his past, Cap is face with a venerable foe, a mythic assassin known as the Winter Soldier.

 

It’s hard not to love Cap, and Chris Evans is great as always.  Though his character has gone on quite the journey and he’s been more than a little disillusioned, it’s good to see that his core values are still intact.  Scarlett Johansson’s Black Widow makes a stellar screen partner for him – she makes him think a bit more critically, and he gives her something to trust in.  Those two have terrific friend chemistry, and I could watch them be fugitive investigators all day.  Anthony Mackie fits seamlessly into Cap’s world as Falcon (and the wings?  Awesome,) and I like seeing more of Cobie Smulders’s Maria Hill.

 

With the Winter Soldier, Marvel might have finally found an adversary to rival Loki.  He’s used largely as a weapon in this movie, but Sebastian Stan, who I’ve loved since Kings, is highly effective in his bigger character moments, and I predict great things for the next Captain America movie.  Given the nature of the character, he’s more than just a generic bad guy with eeeeevil ambitions – the whole thing is full of story potential.  Oh, and those scenes of the Winter Soldier as a weapon are amazing; such a BAMF, and it’s fantastic to see Cap go up against someone who can match punches with him.

 

The story plays like an old espionage thriller with superhero-action set pieces.  The character interactions are fabulous, and there’s a nice balance of humor throughout (I especially like the comments poking fun at Cap’s behind-the-times-ness re: pop culture and technology.)  There are some topnotch fight scenes, especially between Cap & co. and the Winter Soldier.  However, I’m not all that impressed with the camera work in the action sequences; it often feels too frenetic, which muddies the scenes and makes it hard to tell what’s going on.

 

As is the norm for these movies, we get two post-credit scenes, so stick around!

 

Warnings

 

Tons of action violence and a few sexual references.

 

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In other news, Game of Thrones is coming back tonight, and it's gonna be awesome - I can't wait!