6/19/2023 0 Comments Falcon avengers![]() ![]() It feels like Priest is trying to channel that sort of social relevance, but has fallen slightly out of touch. If the officer is racist, there must be a more subtle way to show it – after all, it’s unlikely that anybody in the room today wouldn’t call him on it. This sort of storytelling might have been compelling or subtle in the seventies or eighties, but it feels far too blunt today – it’s clumsy, awkward and stilted writing. ![]() ![]() ![]() “Sam Wilson - formerly ‘Snap’ Wilson - a ruthless street hustler - soul brother. “So, it’s a lucky break for me that - nobody gives a damn about him! Sergeant - Arrest the Falcon!” The reason that he believes “nobody gives a damn” about Falcon should be obvious, but the officer makes it explicit. When he admits he can’t arrest Captain America, the officer in charge decides to arrest the Falcon. The individuals we see representing the government might as well be outright villains, revealed as racist untrustworthy scum. Falcon’s statement suggests some sense of ambiguity, but it doesn’t exist. Navy conspiring with foreign drug cartels for some reason. “I’m not so sure there are ‘good’ guys and ‘bad’ guys anymore, Cap,” the Falcon states as we’re presented with the notion of the U.S. It feels like the most tasteless conspiracy theory possible, as Priest posits Captain America and Falcon as the last soldiers defending their captive from a corrupt and villainous U.S. It doesn’t help that Priest tries to muddy the water with the most superficial and shallow moral ambiguity possible. While I don’t mind the idea of Captain America reflecting on his duty to his country, three issues of going back and forth on the same point feels like a bit much. Steve Rogers spends the bones of the three chapters here getting angst-y about what to do with his prisoner. The “Super-Sailor” has already been captured, but he still dominates the three issues here. The tie-in feels a little awkward, as we join the plot all ready in motion. “I’m fighting the New War, while you’re just a relic of the old ones,” the soldier boasts from inside his cage, as if trying to get under Captain America’s skin. Here, Steve Rogers is confronted by a “Super-Sailor”, a Navy soldier built for modern warfare, rather than the old forms of conflict. Unfortunately, most writers seem to play the most trite and clichéd soul-searching imaginable, the most shallow commentary possible. Due to his nature as the embodiment of American patriotism, Captain America feels like an appropriate vehicle to explore the changes that occurred in the wake of those terrorist attacks. “Post-9/11, we’re all trying to redefine our purpose,”the Daily Bugle’s Robertson states, and it feels like Priest is trying too hard to tap into the existential milieu that developed in the wake of those attacks. Indeed, the book seems almost fixed in a strange time loop, capturing seventies anti-establishment sentiment far more effectively than it manages anything pertinent to the America of the time. Christopher Priest’s Captain America & Falcon reads like a collection of awkward comic book clichés in a book trying too hard to be relevant. Looking back at some of the stories told in the years before Brubaker took over the character, it makes his success all the more incredible. Today, Ed Brubaker’s Captain America run is regarded as a phenomenal run on the character – arguably one of the best ever, standing alongside Engelhart and Gruenwald’s iconic tenures. ![]()
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