ERIK LARSEN'S Excellent work
CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE END
A consideration by Alex Ness
This review was to be done months ago, but cancer and other stuff stepped into my path. So to my regular readers, I apologize for my delay. For others wondering where I went, I had 6 medical procedures over summer, and frankly, most of the time I was in back and neck spasms, or I was using the rest room. It was thought due to one scan, that I might have colon cancer. And there were two areas new to my system with possible growth areas. I have lymphoma, but colon cancer is MUCH worse. Happily outside of one more procedure to scrape, cut or laser out a growth, I am done and the cancer found was lymphoma, in a new place. Or so I was told. I know I am not the doctor.
The reason for this review was that I had wanted to explain my appreciation for this work, but life got in the way before I did, and I lingered in the time passed, thinking maybe it isn't new enough to matter. But I should include that I am also friends with Erik Larsen. I say that because it doesn't mean any bias, it means I became aware of this work first when Erik shared a link on Facebook, and I love Cap, and I also love the work of Jack Kirby. This work explodes with a modern take upon the Kirby style. There are many comic artists who are using Kirby's style without saying so. I get it, it is an influence. But would like to say, right or wrong, I think between Walter Simonson, John Byrne and Erik Larsen, I think Larsen is the one who moves me the most among those artists who try to use his style or evoke Jack Kirby.
The End is an ominous title for a title for a character who is close to 80 years old. As a 60 year old man, I am aware that I've more life lived than left to live. So would Marvel kill my favorite hero of their pantheon? I doubted that, but it does imply something drastic is going on.
The first thing to say about the book, beyond explaining what drew me to it, and possible bias, is that it is beautiful. If one considers the art as a homage to Kirby and it evokes Jack Kirby's take perfectly.
The Concept is totally fun. Imagine Captain America in the midst of his glory days, a virus has changed the world, similar to Covid's impact. And the world of Captain America is an alternate Earth, so, the end result of this work, is of a different impact than the one who appears the Marvel universe. Strangely though, how it all works, is that this Captain America is a desperate, unafraid to die for the survivors of the panic from the Virus. The virus turns all those infected, into a Red Skulled zombie. That is, this is a virus bio-engineered by the servant of Hitler, Red Skull doesn't just kill the Jews, or the Allies, the Romany "Gypsies", or any race disliked by Hitler, it fails, and doesn't make distinctions between ethnic groups. The only race is seeks to kill, is each of the humans of the species.
Cap is willing to fight until he dies, all of unaffected yet humanity is infected and dies, or the Red Skull zombies find cold victory. This is a work that is beautiful in so many ways and it is at the same time, quite somber for such a tale to be told. Jack Kirby would be proud to read this and see all the cues to his own creation and work, admire how well written of a story it is, and how this Captain America would be welcome in any of the years Jack Kirby wrote and drew Captain America. One thing some readers don't perceive that I know Larsen does, about Jack Kirby's work on Cap and elsewhere, the dynamic pacing and use of dialogue to push the story forward. Larsen has a work here that is relentless, powerful in art, story, and concept, and is a pure form of Captain America. It truly is a beautiful work.
I don't give grades, because usually I try to pick the best of the comics I've found to review. Once in a while a book will be so bad I'll say something about it, but this is not one of those. I want to say this though, Larsen doesn't try to hide his appreciation of JKirby, he embraces it, he makes it sing. I like Erik Larsen's work a lot, but somehow, I've raised his work a notch higher in my esteem for ably creating something new, with a character quite old.
Total grade, despite not giving grades, 10/10, this work is flawless.
I had decided to return to full time blogging September 1. But I realized that it is an arbitrary number to focus upon. Therefore, I am back. I'm returning to a twice a month schedule here, until I can go back to weekly or more often. In this case the overall work was so good I decided to lead off my return with it. Back around 2005 or 2006 I think, I was told that a review must be accompanied by a statement of whether or not it was sent by the publisher, bought or otherwise. I bought it myself, from Ebay. With the cover shown. I'd originally wanted this cover version of the comic, but when I couldn't find it locally, (the other cover version was good but nothing nearly so good as the one shown) I turned to EBAY and found it for 6 dollars delivered to my home. Hell yes to that.
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SHOUT OUT LONG LIVE CAPTAIN AMERICA, AMERICA's LIVING SHIELD
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