Captain America 153-156

[rjpb]

Thanks to boardie musicmeta, I finally got around to purchasing the 1950's Captain America story arc that Ed Brubaker has recently referenced in the current book.

 

I hadn't read it since I was a kid, and while Sal Buscema's art is still lacking, and Steve Englehart's writing clumsy, it was a fun bit of nostalgia, mostly as a ham-fisted example of early 70's "relevance" than anything else. You have to love the Falcon's "soul brother" dialogue and his issues with his Angela Davis type girlfriend, Leila.

 

While the early Bronze Age is hardly a prime era for its superhero titles, I do enjoy the efforts then to reconcile the Marvel Universe with it's earlier Timely and Atlas incarnations. Marvel was still young enough that characters like Nick Fury could be a WW2 vet and head of SHIELD without having some gimmick to keep him young, and the retro histories of it's revived characters hadn't gotten overly convoluted. I liked that Marvel wrapped the original art from Young Men #24 into the origin story for the 50s Cap.

 

Looking up Cap on wiki it seems Marvel has retconned at least three other additional Caps prior to Roger's SA revival, not to mention the various others who have worn the uniform since. Not that I blame them, keeping some semblance of continuity and story lines interesting for 45 years, often in the hands of second rate talent, will take it's toll.

 

One of the things I found interesting in the BA books, was the number of letters that ragged on Sal Buscema's art and Gerry Conway's writing in the preceding issues. I'm sure I read the books at the time, and have completely forgotten them by now, but it sounds as if that was a low point in the run.

[boomtown]

One of the things I found interesting in the BA books, was the number of letters that ragged on Sal Buscema's art and Gerry Conway's writing in the preceding issues. I'm sure I read the books at the time, and have completely forgotten them by now, but it sounds as if that was a low point in the run.

 

And then Frank Robbins showed up & people were begging to get Sal back.

 

The Romita run on Cap was my favorite, but Buscema's run was still enjoyable. There was a 2 to 3 year run right after Buscema, where Robbins & then the return of Kirby almost made that book not buyable.

[rjpb]

I thought Gil Kane came inbetween Sal and Robbins. I'd pretty much lost interest in Superhero comics around the time Nomad showed up, and missed out on the Robbins run and Kirby revival.

I didn't buy the title again until Brubaker's run started.

 

I've seen examples of Robbins' Cap - and he was well past his Johnny Hazard prime. I've been curious about Kirby's return, which on paper seems like a natural choice, but have never heard anything good about it.

 

The 1st Kirby/Steranko/Colan era remains a high point in my memory.

[Raphael]

Some of the Cap issues from this time period are my favorite! I echo the positive sentiments towards Romita and Buscema.

[joe_collector]

And then Frank Robbins showed up & people were begging to get Sal back.

 

Oh, I think you're exaggerating...

[joe_collector]

And let's not get into his "projectile spitting fetish".

[batmiesta]

And let's not get into his "projectile spitting fetish".

 

That's a lot of spit, she must have been saving it up.

[boomtown]

The 1st Kirby/Steranko/Colan era remains a high point in my memory.

 

Well yeah, #100-118 were high points also, if Steranko had stayed on for longer than 3 issues it would have really stood out. What I liked about the Romita run is it seemed like the book kind of became Cap/Falcon/Shield, as Nick Fury & Shield almost deserved a co-star billing in the 140's thru the early 150's. From 137-156 was just a killer run in the Cap series.

[shadroch]

My all-time favorite arc would be the Secret Empire storyline from 169 thru his quitting bring Cap, and the Nomad follow-up, although Robbins art certainly put a damper on the later issues. It was great and unexpected to have the X-Men drop in for a few issues in what turned out to be a prologue to their new series.

I need to reread 153-156. It's been thirty or more years, and I didn't have the sense of who the other Captain America was when I first read them.

[rjpb]

The 1st Kirby/Steranko/Colan era remains a high point in my memory.

 

Well yeah, #100-118 were high points also, if Steranko had stayed on for longer than 3 issues it would have really stood out. What I liked about the Romita run is it seemed like the book kind of became Cap/Falcon/Shield, as Nick Fury & Shield almost deserved a co-star billing in the 140's thru the early 150's. From 137-156 was just a killer run in the Cap series.

 

Looking through the GCD database, I see that Romita's run was relatively short lived. Would you include the Conway/Buscema issues (149-152) as part of the killer run? - I've forgotten the stories, but the letter sections in 153-156 cover these issues, and Marvel couldn't seem to find any letters with anything nice to say about them.

 

I now realize that my faulty memory was recalling Gil Kane as having done more than covers in the mid 70s.

 

This might be better put as a new topic - but what is the deal with the mid 70s Kirby run? Anything worth reading there?

[Comicopolis]

My all-time favorite arc would be the Secret Empire storyline from 169 thru his quitting bring Cap, and the Nomad follow-up, although Robbins art certainly put a damper on the later issues. It was great and unexpected to have the X-Men drop in for a few issues in what turned out to be a prologue to their new series.

I need to reread 153-156. It's been thirty or more years, and I didn't have the sense of who the other Captain America was when I first read them.

 

I remember reading these as a kid and loving them at the time.