The original stories here, however, are stellar. Worth the asking price for a nice hardcover.


The Re-imaging of Cap for a New Generation   July 2, 2004
 5 out of 6 found this review helpful

This book made me fall in love with comics all over again after about a 15 year absence (the release of the horrible G.I. Joe #50).

If Marvel put out a hardcover book like this 'bout Cap every year I would buy it the day it was released.

I love its "catalogue" feel. Like a Cap sampler. There's probably 2 chapters I could live without. The rest are pure joy.

I also highly recommend Captain America- The New Deal.


A fun riff on the Captain America mythos   February 25, 2007
 2 out of 2 found this review helpful

This deluxe celebration of Captain America, in all his red-white-&-blue glory, features contributions by dozens of top comicbook artists, including Paul Dini and Alex Ross, Frank Quitely, Max Allan Collins, Bill Sienkiewicz, David Lloyd and others. To a surprising degree, many of these tributes take a light, irreverent tone, poking fun at Cap's "boy scout" image, or (more predictably) probing the contradictary cross-currents of patriotism, tolerance and patriotic dissent, with Cap's dual role as democratic torchbearer and militaristic icon. There are several campy gems, including Evan Dorkin's "Skull And Zemo," a villainous, chaotic romp with two of Cap's oldest and most static baddies, "Capsploitation," a what-if remake that casts CA and Falcon in a B-grade "Shaft" mode, as well as "Red Raid," a hilariously psychosexual fantasy piece... There are also some older, "classic" stories, and it is here that the book falls flat. The Lee/Kirby short, "The Fantastic Origin Of The Red Skull," is a swell gem from the "Tales Of Suspense" days, but other entries are disappointing... A hamfisted, poorly illustrated '80s-era tolerance lesson from Roger Stern and Frank Miller seems like a weak entry -- if you were going to reprint an emblematic story, what about the Watergate-era bombshell ("Captain America" #176) wherein Cap discovers the bad guy who'd been plaguing him for months was none other than the country's commander-in-chief (which led to his political disillusionment, and the subsequent, rather strained "Nomad" plotline...)...? Anyway, the book closes with a teaser from John Ney Rieber's post-9/11 "Enemy" saga, which is a high note to end on, even if it was a cliffhanger... All in all, if you're a Captain America fan, this is a pretty enjoyable book which, probably wisely, doesn't take the character's mythology too seriously. A fun read!


Cap   December 5, 2002
 1 out of 22 found this review helpful

Artwork is not the best. Cannot be compared to that of The Best of Spiderman Hardcover.