Written by Ed Brubaker and Marc Andreyko
Illustrated by Chris SamneeThink you know the story of Cap and Bucky’s origins? Well, think again. The secret story of the early days of Captain 
America, told from Bucky Barnes’s point of view. From co-writers Ed Brubaker and Marc Andreyko with artist Chris Samnee (Thor: The Mighty Avenger).
Retro Cap, co-written by the helmsman of Current Cap. I’ll just spoil it for you now: It’s worth a look. But how worth a look is it? That, dear reader, comes after the jump.
Nearly a decade ago now, Ed Brubaker succeeded in making the Marvel Zombies eat one of their greatest possible heresies: he brought Bucky back, and people loved it. The key to this revival wasn’t so much the storyline woven around it — “you know, it looked like I died, but really I didn’t and someone stashed me away somewhere so you wouldn’t find out” is absolutely nothing new — but the way in which Brubaker gave readers reasons to actually care about Bucky as something other than a symbol of Captain America’s guilt. From the 1960s onward, Bucky’s sole characterization was that of the noble boy martyr, who died so that Cap could have something to feel bad about, as well as a personal emnity against his then-foe Baron Zemo. (Call it “Sidekicks in Refrigerators.”) When all there was to Bucky was a death, undoing that might as well have been unwriting him completely.
What Brubaker did, in lacing his early Cap stories with extensive WW2 flashbacks, was make Bucky cool on his own terms. “So why did Captain America need a teen sidekick?” the imaginary reader asks. “To be Cap’s one-man advance guard and do the dirty work necessary for every superheroic wartime siege,” the stories answer. “Still, why a teenager?” the reader then asks. “Because Bucky was the best,” the stories reply with a wink. We saw Bucky cutting barbed-wire fences and cutting Nazi throats, going on machine-gun rampages that laid down road for Cap’s rock-em sock-em finales. Bizarrely, turning Bucky into an action hero did more to establish a human dimension for the character than 30 years of weeping over his ghost.
Though Brubaker’s Captain America stories have dove back into Cap and Bucky’s WW2 years with as much frequency as one might expect from characters who were forged in the fires of the Forties, not too much time has been spent in deep exploration: “Well, this old bit is relevant to the story, isn’t it?” and moving on. Bucky’s dead now — again — so there’s no moving on just yet, only moving backwards. This is precisely what Brubaker and co-writer Marc Andreyko get up to, and they do a fine job, at that. Brubaker’s gift for atmosphere and Andreyko’s ease with complex characterization bring out some of the best in each other: Bucky is at once a lovable yet hard-luck teen, somber of expression but with the soul of a ragamuffin, as befits the Mighty Marvel Manner. What’s excellent about this is the way that it’s conveyed with brevity and deadly accuracy — through a few crucial incidents and some focused, never-purple narration, we learn enough of Bucky’s life to imagine the rest. Cap and Bucky‘s first issue is about re-establishing the character’s humanity, not about detailing every specific incident that formed him; everyone who can relate to disappointing their parents, or getting a giddy thrill in doing something they shouldn’t, or working hard to be the best they can be can relate to Bucky doing the same.
Chris Samnee, years into his stint as Your Favorite Blogger’s Favorite Artist or some other synonym for “vastly underrated,” gives weight and depth to the world the writers lay out. The weight part is exceptionally true: the uncomplicated human forms and loving evocation of outdoor environments call to mind the artwork of Golden Age comics, but the thick shadows and wide linework make his art undeniably heavy in a way that few actual Golden Age comics achieve. The nimbleness of Bucky’s martial artistry is all the more impressive in Samnee’s widescreen panels because of this inking style — the kid’s got style and grace even when the dark spots are dragging him toward the bottom edge of the rectangle, like invisible cinderblocks tied to his body.
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Captain America and Bucky only has one crucial misstep, but it’s one that’s visible on every single page. Bettie Breitweiser colors the book in a dull pallette of greys and browns — standard-issue flashback colors that become wearisome and borderline oppressive when stretched over 20 pages. The color scheme evokes funerals and an all-encompassing sense of dread, even in the moments where Bucky sparks to life. This is not to accuse Bettie Breitweister of being a bad colorist — the subtle work done with the muted pallette really does help build up the sense of a world existing beyond the edges of Samnee’s panels. It’s just that it’s a bleak, gloomy world, which may be appropriate for the horrors of war, but doesn’t fit the issue as written.
As series launches go, Captain America and Bucky is quietly efficient, with the kind of understated craftsmanship that comes from longtime pros who are confident in their ability to do the job. This isn’t a comic book that screams for your attention — nor should it, really, considering that it’s a fleshing-out of old ground, rather than a shining avatar of the psychedelic New. Still, quality’s quality. Your life will probably not considerably improve as a direct result of reading Captain America and Bucky, but better to get your 20-page bursts of pleasure from something built to last.
Final Verdict: 7.5 / RIP Bucky, the Golden Age Tupac
