Product Description: Eager to serve his country during World War Two, Steve Rogers was transformed into a physically perfect man by the government's Super Soldier Program. Armed with an indestructible shield and the physical prowess of an Olympic athlete, Rogers fought valiantly to uphold the ideals and principles of democracy until frozen in a block of ice where he was preserved for decades. Discovered by the Avengers and revived, Steve Rogers is a man out of time, who remains vigilant in his battle to protect the innocent and uphold the American ideals of truth, justice and honor. In this fully updated re-issue of Essential Captain America Volume 1, Marvel's Sentinel of Liberty renews his mission and fights the good fight, facing off against Baron Zemo, the Red Skull, Power Man, the Swordsman, Batroc the Leaper and the Super-Adaptoid! Collecting Tales of Suspense #59-99 and Captain America #100-102.
Fun Reading I took a long plane trip and this was perfect. I wish it was color but at the same time you can't beat the price for some old fashioned USA vintage propaganda. Great fun.
A Real Let Down Not in color and not in step with the original Captain America comics of the 1940s that I remember. Don't bother or waste your money on it.
THE SILVER AGE OF CAPTAIN AMERICA is there some legal reason why Marvel doesn't put out collections of their Golden Age Heroes like Captain America, the Human Torch, etc? Just curious. I'd love to see those. Well this Essential volume collects Caps Earliest Silver Age Adventures from Tales of Suspense #55 - 99 and Captain America 100 - 102 once the title was changed.
While we were now in the mid-1960's, many of these stories were still fought against Nazi enemies like the Red Skull, Baron Zemo, and the Sleepers. The stories are all Stan Lee. Jack Kirby does the art on the early issues but later we have art by George Tuska (ugghhh) and John Romita (yay!).
Tales of Suspense 78 introduced Nick Fury as a pal of Cap's. #'s 82 - 84 introduced the android menace of the Super Adaptoid who could mimick the powers and abilities of any hero. # 93 and 94 featured the first appearance of the AIM created cyborg called MODOK. Truly one of the more bizarre villians of the 1960's. Leading into the title Change to Captain America issues 101 & 102 again feature the Red Skull and his evil Sleeper Robots.
One may say this collection is a bit too heavy with the Red Skull as he appears in 16 of the stories. I'd say that's true but what are you going to do? That was Cap's arch-nemesis at the time. If you're going to reprint the stories chronologically, you have to take the good with the bad. Not that it's bad, but one wishes that Jack and Stan had been perhaps a bit more creative with one of their oldest characters.
Nothing in the Essential Captain America is ground-breaking. It's good silver age fun though.
Great Comics would be better on a CD format... All I can say if you like the classics without the classic prices of $50 per volume; If you like Jack Kirby or Gil Kane ...or even Gene Colan's art ...buy this volume! I wish they could truly do these books justice by putting them in color on a CD Rom like the Marvel Comics Library did a few months ago. I love reading them in the origial color format and it's the only way to go with the Essentials...so here's my vote for many more Essencials..only in the CD format! I hope someone at Marvel reads these reviews....
A nice way to complete a collection So there's no way I'm ever going to buy these as actual comics. Wanting to complete my collection, the "Essential" series is a nice way to read up on stories that were published before I was collecting. (Indeed, in this case, before I was born.)
This is cheaply printed and bound, (Mind you this is not necessarily a criticism) the B&W art starts to hurt your eyes after a few pages. Some of these stories are so badly dated that they're barely worth reading anymore.
If you're a fan, you need this, but don't expect any of it to surpass the mediocre.
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