CAPTAIN AMERICA

Vol. 3 No.39

"A Gulf So Wide"

Writer/Artist: Dan Jurgens

Inker: Bob Layton

Colors: Digital Chameleon

Letterer: Todd Klein

Editor: Bobbie Chase

� � � � I've said some less than stellar things about Dan Jurgens as a writer. I meant them in each instance, and I won't take them back. He has been guilty on more than a few occasions of letting what he thought was a dynamic visual over-ride considerations of plot and even common sense. Having said that, though, I must note that he's improving. The effort's apparent.

� � � � With Captain America Jurgens is trying to focus on the historical and cultural gulf between the age Cap was born into and the present day into which he has been reborn. This is hardly new ground for the series, but that's largely because it's a very natural concern for a character who grew up during the Depression, took on a new life in a dramatic experiment in WWII, and then spent the years between that war and the fairly recent past in suspecnded animation. Oh, sure, to us here in the Real World Cap was thawed out 37 years ago, circa 1964, but keeping Marvel fictional time ever-current calls for considerable compression. I have no idea what the current official stance is (if there even still is one) but I'd guess we're supposed to think of Cap's modern career as being, oh, less than 7 or 8 years, if that. �Eventually such concerns get to be so convoluted they're silly, so it's to be expected that more and more it's something no one who has to run the show really wants to try to pin down. After all, the more it gets pinned down today the more obvious it'll be when it has to be moved again in a few years. Suffice to say that it hasn't been long enough for Cap to put that past behind him. For him, a living breathing Hitler and all of WWII seem like the not very distant past. That makes him increasingly rare, and continues to isolate him from the present.

� � � � � Apologies for the little Marvel Time digression, but it was relevant.

� � � � � Steve Rogers, Captain America, is still trying to get a handle on his life in the hear and now, while still reconciling a calendar-distant past that has grown distant and irrelevant to nearly everyone else. He's working with the high-tech spy/counterspy organization S.H.I.E.L.D., currently run by an old flame (Sharon Carter), while in his civilian identity trying to further a relationship with an attorney whose brother... well, it gets complicated. Personal and professional interests are getting tangled up left and right. It's more than a little soap operatic, but at least it's an attempt at something more than pointless battle after pointless battle. �As they're going up against AIM, one of the evil counter-parts to SHIELD, there's plenty of battling, too, of course.

� � � � � The addition of Bob Layton's inks to the mix is a welcome one. It isn't doing a great deal for or against most of the faces, but the bodies and textures are looking great.

� � � � � No, we're not witnessing the master storyteller of our age at work, but when can one say that? I'm content to stick with this for now, though. Would I if I didn't have my own decades of connection to Cap? It's hard to say. If I was a newcomer then the dynamics of Cap in the modern world would likewise be new to me, so maybe I would.

� � � � � One thing this aging fanboy would like to see, and it would take very little effort, would be some sign of cooperation and coordination between Dan Jurgens and Kurt Busiek, the writer of Avengers, where Cap is spending considerable time. It wouldn't take much - just �passing reference with a little footnote containing an issue number in the other series - so that we get more of a sense that these adventures are all part of the same characters' history. I don't know, maybe there's a breed of fan out there that doesn't care about these things, but I'm obviously not one of them. Those inter-connections are important to me in creating and maintaining that sense of historical weight for the character. It lends substance and makes them more real in my imagination. I can't be the only one this works for, even in this age of hyper-cynical fans.

� � � � � � � � � � �� �� �MJN

� � � � � � � � � � �� � � �� � � � � � � � � � � Agree? Disagree? Comments? Let me know on the Embassy Messageboard