When Captain America Sucked AND Blew

Heroes Reborn: Captain America by Jeph Loeb, Rob Liefeld, James Robinson, Joe Phillips, Joe Bennett and others (1996-97): In 1996, Marvel was floundering around somewhat beneath the increasing weight of X-Men mythology and a dearth of 'hot' writing and drawing talent. A lot of that hot Marvel drawing talent had taken off in 1992 when a group of writer-artists -- including Jim Lee, Rob Liefeld, Todd MacFarlane, Whilce Portacio and Jim Valentino -- formed their own comic-book company, Image. 1996 saw yet another giant X-Crossover (the Onslaught Event) lead into a quasi-reboot of many of Marvel's core non-X-titles, as Marvel contracted out the production of four titles -- Iron Man, Avengers, Captain America and Fantastic Four -- to most of the creators now at Image.

The basic concept of Heroes Reborn was that Onslaught, a bizarre ultra-powerful amalgam of the minds of Magneto and Professor X, seemingly killed most of Marvel's non-X-heroes (with the exception of Spider-man) in a giant rumpus. However, the heroes were actually reborn in another universe where their adventures could start over again unburdened by continuity. Or X-Men, for that matter. The result, however, was a critically and fanboy savaged group of books that didn't survive beyond the year-long mandate for the test run of this 'new' continuity. A Heroes Return storyline brought the banished characters back to normal continuity, and pretty much everyone agreed to Never Speak Of This Again.

Rebooting continuity-heavy characters isn't an inherently bad idea -- John Byrne's Superman reboot cleared the hero's continuity up for another 20 years, Marvel's Ultimate line (with new versions of familiar characters in their own universe) has produced some notable sales and critical successes, and DC's Silver Age presented shiny new versions of various cancelled Golden Age heroes such as the Flash and Green Lantern. The Heroes Reborn line, though, was plagued by some awfully dodgy writing and conceptualization. Characterization for the 'new' Captain America in these books is almost non-existent.

Some of the grimmer and grittier details show promise (a nearly complete SOB Nick Fury would later be recycled for the Ultimate line), but the book backpedals away from 'mean' Nick Fury as the Reborn storyline nears its conclusion/reintegration with the 'original' Marvel universe. All in all, this is an astonishingly quick read that leaves very little behind in the mind. Frankly, I feel like I just ingested a comic-book enema. Things do pick up a bit in issues 7-12, when James Robinson and a variety of artists took over for writer Loeb and artist Liefeld, but by this point it seems clear that the storyline is simply going through the motions of wrapping up prior to the restoration of the 'real' Captain America and the 'real' Marvel Universe.

As to Liefeld's art...well, Liefeld is probably the most divisive super-hero artist of the last 20 years. He had/has a lot of fans (he couldn't have become hot on the X-books without that) and a lot of detractors. I find his work deeply irritating without completely crossing the line into vomit-inducing, but so far as I can tell, the art here is about as good (or bad) as Liefeld gets. The high cheekbones and teeny tiny legs on every character do start to crack me up pretty quickly. Of often-reliable Jeph Loeb's writing, the less said, the better. This is a pretty good snapshot of the comics industry circa 1996, but I definitely wouldn't recommend paying full price for it.