Saturday, June 4, 2011

Fighting Chance (Gruenwald Year 9, Captain America 425-431)

Well, Mark Gruenwald fatigue is definitely setting in, as I plow through year nine of his stint writing Captain America. Generally I found his comics quite readable, even if I disagreed with Cap being written as such a stiff. (You can be patriotic without being a total square.) I'm not too crazy about what I've read so far in this "Fighting Chance" storyline though. Cap's strength and endurance is giving out on him at the worst times. His doc runs tests and tells him that due to a degradation of the super soldier serum in Cap's veins "if you keep up your current level of high adrenaline activity, you will experience total muscle paralysis in about a year." If he leads a normal life he'll be fine though. Of course, Cap could get medical help from all his super-genius friends, but won't do it because he doesn't want to become "an object of pity" (naturally). And even though Cap has the Avengers at his beck and call, he just can't restrain himself from hands on crimefighting, because "when I see an injustice... I just can't stand idly by."

A lot of Mark Gruenwald stories sound stupid, but he somehow pulls them off. Well, I'm seven parts into this storyline, and it's not working for me.

Oh well, just one more year of Gruenwald to go, and then Mark Waid takes over writing.