So, thoughts on Coates’ Captain America #1?

Took a second to get my hands on it, because Comixology is bad at carrying over subscriptions when teams change, but yeah, I have some thoughts.

So far, it reminds me a lot of Brubaker’s run, that emphasis on the paranoid thriller style. 

The two main threads of the issue are:

• Cap and Bucky working together to try to shut down “HYDRA nostalgics” while dealing with “resisters with shady pasts” who’ve got a foothold in the new government, what with Thaddeus Ross hiring Sharon Carter on the one hand, but also suggestion that Selene’s in the U.S government and Von Strucker somehow managed to get himself on the good list.
• Bringing Russia into the HYDRA narrative with Selene (the former Black Queen of the Hellfire Club) liberating a mysterious Alexa in Russia, demonstrating how Russia reacted to HYDRA’s world conquest and their more hardcore attitude to the aftermath.

Not quite sure how they link together in the end, with the exception of Selene being both active in Russia and in the U.S government, and the way that the issue frames Steve’s street level helping ordinary people against Selene’s exemplary punishment of a HYDRA holdout. 

I’d say what I liked best in the issue is the Cap and Bucky rapport, the perspectives of the two of them as “a warrior who hates war” (which makes sense for a man who’s made a shield his signature weapon) vs. someone “who’d seen the worst of human nature” and knows how to take the shot in the meantime. 

The cyborg Nukes being used as “lone gunmen” on the National Mall are certainly a scary thought, and combined with the discussion of protesters and counter-protesters, very much getting a “ripped from the headlines” vibe out of that particular plotline.