Finished reading: Secret Empire by Steve Englehart đź“š

Captain America: The Secret Empire

I fell a touch short of my regular book count last year… part of the reason for that is that I’ve never included comic books in my list, even though I’ve increasingly been reading more and more comic books, including big collections of comics like this one. Writing reviews for individual comic books doesn’t really seem like a fruitful use of time, but maybe I’ll start including these. 

There are a few main types of Captain America stories:

  1. Group conspiracy against Captain America
  2. Two Captain Americas fight
  3. Captain America quits

This volume doesn’t have #2 (that’s in the previous volume), but it has good content for #1 and #3. Without giving any solid details, Cap quits because “the country he’s fighting for is no longer the place he knows from 1941,” and it is softly implied that when he Scooby-Doo style unmasked a bad guy, it was the president. So sort of topical, I guess, although I didn’t really love that it drove him to un-claim his title as Captain America.

That reaction feels in deep contrast to what Sheriff Billings said in the recent season of Silo: “I didn’t cross the line; the line moved.”  “Captain America quits” is definitely the hardest plot to execute well… but it’s sort of a necessary precursor to another classic Captain America story, “Captain America Comes Back”

I like Steve Englehart for a few reasons:

  1. He’s from Indiana, like me
  2. He’s an involved narrator
  3. He’s super campy

Im currently collecting Englehart’s Fantastic Four and West Coast Avengers runs as individual issues, and I love the relationship-driven, soap-opera drama they have. These Captain America stories don’t have that same drama, but they’re fun all the same. I love all the wacky villains. 

I read these collections on glossy print with remastered colors, which people often complain about for being garish and over-the-top. I also felt this way when I started reading them, but now, at least for campy Marvel-style writers like Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, the over-the-top colors help capture an psychedelic, sort of punk attitude. I have a few other of these old Cap “Epic Collection” volumes; and am excited to read them soon