Comic Review: Captain America (2018-) #11

Captain America (2018-) #11

Marvel Comics

Ta-Nehisi Coates

Adam Kubert

I’ve been kind of underwhelmed with Ta-Nehisi Coates’ Captain America run so far. No, it hasn’t been bad, it just felt like not a whole lot has happened. This issue’s premise was about The Daughters of Liberty attempting to break Captain America out of prison. There’s lots of action and the story progresses nicely. But I still didn’t feel like much had happened in Captain America #11.

Cap was framed for the murder of General “Thunderbolt” Ross and was convicted and placed in the Myrmidon super prison. This prison is run by Wolfgang von Strucker who was pardoned by the US government. To make things even worse for Steve Rogers, no one has forgotten that Hydra took control of the country by using a man with Captain America’s face. Things aren’t looking well for our star-spangled hero, but luckily, he has help.

The Daughters of Liberty discovered that a mysterious man who’s simply known as the Foreigner was the one responsible for Ross’ death. In the last issue, a riot broke out and now, the DoL is trying to break Cap free. Meanwhile, the group’s leader, The Dryad, has an altercation with the Foreigner in an attempt to get the information they need to clear Cap’s name.

Without spoiling anything, a lot of bad happens. If anything, this issue makes me more excited to see what happens next. It’s just that, in my opinion, this story has been moving at a snail’s pace. I felt that in the first six issues of this run, everything with the Power Elite could have been accomplished earlier. I’m feeling the same way about this arc so far. Sure, there have been lots of cool action scenes drawn by the great Adam Kubert. His detailed fight scenes in this issue and the last have been fantastic. He excels at drawing these huge, crowded battles and Cap 11 shows that. I just wish he had better face consistency. What I mean is sometimes, there’ll be panels where Steve doesn’t look like he did in the previous one. It’s not bad or even immersion breaking. I’m just nitpicking at this point.

And maybe I’m nitpicking the writing of Coates as well. Maybe I’m just not used to his writing style. Perhaps I need to go back and re-read his entire run thus far. I’ve just felt that – almost a full year into his run – nothing all that amazing happened. I really want there to be more focus on the whole “Hydra Cap/Secret Empire” narrative. With this issue, though, I think we’re getting somewhere. Hopefully, this title can reach its full potential. The only thing we can do until then is wait and see.