WS' Comic Reviews: Letting you know what's good, and what ain't

[WinterSoldier]

Since I don't have a blog at this moment in time, and I do read a ton of comics, I figured, eh, what the heck. Someone might be bored enough to read my opinions, rambly and incoherent as they can be. They'll be short and sweet.

Let's start with what I read yesterday (was kind of a slow new comic book day), and my namesake:

Winter Soldier: The Bitter March (auth. Rick Remender)

Well, I wasn't sure what to expect. Remender sure did turn Captain America completely upside down, the story has become polarizing. You either love it or you hate it. I enjoyed the "Dimension Z" arc at the time but lost interest midway through. I will catch back up eventually, but once I heard he was going to be doing a Winter Soldier miniseries, I was hopeful. The guy seems to have a decent enough handle on certain characters, and he seems to know what he's doing with a black ops/spy narrative. Thus far in issue #1, we're back in the past just before the Cold War. Fury and Ran Shen are taking down HYDRA, because that's what SHIELD does. Things are going south quickly, and they only get worse when they run into a man thought to be a myth, the Soviet super soldier known as The Winter Soldier. He doesn't really show up until the last few pages, but when he does it makes a huge impression on the reader. I was fearing this book would feel forced due to the movie coming out soon, and I was a little cringey when I saw they were sort of using his movie look (with the facemask and goggles), but in context (they were in freezing conditions), it made sense for him to be wearing that. He takes it off later and the character design looks great! No one seems to act out of character, the writing keeps a consistent tone, and overall, I had fun with it. I'd recommend it. I could practically hear a dramatic crescendo in my head on the very last page. Chills.

Check it out.