'Steve Rogers knows the art of survival better than most. Decades under ice will do that to a man. But the Avengers chipped more than rock-hard morality and super-strength out from under that permafrost. When Cap takes out a terrorist cell threatening to poison the world, he'll discover a threat far more deadly. An incurable virus has hidden in his body for years - and now it's come to the surface. To save the world, he'll have to return to his own personal hell: deep freeze.
'And he'll have to take an old friend with him. Having survived his own death by inhabiting a clone of Steve Rogers, the Red Skull has inherited the virus - and he's a little less willing to play martyr. As the deadly disease shifts and evolves, new patterns emerge. Can Captain America contain the Red Skull before the virus runs rampant?'
Captain America: Dark Designs is the latest Marvel prose book from Titan Books and author Stefan Petrucha, who has previously brought comic book characters to the world of prose having written Spider-Man: Forever Young, and Deadpool: Paws.
Captain America: Dark Designs sees the iconic super soldier having to face an enemy that he's no equipped to beat, a virus. After a routine mission to stop the launch of a deadly pathogen Cap is examined on board the S.H.I.E.L.D. hellicarrier, where it's discovered that he is playing host to a virus that could wipe out all of humanity.
To make matters worse, the Red Skull, who is living inside a cloned body of Captain America, also has the virus; though his has activated. The Red Skull launches an assault on Cap using a series of Nazi robots. Now Captain America must try to find a way to stop these deadly machines whilst not triggering an extinction level event.
One of the biggest draws to comics is the artwork, and they way that it's used in super hero comics to create a level of action and spectacle that sometimes the written word can find difficult. Action scenes in books are great, but can sometimes feel like the weaker part of a story as the author tries to describe the amazing feats their characters are making. This is something that comics can sidestep, displaying amazing scenes across splash pages and dynamic panels. The problem when you take characters that we're used to reading in this one format and moving it to another is that you run the risk of the action becoming the weaker part of the story.
Whilst Stefan Petrucha is able to tell great action scenes, and there are some great moments of action to be found in this book, it does feel a little like he's fallen into this pitfall here. The succession of different robot foes, and eventually the Red Skull meant that towards the end of the novel I started to find myself becoming a little tired of the action scenes and just wanted to skip over them. This isn't the best thing when writing action stories.
However, this doesn't ruin the story in any way. yes, it means that there are duller moments every now and then, but the core story was so engaging that I was able to forgive these dips in my engagement. Seeing Captain America stuck within isolation was such an interesting take on the character, especially when he was faced with the possibility of having to go into cryogenic suspension in order to stop the virus. We get to see the internal struggle he has with this idea, of having to be frozen once again and potentially lose everything and everyone he knows and loves a second time.
Captain America lost out on having his life once already, of seeing family and friends, the woman he loved. He missed out on settling down and having a life with Peggy Carter because of becoming frozen, and it still haunts him. Seeing him knowing that he will have to go through that all over again, but volunteering to do so to save other lives shows how admirable and good a character he is.
This is one of the benefits of telling this kind of story in prose form over a regular comic, as we're allowed to have these scenes of personal introspection and deeper conversations as the writer isn't trying to write to a pre-set comic issue page length. It also means that some of the side characters get more of a spotlight too. Doctor Nia N'Tomo is one of these characters, a disease specialist who is working to cure Cap. We get to see a very real and somewhat sweet relationship develop between her and Cap across the novel, and I was often finding myself wanting to see more of the two of them together in scenes.
The standout character of the book, however, was doctor Winston Kade. A much older and more seasoned disease specialist than N'Tomo, he;s the man who first discovers the virus inside Cap and predicts that it's possible for it to destroy the human race. Initially just seeming to be a bit of a brash and grumpy man there turns out to be a lot more layers to the character than initially expected, and the more I learnt about him and his past over the course of the book the more I found him to be fascinating. He's a character that definitely sits within the grey between good and bad, who has only the noblest of intentions but will go to extremes to meet them, his arc was by far my favourite part of the story.
Captain America: Dark Designs is an interesting Captain America story, one that I don't think would have worked as well in comic form as it does here. The longer time with the characters and their inner minds were a highlight, and helped to keep me interested between the action scenes. A great read for any Marvel fan, and a must for anyone who loves Captain America.
Buy Amy A Coffee
Go to Amy's Blog
No comments:
Post a Comment