Captain America #4, 5, by Rick Remender (writer), John Romita Jr. (penciler), Klaus Janson (inker, #4), Tom Palmer and Scott Hanna (inkers, #5), Dean White and Lee Loughridge (color artists) - I wouldn't say I love the covers for this book - they're fairly pedestrian - but I appreciate that they actually depict something relevant to what's happening inside.It's eleven years since issue 3, at least as Steve's measuring it. They've become part of the Phrox community and Ian has grown up. Sort of. He's still pretty small. Hard to tell if that's because puberty hasn't kicked in yet, or if he's malnourished from living rough. Steve's still got Zola yammering in his head, picking through his memories, and sharing some of Zola's. Just about the time Steve finds a mutate bike with a map back to Zola's fortress, the virus makes a push, he blacks out, and Ian learns the truth about his heritage. Well, to the extent he learns who his father is, the rest is just crap.
Steve and Ian start towards Zolandia, but in the meantime, Zola's found the Phrox colony and launched an attack, so they turn back. The weird gamma-irradiated clones Zola made of Cap (basically, they're Bizarro Captain Americas) are trouble enough, but then Ian's sister brings her omnisenses and Tachyon Fu into play and Steve gets a beating. On the plus side, this leads to Ian meeting his sister, and Jet learning her brother wasn't killed by Rogers. The sweet reunion's broken up by Zola kicking Cap's ass over a cliff, and leaving with his kids, and all the Phrox women, who he'll use for building material for his creations. Naturally, Steve isn't dead, and cuts that Zola screen out of his chest. Which doesn't seem like it would remove a consciousness virus, but at least it might shut up.
Steve can't stop getting his butt kicked. I think issue 4 might be the only one so far where it hasn't happened, and then he got at least two whuppins - or one really long one - in issue 5. Which is the point. He's out of his depth here, in a place where someone who's the peak of human physical ability might as well be just human. Everything is bigger, stronger, faster, more aware than he is, and there are no Avengers to have his back. Just a kid. Even so, he keeps picking himself up and moving forward. trying to help people, protect them. It's who he is, who he was even before the serum. It's why he was the one they chose to give the serum to (which was one of those things Stark got wrong about him in the Avengers movie. "Everything special about you came out of bottle", my ass. Though if anyone would know about bottles, it'd be the guy on a first name basis with Johnnie Walker).
I didn't buy Steve's self-doubt about taking Ian away from Zola. Look at Jet, who did get raised by Zola. She's murderous, vindictive, cruel, completely unconcerned with the suffering of others. That's what Ian would be if Steve hadn't taken him, because he would have been raised by Arnim Zola. When a parent is unfit, we do remove children from their care. About the only person in the Marvel Universe more unfit to be a parent is Magneto.
Some of Romita Jr.'s faces look a little unfinished, a bit flat in places. I notice it more in #5, when Palmer and Hanna inked him. Which is strange, because they took a more active hand, I think. There are a lot more lines on Cap and Ian's faces than in the previous issue. With Cap especially, it makes him look old. I know he's supposed to be 11 years older, and it's bee a hard 11 years, but there are a couple of spots where the way his lips are drawn make me think he lost all his teeth (page 6, panel 3). I also thought Jet looked cooler with the sensory deprivation suit on, but perhaps that was the cape. The shield seems to change size, too. That being said, I like the design on the burrow-squids they were hunting, the Captains of Zolandia, and that full page splash of Zola bringing his fist down on Cap was really nice. When Janson's inking, Cap looks weathered, but he doesn't look ancient, which is appropriate. The serum should be reducing the speed he ages at anyway, right? Enhanced metabolism, some regenerative ability.
Now Zola has both kids, Cap's on his own, and really needs to rest up from that emergency surgery he just performed on himself. No time for that, though, because I have a feeling one of the kids is gonna die, either Ian fighting Zola, or Jet protecting her brother.
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