Review by Ian Keogh
No matter how many times he’s been defeated since the 1940s the Red Skull and his hateful ideology are always somehow resurrected. Bucky Barnes, Winter Soldier, spent much of that time brainwashed or in suspended animation, but since his own 21st century resurrection he’s faced down the Skull and his plans several times. Not limited by the ethical code against killing that so many other superheroes adhere to, he decides the time has come to deal with the Skull once and for all.
While Winter Soldier was part of an earlier incarnation of the Thunderbolts, the only reason for applying the name to the crew he gathers to assist him is the line-up he recruits being intended for a film. Scheduled for screens at the same time as Worldstrike, it was delayed a year, and still hasn’t been released as of writing. It leaves the gathered crew somewhat random. The first batch seen are all former agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. or their foes, yet Contessa Allegra De Fontaine, the Destroyer and the Red Guardian are hardly the most inspiring bunch. Black Widow, White Widow, Shang-Chi and USAgent are added along the way, and make life more interesting.
Collin Kelly and Jackson Lanzing pick up on some of the plot threads from Captain America: Sentinel of Liberty, while delivering a statement of the Marvel universe in 2024. Black Widow has a Venom symbiote, the Kingpin is the Hellfire Club’s White King, anyone can be Giant Man and the Red Skull can be digitised. Kelly and Jackson have some good ideas about the Skull and how he preserves monumental wealth, but too often their dialogue reads as if sampled from bombastic Marvel comics of the 1960s. It’s extremely distracting.
If Kelly and Lanzing provide the zeitgeist with the cast, Geraldo Borges does so with the art, producing superhero pages that tell the story efficiently, but without any great distinction. The characters are recognisable, yet there’s not a single page you’d really want hanging on your wall.
The plot works, but is functional, not memorable, inching its way forward to a movie-friendly ending leaving open the promise of more to materialise, although it hasn’t as yet. It presumably won’t until the movie is finally released.
Kelly and Lanzing also write the back-up strip detailing Winter Soldier’s first meeting with the Kingpin during Devil’s Reign. It’s a strangely stilted piece, the tension sustained by the Kingpin allegedly holding information about Barnes’ past. There’s a good idea about connecting the characters through lack of sleep, but inconsistency scuppers the premise while their Winter Soldier is strangely lacking confidence.
