Captain America Collected: Mark Gruenwald
These days, if you read Captain America it's a fair bet that you think that Ed Brubaker is, to put it in colloquial English, the dog's bollocks. And he is - but reading comics over the past twenty plus years, there are two other writers' runs that I prefer on the book. Not because they're 'better' writers, necessarily, but because they're the ones I grew up with.
Don't get me wrong, Brubaker's run has a great hard-edged tone to it and takes extraordinary risks - such as reversing one of Marvel's two previously untouchable deaths (Peter David had less success with kind-of reversing the other one around the same time). The comic today has an almost espionage-like tone, and that's no bad thing - but when I was a lad, someone else was writing the good Captain as an out-and-out superhero and his name was Mark Gruenwald.
Gruenwald was a well-respected writer and editor for Marvel prior to starting his Cap run, but it's arguable that, alongside Squadron Supreme, that it's Cap that he's most remembered for. His run spanned Captain America #307-443, and although not without it's rough spots (such as Cap-Wolf and 'Fighting Chance') it also included a number of classic story lines.
Luckily for all of us, many of those story lines are now being collected as Marvel want lots of product on the shelf when the star spangled Avenger's movie is released next year...
#308 is in the Secret Wars II Omnibus - okay, so this is a ridiculously oversized (and some would say overpriced) collection, and it includes only one issue of Gru's Cap run - but it's worth pointing out for completeness sake. Cap tries to settle back into his old life, but runs afoul of new villain the Armadillo - he's also shadowed by the Beyonder, who is so impressed with him that he makes himself an identical body to saunter the Earth in.
Until, of course, changes his hairstyle...
Moving on...
#318-320, #358-362 is currently the first real collection of Gruenwald's run - although the issues collected are separated by a few years. They're in Captain America: Scourge of the Underworld - collecting the Scourge saga (also included is the Gruenwald-penned U.S.Agent mini-series, plus Scourge's other appearances), where the eponymous vigilante is eliminating the deadwood of the villain circuit, including the infamous Bar With No Name massacre which took out a whole host of D-list villains.
#332-350 (along with Iron Man #232) are collected in the mammoth Captain America: The Captain - surely Gruenwald's finest hour on Cap. Steve Rogers resigns as Captain America rather than work for the shadowy government Commission, leading them to replace him with John Walker. While Walker and his new partner serve as the new Captain America and Buck- er, Battlestar - Rogers eventually adopts a modified uniform and calls himself simply 'The Captain'. (Cap #339 is also collected in the upcoming Fall of the Mutants Omnibus).
#357-364 are collected in Captain America: The Bloodstone Hunt; think of it as Cap as Indiana Jones and Diamondback as Marion Ravenwood and you won't be far off. This story also introduces the Red Skull's lackey, Crossbones, currently a major player in Thunderbolts.
#365-367 are collected as part of Acts of Vengeance Omnibus. Essentially a story of villains switching opponents to take down the Avengers, Cap's issues have him fighting against Iron Man villain the Controller. These big omnibus collections are pricey, but for me are a perfect snapshot of Marvel at that time - and worth it purely on a nostalgia level, but your mileage may vary.
#398-399 and #400-#401 are included in Operation Galactic Storm Vol 1 and Vol 2, respectively.
For my money, OGS was one of the better inter-title crossovers that Marvel did around this period. Centering on the wide-spanning Avengers family of books, the story features the team - and most of the reserves - stuck in the middle of an interstellar conflict between the Kree and the Shi'ar. A spiritual successor to the classic Kree-Skrull War (and spiritual predecessor to War of Kings, for that matter), the story results in a schism in the team with Cap leading the more idealistic Avengers while the Black Knight and Iron Man head up the more...well, 'realistic' is the wrong word when it comes to space wars with superheroes, but you get the idea. Good, solid, comics.
#402-408...well, there's not a lot you can say about Captain America: Man and Wolf that the cover above and this cover doesn't say for you:
Captain America becomes a werewolf and, er, runs around the MU encountering people like Wolverine and Cable. Oh, and the conclusion ties in to the lackluster Infinity War, just to top it all off. Probably the low point of Gruenwald's run.
#425-437 are collected in two volumes, Captain America: Fighting Chance - Denial and Acceptance. The Super Solider serum in Steve Roger's veins begins to kill him, forcing him to evaluate what he wants to do with his final months (before suiting up in armor, obviously). I've got mixed feelings on the storyline, myself. On the one hand, I appreciate what Gruenwald was trying to do - and I have a fondness for Jack Flag (lately starring in Guardians of the Galaxy) and Free Spirit - but I don't think it quite works.
There are some other storylines in Gruenwald's run that deserve collecting - Streets of Poison (#372-378) springs to mind especially - but right now the best of his run (and, oddly, the worst) are either available or will be shortly.
As for the other writer that I like? That's a whole other post...
