Kemper's Reviews > Captain America: No Escape

Steve Rogers may be back from the dead, but James ’Bucky’ Barnes is still Captain America. James is dealing with the consequences of a hard decision when Baron Zemo targets him for revenge. Zemo uses a variety of methods to make James look out of control and leaks his real identity to the media. Since James’s history includes a long stint as a brainwashed Soviet hitman called Winter Soldier, the American media goes into a typical frenzy as James insist on taking on Zemo by himself despite warnings from his friends that he‘s walking right into a trap.

Brubaker has managed to make the only ‘death’ of a superhero into a story that I’ve actually enjoyed reading instead of just a stunt. However, while I’ve liked these tales of James trying to live up to legacy of Steve Rogers, Brubaker might have used James’s twisted past one too many times now. His time as Cap has been a long struggle for redemption as well as trying to fill the shoes of a legend, but I’d hoped that we’d start seeing James put some of that behind him.

Still, it’s another solid tale from Ed Brubaker, and it feels like this story is going somewhere and not just treading water.