Fallen Son: The Death Of Captain America

Collects Fallen Son: Wolverine, Fallen Son: Avengers, Fallen Son: Captain America, Fallen Son: Spider-Man and Fallen Son: Iron Man, all written by Jeph Loeb and drawn by Leinil Yu, Ed McGuinness, John Romita Jr., David Finch and John Cassaday (in that order).

The Civil War is over, and as the dust settles each side count their dead. Among those is Steve Rogers aka. Captain America. This came as a shock, not only to the denizens of the MU, but to comic book fans and news-starved journalists alike. This book chronicles how the Marvel heroes collectively deal with the loss of their spiritual mentor, while at the same time hinting at what came before and what will come after.

There's not much of an an actual plot here, instead each chapter is based on one of the phases of grief (denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance). I think this a great idea with lots of potential, but unfortunately that potential isn't realized very well. For a story that is supposed to be about deep emotions, it reads surprisingly much like a normal super hero comic book, that is with lots of heroes and villains duking it out while posing and slugging one-liners at each other. In fact, only the last chapter isn't built around a big fight.

Although I do recognize that an attempt has been made to have each chapter treat one phase, I just don't think this has been done very succesfully. For example, in the chapter titled Anger, the New Avengers sit around a table playing poker all the time (while the Mighty Avengers take on Tiger Shark, yes, Tiger Shark...). And in the chapter titled bargaining, the only bargaining done is Iron Man trying to talk Hawkeye into becoming the new Captain America (and I don't buy into Iron Man doing this to make the grief go away, that's just silly). The last two chapters are somewhat better, in fact the very last chapter is pretty good, although it gets a little too Hollywood emotional for my taste.

I think what I'm really missing here is mood. In a story that at it's core is about emotions, hitting the right mood is essential. And part of the problem with that stems from the art. Marvel has gathered five of it's top artists to do this book, and at first glance the art looks great. There are pages that will blow you away, and since each chapter features different characters, the cohesiveness of the book isn't really affected by the many different artists. But somehow the pairing of artists and phases of grief seems to be a little skewed at times. E.g. why have McGuinness, who is otherwise a great artist, do the anger chapter, when he is known for a rather clean and slick drawing style? Wouldn't e.g. Finch be more suited for an angry story? And why have Finch, also a great artist, do the depression chapter, when his strength lies more in the veins of action and posing?

It's not that this book is bad, it's just that it's not very good. And with a star lineup like this, it should have been better. If what you're looking for is a string of stories featuring major Marvel heroes and drawn by some of the best artists Marvel can dig up, you might like this. But if you're looking for something more daring, a story about emotions of loss and a proper farewell to Steve Rogers, this one falls a little short.

4/10