Issue(s): Captain America: Sentinel of Liberty #12
Cover Date: Aug 99
Title: "Brothers in Arms"
Credits:
Mark Waid - Writer
Doug Braithwaite & Anthony Williams - Penciler
Dan Green & Scott Koblish - Inker
Brian Smith - Assistant Editor
Matt Idelson & Bobbie Chase - Editor
Bob Harras - EIC

Review/plot:
This is the story of Bucky's life and "death".

It takes place during the events that lead up to Cap and Bucky jumping onto the drone plane that put them both out of commission for a while, and it is interspersed with flashbacks from other stories with Bucky and Cap. Bucky is shown to be a bit of a huckster - something that wasn't really demonstrated anywhere else, and it makes the scene where Bucky discovers Cap much more overtly exploitative, but it's not an actual contradiction of previous stories.

It also doesn't give any indication of the fact that Bucky was actually trained to be something of an assassin (not surprising considering that wasn't revealed yet), but he does insist on bringing a machine gun into combat.

In the final fight with Zemo, Cap breaks free of his restraints without any indication that he had help from a future version of himself.

Zemo also says that he's removed Cap and Bucky's "nationalistic garb", but that can't be right since Cap was discovered in his costume. The costume is actually meant to be under the army clothes.

Nonetheless it's a pretty good story that explores the Cap/Bucky relationship. Unfortunately the art is on the crappy side. This may be due to the fact that the book was rushed - the credits (two editors, pencilers, and inkers) are evidence that this was running late.

Oh, and Zemo uses the word "brobdingnagian" to describe his android, which he says was given to him by Arnim Zola.

Quality Rating: B

Historical Significance Rating: 4 - Death of Cap and Bucky.

Chronological Placement Considerations: While this story is flashbacks within a flashback, the main story details the events leading up to Cap and Bucky's "deaths".

References:

• There's a repeat of the scene from Tales of Suspense #63 with Cap and Bucky sending the raft full of explosives back to the Nazi sub. In this telling, we see the Nazis jumping to safety before the explosion (!).
  
• As Mark notes in the comments, this issue is largely a retelling of Avengers #56.

Crossover: N/A

Continuity Insert? Y

My Reprint: N/A

scott koblish was also credited as the inker in this book.

characters appearing: what about fury and dum dum?

problems: in the scene where cap and bucky have just broken the defecting scientist out of the german prison and are rushing to meet the Howlers, the talk bubble goes to the wrong character. it's supposed to be cap talking, but it's definitely pointing to the scientist because a)the non-talking guy is much broader and b) cap is reassuring the scientist in this panel. you can see it's drawn with the guy not talking putting his hand on the talking guy's back. also, later, when they meet up with the Howlers, the scientist's stolen uniform matches the talking guy's uniform.

and i don't know if this is so much a problem as opposed to something weird. zemo captures cap and bucky after a big fight. ties them up to a plane. but first he takes off their costumes and dresses them up in army uniforms? why would he do that? where did he get the uniforms? are you trying to tell me that cap and bucky go around all the time fighting fully clothed underneath their costumes? that seems pretty unlikely. and even if they did, why is zemo bothering to take off their costumes? wouldn't he want everyone to see him blow up cap and bucky?

also, i don't recall so can someone check brubaker's return of bucky story and see what he's wearing when he gets found in the ocean by the russians. is it a military uniform or his bucky costume?

Re: Fury and Dugan, i don't count flashback appearances, and this issue was sort of a series of flashback so it was hard to say what counted. I went with Cap and Bucky fighting Zemo being the actual story and everything else being a flashback.

This story mainly refers to events seen in Avengers #56.

"Cap breaks free of his restraints without any indication that he had help from a future version of himself."

When did Cap come back in time and save himself?

Clyde, it's in the above mentioned Avengers #56.

Thanks, Erik.

I've always felt Mark Waid was a terrible writer and it's only the backdrop of the Image era that made him stand out in comparison. Often things are forced just to nudge the story to a line he feels is dramatic or charming. This thing on the missle- "Hey man. I love my country." and the "Nope." and "Didn't I teach you anything?" are just terrible. So Bucky is purposely waiting to sacrifice himself? For what reason- what does that accomplish if, as it implies, he can't feasibly defuse that? Can you speak at normal levels when riding a rocket? I don't know, this just seems an easy book to fake and Waid irks me the way Roy Thomas irks fnord.

I have big problems with Mark Waid but ESPECIALLY his run on Captain America.

He did not get the character at all but people are adamant that he did and that he "saved" the title. What Waid did was push Cap into being a caricature, a full-on flag-waving unfeeling, detatched, moody dark template that would have been criticized if anyone else had done it. But Waid did it and so people think it's brilliant or refuse to see how wrong the character is being represented. I remember two scenes in particular: a scene where he throws his shield and cuts Red Skull's arm off and then Red Skull is blown up and Captain America's response is to pose for a splash page, look brooding and proclaim "So what?" when Sharon Carter says "Steve, the Skull is dead, you killed him!!". And another where he goes to Japan and basically beats his patriotic beliefs into Japanese people for burning the American flag while accusing them of being evil for burning the American flag. Also he brought Sharon Carter back to have her be utterly unlikeable, not remotely match the character who she was prior and then not even do anything worthwhile with her.

I remember I wrote reviews for those early Cap Waid issues and I had to stop at the Heroes Reborn because I couldn't stomach tackling how much I was opposed to almost everything Waid was doing to the character and I was so close to giving them 0/10 grades which destroys a whole grading system.

Lot of people hated Jurgens run but I felt afer Waid it was gold.

We can discuss in greater depth when we get there, but I really enjoyed the Waid/Garney/Kubert run on Captain America.

AF, I completely agree. I also thought a mini-series he did around the time of the first Cap MCU film was really trite and forced. Some scene where Cap burns all of his own 1940s things to listen to Radiohead on headphones by a fire seemed less organic and more an abrupt attempt to make Cap seem more "accessible" to imaginary-young-readers-that-aren't-ever-gonna-read-this... I mean, I think one of the aspects of Cap this is interesting is his man out of time factor. I know guys my father's age who still play Frampton Comes Alive because they liked it in the seventies, I don't see why Captain America needs to be "modern" in cultural ways.