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 - Best Captain America Ever!It's ironic that the best ever incarnation of Captain America (at least in recent memery)also includes the death of Cap himself! Brubaker's writing is nuanced and detailed with every character highly defined, especially Bucky AKA The Winter Soldier. As outlandish as some of the plot twists may seem the writing keeps them somehow grounded in realism. The artwork also supports and creates the mood of the writng and is also very subtle and fantastic. Overall one of the very best comic runs that I've had the pleasure of reading in a long time! The best part is that it continues to the present (and hopefully for a long time to come!) beyond what is contained in the pages of this book (can a volume 2 be far behind?) Overall highly recommended!! Rating: - Absolute Brilliance in a Fantastic Package *WARNING* spoilers immediately ahead This is the first 25 issues of Ed Brubaker and Steve Eptings awe-inspiring run on the new "Captain America"--from the attempted assassination of the Red Skull and reintroduction of "Bucky" Barnes as the Winter Soldier to the highly publicized death of Steve Rogers. I'll say that aside from Mark Millar's Ultimates run, Ed Brubaker writes Cap better than anyone. He nails the character and his supporting cast, and Brubaker's storylines feel truly authentic to America's second super-soldier. Equally impressive is the consistantly beautiful art by Steve Epting and Mike Perkins. I've never seen a book where the regular art and the fill-ins were this indistinguishable. Amazing. This is the best superhero comic MARVEL currently puts out. It's a must own for for any comics fan. Buy it NOW! Rating: - A gorgeous collection for the Best Captain America run out there.Brubaker is the man. I buy everything with his name on it, and this Omnibus that collects the first 25 issues of his run (leading up to the "Death of a Dream" storyline) is brilliant. This edition collects the story arcs: "Out of Time", "The Winter Soldier", "21st Century Blitz", "Red is the Darkest Colour", "Collision Courses" and "The Drums of War (A Civil War Tie-In)" as well as the first part of "The Death of a Dream". As well as the one-shots "Winter Soldier: Winter Kills" (which is my favourite single issue in the whole collection), "Captain America: 65th Anniversary Special", Captain America 10 (The house of M tie-in) and also "The Lonesome Death of Jack Monroe". This book hooks you from the start (with issue one, probably being the best single issue of a regular captain america title) and never lets go, always ending each installment with a cliffhanger. I won't spoil it, if you haven't heard of it, but Brubaker brings back into the fold an old Captain America character, which could've gone horribly wrong, had this book not been so well written. This Omnibus really tells one big story, which is split up into many smaller story arcs, the sub-plots slowly build towards the big moment in Issue 25. My favourite story arcs are "Out of Time" and "The Winter Soldier", but all are enjoyable, specially the "21st Century Blitz" wich is set in England and has Cap team up with Union Jack. Besides the amazing storyline, this collection is also full of extras. An introduction, by the one and only Ed Brubaker, the script to Captain America 25, profiles to both Winter Soldier and Captain America, some unfinished and unused art by Epting, a little report on the media reaction to the last issue this Omnibus collects. There are also three interviews with Brubaker, originally published in Marvel Spotlight, which togheter take up 16 pages. In the first one he talks about his writing in general and his earlier work on this title, the second one he talks about killing Captain America and the third one is a short interview about the "Winter Soldier: Winter Kills" one-shot and about the Winter Soldier in general. There is also a short 3 page interview with Steve Epting about his art on the title. Captain America has never been this good, if your a fan of Captain America, Ed Brubaker, the Espionage or Super-Hero Genre, comic books in general, I strongly advise you to pick this up. This collection is worth every penny you pay for it. Rating:  - Oddly, not enough CapThis Omnibus is a huge book covering 25 issues of Captain America, and it is an amazing look into Captain America. I grew up with the 80's version of Cap, who (in my mind) was just a noble guy with a shield. He didn't have a lot of depth, actually he was quite similar to Cyclops of the X-Men. He's the leader, he gives orders, that's about all you got from the character. Enter Brubaker's take on Cap. The first two series involve the Winter Soldier, and highlight the fact that Cap isn't some one-dimensional character. Cap is a product of WWII, he's a soldier that will kill for his country, and Brubaker enjoys showing how grim WWII was. Cap fought through hard times with Bucky, and viewing both of them working together was a treat. But once the Winter Soldier bit ends, the Omnibus falls apart. Cap loses the center stage because he's being used in other comics (the Civil War series) and you don't really get a three dimensional feeling of it anymore. Instead, there's this gradual sense of foreboding followed by the issue where Cap dies. The thing is, I wasn't as attached to the character by then as I was at the beginning of the Omnibus. Too much happens with Cap that doesn't appear in this book. He's the leader of the Superhero rebels in Civil War, yet you never see that. He and Fury are forced out of Shield, you don't see it. He gives himself up, you don't see it. The Omnibus is a great read for the Winter Soldier series and I love the return of Bucky...but seeing as how this is Cap's swan song, I would have liked to have had his character get the spotlight more than Bucky did. Rating: - As good as it getsMarvel hits a home run with this excellent collection of Cap's Best Run to date. This book is awesome.
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