Avengers Disassembled: Captain America TPB (Captain America)

Rating:
Summary: Cap gets disassembled
Review: Collecting storyarcs featured from the last run of the current volume of Captain America and from Captain America & The Falcon, Captain America Disassembled finds Cap a little more than battle worn after what's been going on with the Avengers. Robert Kirkman (The Walking Dead) scripts the first arc, which is the main highlight here as Cap fights off against the Red Skull and the usual array of rogues. The Captain America & Falcon story is nothing special though, even though Modok makes an appearance (and every Marvel fanboy knows he's worth a laugh or two). The art in both collections is solid, and Kirkman's story makes this volume worth picking up for Cap fans. Captain America is getting relaunched yet again though, under the helm of Ed Brubaker, which is also worth picking up.

Rating:
Summary: Silver Age goofyness meets Priest's writing confusing-ness
Review: It's best to, much like the actual issues, contained here, ignore the headline of Avengers Disassembled. For those who don't know, its a poorly written mess occurring in the main Avengers title (500-503) that has little to do with these stories save a scant mention of 'trouble'. Since this trade is composed of two separate stories, from two separate books, I'll break up the descriptions:

Captain America 29-32: Captain America and Diamond back go up against Hydra, Mr. Hyde, the Serpent Society, Batroc the Leaper, and Red Skull, all while a coup takes place at S.H.I.E.L.D. The story is by comics newest golden boy, Robert Kirkman (Marvel Team-Up, Invincible, The Walking Dead) and artist Scot Eaton, with the fantastic Drew Geraci handling inking (Met Drew at a convention once, and he's one of the nicest comic personalities in the biz). The tale is a lot of fun, but feels far to cramped to be only a four issue arc. Of course, in this age of story decompression another writer (coughBENDIScough) could have taken a year to tell this much of an adventure. Its goofy in a way that can only be described as Silver Age; there's lots of action, and the plot points make you scratch your head, but when its all said and done you have a smile on your face.

Captain America and the Falcon 5-7: This tales a bit harder to describe, since it palys heavily off of the initial arc of the story. But the gist is that Captain America and Falcon are on the run after refusing to turn over an `Anti-Cap' produced by the Navy. Everything hits the fan here, and Captain America starts having strange visions that may or may not be real (Thuis gets cleared up a bit in the MODOK story beginning in issue 8). There are some great moments found though, including a possible start of a Captain America/ Scarlet Witch romance, and it was a beautiful cover of the two by Joe Bennet that fist drew me to the book.

Should you buy this book? If you're a Captain America fan, or a fan of fun-loving stories, there's not a reason not to. This isn't the heaviest or most thought provoking super-hero fare available, but it is incredibly enjoyable.