Captain America: War and Rememberance

Rating:
Summary: A must for Byrne fans. It's a shame it's out of print...
Review: I was a big fan of the short run that John Byrne and Roger Stern did on Captain America way back in the 80's, spanning issues 247 to 255. As a big Byrne fan, I was hoping that Marvel would choose to reprint these issues in a trade paperback. It was only after some exhaustive searching that I found out they already had in War & Remembrance, which came out in the early 90s and has since gone out of print.

Fortunately, I was able to find it second hand from a seller on Amazon Marketplace. I'm not a collector by any stretch, but over the last few years I have been trying to gather certain storylines from my childhood to show to my sons when they're older. Many of the trade paperbacks I've accumulated feature John Byrne (X-men, Fantastic Four), and I'm pleased that I could add Captain America to the collection. I paid a little more for it than I woudl ordinarily because it's out of print, but it makes for a more complete set, right? That's how I'm rationalizing it, anyway.

The whole collection does a nice job of dealing with Captain America's history. Virtually all of the villains he encounters are old foes - Baron Strucker, Dragonman, Batroc, Mr. Hyde and Baron Blood. I didn't really care for the Captain America for President story, but they needed to do something unusual for issue #250, right? The Baron Blood story, in particular, is quite captivating - in its telling, it almost feels like a mystery on the moors. The art, of course, is exceptional.

The notes from the author and artist also hint at some of the internal politics at Marvel that led to Byrne and Stern leaving Captain America before they were ready. It's a shame that they left, as their work shows that an extended run on Captain America could've rivaled any of Byrne's work on X-men, the Fantastic Four or the Avengers. The tandem talks about plans they had for some of the characters, and they even had another issue in the works. Some of the pre-production art is included at the back of the collection, along with a gallery of covers, which was a nice treat.

All in all, if you're a fan of Byrne and can find this title at a reasonable price, War & Remembrance is a classic set of stories.

Rating:
Summary: Some of the Best Cap Stories Ever Told
Review: War and Remembrance collects some of the greatest Captain America stories ever told. Creators Roger Stern and John Byrne prove themselves tremendously adept at handling standard superhero fare--Cap slugs it out with robots, vampires, and assorted other supervillains--but they also add a layer of complex characterization, as Cap faces a tough decision about whether he should run for president (really!) and as he meets the nicely fleshed-out members of his Brooklyn Heights supporting cast that played a major role in his life for decades afterwards (and really should continue to do so). All this, plus the definitive Cap origin story. This book is definitely worth getting your hands on.