All hyperbole aside, I think that the storyline that concludes in this issue, usually collected under the title Under Seige, is the most perfect Avengers story I've ever read, and one of my absolute favourites of the genre. The cover image, in its iconic simplicity, tells the whole tale. We've seen a Captain America in this arc that embodies all of those idealistic things that people think when they think of the idea of America. None of them are completely true or unproblematic, of course, but the thing about Cap is that he's always stood for the ideal, the theory, not the praxis. In many ways he embodies something about institutional America that even the country itself has a hard time recognizing sometimes - there is always room to improve, to be better than what you were the day before. This is what Captain America really is.
Zemo's revenge scheme goes completely wrong, but also completely right in a few ways. Avengers Mansion is in ruins, unusable. And more, the Masters have destroyed some of the most important contents of the mansion. Not the computers or the weapons. The personal items. The artifacts of the Avengers's pasts. There is a scene at the end, as Cap goes over the keepsakes that the Masters have destroyed, and both he and we feel the distance of disconnect he feels as a man born in the early years of the 20th century. And while he weeps over a picture of his mother, Captain Marvel, demonstrating one of the fundamental superheroic qualities, compassion, comforts him, and counsels him. The rookie and the warhorse stand on equal footing, and leave the mansion together.
Can you tell this story really speaks to me?
To be continued.
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