Deadshot Review - Captain America: Hail Hydra!

Marvel is prepping for their summer blockbusters Thor and Captain America by providing series that can be read with little background knowledge for those coming out of the movie theatres and wanting to follow further adventures of these classic heroes. One of these titles is Captain America: Hail Hydra, a 5 issue mini that started last week written by Jonathan Maberry (Doomwar, Black Panther) and drawn by a series of artists. The series premise is to follow Cap through his timeline as he battles the evil organization now known as Hydra. We learn that the organization has existed for a very long time under one name or another but its self-serving goals have remained its constant.

The opening issue takes place in Germany in July of 1944. Cap and Bucky are working with a member of the German Freedom League to take down a mad scientist who looks like the one from Robot Chicken minus the hair who is working on creating a zombified Super Soldier program to serve Hydra's needs. Much battle and heroic talk takes place before the Soldier Zombies are defeated. Of course, the scientist escapes to plot another day and everything is wrapped up in a nice neat little package! Or is it..? The last few panels hint at a wider conspiracy going on which will serve as the backbone as the series moves into other eras of Captain America's battle with Hydra.

All in all, the book was a light read but the characterization was solid and while the plot to this particular issue was a tad paint-by-numbers I hold out hope that Maberry has some tricks up his sleeve to take this off the beaten-path. The artwork serves the story very well. The tone and shading gives the book that World War II feel and the fight scenes are well staged to serve the action and move the story along.

This book is a nice read if you have a light comic week or if you are interested in sampling a Cap book without all the heavy continuity of the main series. If this is collected in time for the movie release it would work well to give to a friend who has seen the movie and is interested in the comic. 4 bullets out of 5.