Ink of Blood

(This review may contain spoilers).

This comic book took me a little longer to read, due to the sheer length of it, but I still found myself reading it avidly… especially having seen the movie version of this arc.

I’ve only been dipping into the Marvel world. I couldn’t say I know every little bit of information about the universe, so I’m not sure how much of the pre-existing canon is contradicted by this particular arc. At the same time, I didn’t have many pre-conceptions, so I felt like I was getting to know Bucky from the start in this dossier.

It was good to have the opportunity to see glimpses into Bucky’s and Cap’s pasts and just how dark what they were supposed to do was. It was good to see that there was a lot of conflict in what they needed to do… though I was surprised to see just how dark Bucky’s actions were.

I really liked seeing Steve interacting with his fellow superheroes, such as Namor and the Torches, both in the past and in the present. It was good to see what his friendship was like with Bucky and how much his partner’s death had affected him.

I really liked seeing Steve interacting with other members of SHIELD… especially Fury and Agent Thirteen, though I was a bit confused by Steve’s exact relationship to Fury. There was quite a bit of tension between Steve and Sharon that came across really well.

I felt that this comic book was much darker than many of the others. I thought it was interesting to see how Jack was affected by the breakdown of the supersoldier serum. I did also feel sorry for him… even though the ending of that particular segment answered certain questions that made it clear Jack had fallen far.

I really liked being able to see Sam and Tony in this and in particular the scene where Steve asks Tony for a jet… and it’s clear their friendship is such that he can do that. And it was good to see them fighting alongside each other.

I thought it was good to see how Steve was torn about what to do about the Winter Soldier. The ending was something of a cliffhanger, but it was a proper ending… and it did make me want to read more about these characters soon.