4 out of 5

Marvel, in their MCU-gearing-up days, prior to the exhaustive waves of event books, had a nice jag going for a while of plugging in non-big two writers (e.g. internet guys, indie book guys) onto fitting projects.  Brian Clevinger, of Atomic Robo SUPREMACY, was seemingly smartly (though sporadically) used to shape up complex lore into youthier friendly formats.  His Infinity Gauntlet reimagining was fun, if hindered by its artist’s limitations.  The Fighting Avenger suffers no such hitch, with Guruhiru – more aptly suited to Brian’s quick and action-compressed narrative style – capturing the zippy, adventurous flow of this story’s post-powered, pre-Cap Cap, brawlin’ with Nazis and seeing the origin of the Red Skull in something akin to a training mission.  This is, essentially, Robo (in his early war days), with the fighting scientists re-cast as soldiers, and Robo, of course, as Captain America.  But that’s not to solely suggest that this is just a different paint job on an AR bit; Clevinger has adjusted his approach to match the less-sci-fi, less-heightened-reality tone, and whereas those WW2 Robo bits are filled with bravado and chummy clumsiness, the Captain, here, comes across as true to the spirit of the character: more humble, better trained, learning, and able to win over his doubting – seeing him as just a poster boy – com padres.

What also carries over, for better or worse,  from Robo, is how the abbreviated tale-telling can undermine the stakes.  Limited to an over-sized issue, and accepting that this is intended to be digestible, there’s nonetheless never really a sense that things are going / can go wrong, even when faced down with tanks and loads of soldiers, and Guruhiru isn’t as overblown as Robo artist Scott Wegener, who often helps bridge that Clevinger-style gap.

Still, what would likely be a throwaway movie cash-in from another writer becomes an actually supremely entertaining retelling of early Cap lore.