Captain America Forever…

Let's be honest: we all saw it coming. However, I expected Monday's news to be a bit more sensational than the return of Steve Rogers... especially considering that it managed to peak at #3 on CNN's top 10 news stories by mid-day.

But no, it's just that simple. Steve Rogers is back. That's what Reborn is all about. The "how" of his return is, I assume, the real shocker here.

I went to the comic shop on Monday evening, which turned out to be a great idea. Not necessarily great because of Captain America #600 (which is a good comic, by the way), but great because I got to hang with Phantom of the Attic's Wayne Wise and the Comic Book Pitt's Scott "The Duke." On a normal Wednesday, it's too busy to hang out and really talk. But on a slow Monday (which it was, despite the Monday release of Cap #600), I had all the time in the world to bullshit before I bought the comic and walked out the door.

So what about Cap's return? He barely ever left, right? This could easily be called "Forever" instead of "Reborn"... except that I think the Reborn title has some literal significance here. Sharon Carter remembers shooting Steve with some sort of wide-mouth gun-shaped thing. To me, it looks like she took a tissue sample with it.

And then we see Sin, the Red Skull's baby girl, in the jail infirmary. She's restrained to her stretcher. But she also looks sort of pregnant, doesn't she? Obviously there's more to meets the eye because Crossbones won't stop saying how people have no idea what really happened.

And then, of course, the Red Robot Skull sits around for a couple pages and soliloquizes about how loved the tension he had with Steve Rogers. He just couldn't get enough of the back and forth fighting. He wanted to kill Cap, of course, but he was also exhilarated by the prospect of battling him constantly. I wonder if he just sits around all day and reminisces like this. The Red Skull has always been a nostalgia-deluded fool under Brubaker, hasn't he?

Suffice to say that I was far more fascinated by the villains in Cap #600. Truthfully, I enjoyed the appearances by Falcon, Rikki, Patriot, and the other heroes. But the baddies were so much more compelling. Plus, the villains seemed to drop way more hints about the direction of Reborn.