To this day, I remain surprised that Brubaker has made me into a Captain America fan. I swear I’ll stop mentioning it soon. This issue sees the final part of the second part in Brubaker’s “Death of” epic, entitled “The Burden of Dreams.” With Bucky now firmly in the Captain America identity, the series finally has its title character back, after a fashion. So naturally, Brubaker gives us yet another twist…

Firstly, I’m going to address the issue of the Black Widow. It’s well-documented that Secret Invasion is going to stay well out of Captain America while Brubaker tells his story. However, plenty of people in the cast are also in the cast of other books - The Widow is currently appearing in Mighty Avengers and Captain America sporting vastly different looks (one has short hair, one doesn’t). Given that the skrulls were originally a metaphor for cold-war communism, I’m going to go out on a limb and suggest that the Widow appearing in Mighty Avengers would be a good choice for an infiltrator - it could be a simple matter of continuity, as she appears to exit the cast of the title with this issue, but I wouldn’t be surprised to find out it was more than that.

Anyway, back to the action. Brubaker is currently weaving sub-plots in an utterly masterful way. Sharon’s pregnancy is certainly an interesting one - the child of Captain America is, after all, a big deal. Meanwhile, Bucky is doing very well as the new Cap when fighting hand to hand, but he finds that the other side of Captain America - being the icon - doesn’t come so naturally as he fails to inspire anything in a small crowd of rioting civilians, something that Rogers would’ve whipped into order in seconds. Either way, Bucky’s soon going to be public as the new Cap, and that’s an exciting prospect.

Elsewhere, Sharon’s pregnancy is slowly giving her the psychological impetus to break free of the Skull’s control. As she does so, she tries to escape and in the process, stumbles across a stasis tank that appears to contain the body of… Steve Rogers. Ye gods.

There could be a million explanations for what this is, but either way, it’s one hell of a cliffhanger. The mix of pseudo-political intrigue, modern espionage and character-based drama gives the title a flavour unlike any other Marvel book, and makes it easily the best of Brubaker’s ongoing Marvel Universe comics. Worth giving a try.