Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 7/10
The graphic novel/ film/television tie-in has had many great reasons in which to celebrate multi-media crossover in the last couple of decades. From Sin City to The Watchmen, from V For Vendetta to Buffy The Vampire Slayer, each has carried the other with the weight of heavy expectation foaming from its pages or celluloid extravagance. When it comes to the world of Marvel, arguably the heaviest hitter in the world of the comic book communities, the films have been great, the comics have been superb but the tie-ins have not been so enamouring.
The main reason is, Marvel’s main heroes on the screen, Wolverine, X-Men, The Avengers, Spiderman, all have time to flourish and be fleshed out on the silver screen in ways that simply cannot be captured in a comic book or graphic novel. Frank Miller’s Sin City for example works in either format because the producers of the film knew that to change any moment of Miller’s incredible work would see it as less than complete. To capture the essence of the hero in comic book or graphic novel form, especially one such as Steve Rogers as Captain America: Winter Soldier, Ultimate Collection is to re-write history when it comes to telling the tale on film. Certain characters need to go because they don’t fit the time-line established by previous films, the continuality needs to be broken as to make the film more appealing to a different type of customer, one who if not captured immediately by the imagination will no doubt not return for any of the planned sequels and other related films.
In the case of Captain America: Winter Soldier, Ultimate Collection, the story on paper may have come first but to be a true international blockbuster it needed to be taken in a slightly different direction when placed in the cinema. The character of The Black Widow, one of the best female characters devised by the writers and artists at Marvel doesn’t show at all in the graphic novel, there is no need as Sharon Carter, Agent 13, performs the task assigned by the writers with wonderful poise. However a film about Captain America devoid of the Russian flame haired spy in attendance would not sell internationally.
The book has its own agenda, a very noble one and the artwork is exceptional and flows with Ed Brubaker’s idea about the past and betrayal of choice perfectly. The film, whichever way you want to look at it is superior, only because the ideas are more advanced. The writing in the script when placed against the graphic novel is roughly the same, the well-used worries of what happens to America’s soul as it lurches between right and left. It never wants to be compared to Nazi Germany or Communist Russia, so Captain America is seen as its moral backbone and there is only one choice to make and that is to be seen as the world’s policeman. It works in film and in books, even if it doesn’t in real life.
The return of Bucky Barnes, the plucky kid who found out Captain America’s secret identity and then became a major force in the fight against Nazism is one to be treated with acclaim as it makes Steve Rogers look into his soul harder perhaps that at any other time of his life since his inception in the 1940s. The exploration of the things that bind the Red Skull to Captain America are looked at in more depth than the film could have suggested and whilst the film and the novel differ wildly, the book stands up against the changes well.
A good read even if you have not seen any of the two films yet made, Winter it seems, is never truly that far away.
Captain America: Winter Soldier, Ultimate Collection is available to purchase from Worlds Apart on Lime Street, Liverpool.
Ian D. Hall