Marvel Knights Captain America Vol. 2: The Extremists Tpb: Extremists v. 2 (Marvel Knights) [Englisch] [Taschenbuch]

Just a note, this trade is pretty hard to find at the moment, as it is out of print. Volumes 1, 3, 4, and 5 are all in print. I bet you're thinking "Hrm, thats weird." It is weird! But that's Marvel for you. Expect a long wait on this unless Marvel figures out what they're doing.

So far, this Captain America series has boldly faced the issue of the United States's role in creating their own enemies (mainly terrorists - remember the book was published not long after 9/11), thus initiating a vicious circle of hate that becomes harder to break the longer it's allowed to go on. Also, it has explored how ignorance, disinformation and propaganda perpetuate this cycle, and how both sides have developed a rhetoric of vast appeal.
This time, the enemies are inside the country, and it's native American rebels, on the back of centuries old hatred born of extermination and oppression. Incidentally, an issue admirably tackled these days by Jason Aaron in his book Scalped.
Captain America, who has recently revealed to the world his civilian identity in order to divert enemy hatred from his country and his people towards himself, if terrorists are inclined to hit him as a living symbol, now faces the superhuman threat of an old friend gone bad following a principle the Captain himself had taught him: That the best American is the one who selflessly acts on behalf and to the betterment of all fellow men, not only of the American people.
Thus Cap's old friend Redpath plans a violent overthrowing of a bad, corrupt government, seeking Cap's approval in the process... By showing him that - "nerd" fact - the time he spent in hibernation was planned by the government that could not afford to have its wartime symbol rebel against decisions like the bombing of Dresden or the dropping of the first atom bomb.
Rieber uses Redpath to deliver a message hammered home by Ellroy in his Americana trilogy and Azzarello in 100 Bullets: America was never innocent and the pure, benevolent country the Captain has always relentlessly fought for has always ever only existed in his mind.
All of this doesn't bring Cap to its knees though, because despite the predominant arguments to this extent, Rieber provides Cap with an hopeful, positive answer to such pessimistic realism.
I was surprised not to notice a big quality drop after the addition of co-writer Chuck Austen (preceded by a truly awful reputation) and by the changing art teams.
While losing John Cassaday, who only does covers here) can never be a good thing, Trevor hairsine does a wonderful and different job in his 3 issues, followed in yet another style by master Jae Lee. Colorist Dave Stewart also does a subtle and poignant palette change from the first book, in which gray tones prevailed, to the first 3 issues here, in which red tones abound. Jose Villarrubia takes over colouring in the last 2 issues, complementing Jae Lee's art perfectly with water-colours reminiscent hues.
I personally liked this book very much and now look forward to reading Rieber's last issues, collected in the third volume of this series. Nonetheless, this story is absolutely enjoyable on its own, don't get me wrong! If this is where you happen to start the whole series from, just be advised that volume 1 and 3 may be worth picking-up too because of their quality alone!

The Extremists collects #.'s 7-11 of the new Captain America series, and takes place after Captain America: The New Deal. The storyline tells of an attempt by Redpath, a Lakota ex-SHIELD agent who bonds with his tribe's god of thunder and plots to destroy Washington with torrential storms as part of his campaign to return the United States to the American Indian. But just who are the Extremists mentioned in the title, and what is the intent of this story? While Redpath's motivations are made abundantly clear, I'm afraid the drives of Cap come off as a little underdefined. In fact, when compared to The New Deal, The Extremists is almost its exact polar opposite. Whereas in TND, Cap was shown to be a well rounded character and his opponents somewhat plastic, here it is the `bad guys' who come off three dimensional, and Cap who gets the short end. Granted, considering current events, it is very difficult to successfully pull of a Captain America story. The character itself, almost like the American Western and the ideals one associates with it (ideals which are sadly misunderstood or ignored completely nowadays), are dangerously close to being cast aside. However, for me this is the appeal of Cap - that he is the unchanging, idealistic American champion (America is something like Thomas Jefferson - sometimes the philosophy and the practice doesn't match up). While we get some of that here, particularly in the earlier half of the book, by the last few pages, some of Cap's arguments against Redpath come off as a little narrow. Is this some new direction in the characterization of Steve Rogers? At one point Nick Fury comments on Cap's tendency to blind himself to the truth. Is this meant to be an instance of that tendency? For when Redpath reasons that the revered nation and ideals which Cap fights to defend were built upon the genocide of his own ancestors, Cap dismisses this as `terrorist double talk' and gets in with his fists. This seemed a little lame to me. Granted Captain America is completely against killing, and Redpath's slaughter of civilians in a hurricane and intended assault on Washington is reason enough for him to club Redpath, but he still looks like a bit of a Little Bush Republican here. I know when people think of Cap they think right wing zealot, but very few realize that this IS the man who broke with his government and pledged himself to defend the ideals of his nation and not necessarily the men who rule over it (particularly if they are corrupt, as SHIELD seems to be turning out to be). Not only that, Redpath (through the use of a peyote-like drug) reveals to Steve evidence of tampered memories which if they prove true, could turn the entire Captain America mythos on end. Yet Steve for the most part chooses to ignore presented facts in favor of taking Redpath down. Who is the real Extremist? Redpath, or Cap, or is it SHIELD? Another thing bothered me slightly, and that was a slightly racist undertone I detected in this storyline. Though it is never brought entirely out in the open, I got the notion that it was inferring that the Lakota god of thunder could not stand against Thor, his Norse counterpart. While I believe this match up is left unsettled in true Marvel teamup fashion, some of Thor's rhetoric towards the possessed Redpath almost felt like the white man telling the red that only an Aryan has the right to control the weather. I could just be reading too much into it. Another sinister moment for me came in the final passages, with Thor and the Captain favorably quoting Richard III - one of the most unscrupulous villains in Shakespearean literature! Is this subversion of the Cap on the part of the writers? If so, I didn't care for it. It felt like the writers sympathized much more with their villains than they did with Old Winghead. Dangerous stuff there. To write this character you need to be a bit of an idealist yourself. You need to watch Frank Capra movies and read the old Simon and Kirby stories, and understand where Cap is coming from. He's a guy who grew up in a time when the good guys were good because the bad guys were indescribably evil. But he is a man whose development was arrested. Frozen in time, he is constantly having his ideals questioned and subverted, but he still sticks to them because they are the only thing he loves which he has not had to leave behind. There is a nice dichotomy between Cap and Nick Fury which has been developing. Nick has lived through all that Cap has seen and more. Is he what Cap would have been if he had not been frozen - a shadowy, clandestine figure who has come to accept and live with the failings and evils of America - a sort of Dark Cap? And what's with Hana, the Atlanteean chick? She seemed a little out of place - like Erika Eleniak popping out of the cake in Under Siege.

The art is very nice, thought not as great as New Deal. However, my one complaint (besides a decided drop in illustrative quality in the latter half) is the depiction of the Brooklyn gangsters in the beginning. Anybody who has ever seen a real street gang outside of The Warriors knows that the obligatory white guy with the green haired mohawk (he seems to pop up as a street thug in most comics - I call him the Repo Man, cause he looks like an extra from the movie) and the security chain around his neck does not go side by side with Chinese/Black/Hispanic gangstas (unless its some PC requirement that he be inserted to promote diversity). Geez you guys, go rent 187, American Me or Menace II Society already (and invite the writers over, `cause the dialogue on such characters could use a jumpstart as well). A minor quibble, but for realism's sake, it might be nice to drop that guy out of the mix for once.

Final word: an interesting read in that it makes you think, but a little unsettling in its implications. Maybe it could have been thought out a little more. Beautiful art. Worth picking up if you are a Cap fan, but probably not much to offer if you're not.