This week’s Book of Doom

As Doom DeLuise explained last week, the Doomkopf Book of Doom is now each member of the legion’s favorite book of the week. It’s a little late this week because comics were late this week and because I’m just always late at everything.

For my favorite this week, I’m going to take Captain America #33. While it was long said that Bucky would always stay dead, the Winter Soldier has changed all that, and I feel like I finally truly understand why. At the conclusion of this issue, I realized that Marvel was doing that which DC will never have the guts to do. Marvel killed their Batman and replaced him with Robin.

It’s basically something that both companies set up since day one, but the respective title characters just became too iconic in their own right for it to ever happen. That, and Captain America’s sidekick had been dead for 50 years.

The characterization of Bucky may have been kind of a no-brainer for Brubaker, but it works perfectly. He’s flawed, but you root for him. He wants to be a great man, but he lacks confidence. He’s more ruthless and “black ops” but not anywhere near that 1990s Deathblow / Wetworks way. He wants to be Steve Rogers, but he’d be the last person to admit he was qualified for it, and that’s what will make his run as Captain America intriguing (and hopefully long-lasting). He’s not just going to be the next Captain America — he’s going to be a new Captain America. And the 33 issues that have now come in order to build up to that moment are a fine tribute to both characters.

I think the only bad thing is that they brought in Alex Ross to redesign the uniform, which of course means that Captain America will now be shiny. And what’s up with having mini-Captain America shields on your shoulder? Bucky’s got one, Cable’s got one … it’s like the rugged superhero fashion accessory of 2008.

Speaking of Cable, that leads us to Doominator’s pick for Book of Doom.

There is no choice for me. It’s X-Men #206. I’ve been loving “Messiah Complex,” and this week’s issue has me absolutely ecstatic about reading the last four parts of it.

First off, this is the issue where everything gets out of control. Cable is doing just about anything he can to get to Forge, and Cyclops is doing just about anything he can to get to Cable. And Cable is apparently trying to make the baby much like himself by sending her into the future. Too bad someone else got to Forge and the time machine first.

And the Madrox dupe story keeps heating up. Except for one thing: What about the other dupe? I’m sure this is a story for a future issue. And as for the traitor – what are his motives? Seems it ties pretty directly to the Madrox story.

So yeah. That’s it. That’s the Book of Doom, and the storyline may continue to be the Book of Doom until it wraps up at the end of January.

And Fin Fang Doom:

This was a really great week for comics (One More Day notwithstanding). Ed Brubaker, Geoff Johns and Mark Waid each put out two books, but surprisingly, none of those are my pick for Book of the Doom. That honor goes to Invincible Presents Atom Eve #1, by the non-superstar creative team of Benito Cereno and Nate Bellegarde.

Anyone who has read Tales from the Bully Pulpit or Hector Plasm (which isn’t a whole lot of people) knows that Nate and Benito are one of the funniest creative teams working today. Atom Eve #1 is jam-packed with more jokes per page than any issue of Invincible, but it never gets in the way of telling the story. Bellegarde excels at drawing facial expressions, and is perfectly suited to compliment Cereno’s verbal humor.

Atom Eve #1 is something any fan of Invincible would definitely enjoy. And as a stand-alone story with a much different tone athn the regular series, it might even be something that non-fans of Invincible would enjoy.