If you skip the first 38 issues, total five star action. I didn't and I kind of hate myself for it.

Really been trying to finish all these books I started years ago. I remember putting this one down because it was TOO action packed. Cap lacks any interiority- whenever he's about to get introspective he's attacked by a million jump-suited greco wrestlers. The fight scenes certainly show off Kirby's chops (though they look better in color), but such cardboard dialogue gets a little boring after a while. Guess Stan saved all his good quips for the Fantastic Four and Spider-Man. Anyway, comic book...

In a collection called "Essential" Captain America, I was hoping for something like the first issue where he made an appearance, the first time Bucky makes an appearance, some of the original World War II comics. This seems to be a collection from a later time, and was completely random, as far as I could tell. There was no over-arching theme, which would be fine, but there were many hints that these were a tribute to the original comics and not the originals. I read a few, looked at the size of...

3.5My biggest introduction to the character of Captain America when I was just getting into comics and superheroes. This is a hefty collection with lots of issues to give you a good sense of the character's mythology in the Silver Age of Comics. The only downsides are that everything is in black and white which does detract from Steve Dikto's iconic art style and some of the stories/values have not aged quite as well in the 50+ years since these comics first appeared. Still, this was very entert...

Since I have a gazillion books in my queue that I have to review, I’m going to start making these things short and to the point. Thank god!!!! Shaddup, Random Goodreader!A shallow overview:Cap gets dog-piled by goons and assorted stooges about every other page. Cap punches lots and lots of Nazis. Cap foils The Red Skull’s plan to bring about the Fourth Reich a bunch of times.Cap has a case of the guilts about Bucky getting blown up. Hold onto that one, you old war horse, it’ll come up later.Cap

Wow, this is some bad stuff.This was a gift and I'm trying to get a feel for the real silver-age comics, but this is bad. I know Stan Lee and Jack Kirby are comic legends. However, having your villain say how nigh-inviciable he is on EVERY page is not characterization. Kirby seems like he has to get a shot of one of his futuristic weapons or circuitry boards in every issue or he'll be fired.Maybe I'm just used to more modern stuff...and long-form comics at that.

It was good to get more familiar with the Cap’s lore.

Borrowed this from the library and made the mistake of starting at the beginning; the early issues concentrate on Cap's wartime exploits, which child me would probably have found exciting, but which I now found a little repetitive. Just as it was getting interesting, I had to return it. Will maybe borrow it again sometime, but in no big hurry.

Quick read. Doesn't quite match up to the way things are in the movie but still fun to read.

In Avengers #4, Captain America, the hero of World War II was found floating in ice in Suspended Animation. In Tales of Suspense #59, Captain America got his own series as one of two stories in Tales of Suspense magazine opposite Iron Man. In addition, Captain America took over Tales of Suspense in Issue 100 and the book was renamed Captain America and this book has Issues 100-102 plus a story from Issue 10 of the 1940s Captain America magazine.The book goes through various stages. The first fou...

Another trip down memory lanebrilliant!along with the first two volumes of Spidey, these took me backto a much less complicated time

It's impossible to rate this...probably because it's so bad it's good. Kirby's drawings pop of the page with incredible motion and force, and Lee's writing is exuberant. Sure the plotlines are weak, the heroes consistently and miraculously get out of tight spots to win it all, every time, and sure it's not convincing. I deeply dislike the insular nationalism (my own fault for reading Captain America I know), and that episode where the Viet Cong general is a giant sumo wrestler? Good god. But I l...

A book filled cover to cover with Lee and Kirby Captain America yarns? 'Nuff said! This edition spans Tales of Suspense #59-99, and Captain America #100-102, comics originally published from 1964-68. It was tremendous fun rereading these stories after many years, and encountering new ones. I used to read these in the Marvel Double Feature reprint comic of the '70s, and later I assembled a respectable stack of original ToS issues, long since sold off.I liked the early stories the best, like in To...

When I was 6 or 7 I was reading Superman and Batman. I read them in their various books for a while but when I was about 12 I found Captain America. It was 1964 or so and I had found my niche, my Comic book alter-ego. Other Marvel comics were great, I read Spiderman, I read the X-men, I liked Deardevil, but none of them (for me) approached Captain America.I recounted this in my review of the Essential Avengers, the Avengers was (were) my second favorite comic book, why? Because for a long time f...

If you are a fan of Captain America, you will probably like this. This is a compilation of early Captain America comics by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby. The only major drawback to the collection is that it is in black and white; however, you do get a lot of comic in this volume. I think for readers today this can be a voyage down the good old days of comics when plots were simple (and fairly cheesy at times) but usually fun. You knew clearly who the good guys and the bad guys were. And they often wra...

Growing up in the 60s my comic book tastes were strictly DC. I'd see the Marvel covers and think they were too crude. DC had better artists; which was easy to say since it turned out Marvel had only two: Kirby and Ditko. Then by chance I picked up Fantastic Four 25, April 64 and was interested by the brief appearance of the Avengers. Over time I started adding more Marvels to my weekly stack. I hated Spider-Man because he was a whiny loser but liked Dr Strange for Ditko's mind-blowing artwork. I...

I must admit that I am a fan of Marvel's Essential format, though it took me awhile to get there. I have always preferred my superheroes in colour, well comics in general to be honest, though the rare exceptions have always existed and grown more plentiful over the years I confess. But comics intended for colour format can get dull without the colour. However, having got over that barrier after a trip down memory lane with Claremont's X-Men and the fabulous Wolfman / Colan Dracula from the 70's

Classic Captain America, compiling about 40 stories from the Tales of Suspense book Cap shared with Iron Man, along with the first few issues of his own comic (which took over the Tales of Suspense numbering).It's a fair old mix for the hero out of time; jumping between the then modern-day 1960's and reminiscences of his war battles. Often the past preceding the modern tale, with many of his war era foes brought into the silver-age to continue their grunge matches with the star spangled avenger....

Bringing Captain America into the silver age was one of my favorite Marvel moves and shows how much imagination was alive in the infamous old bullpen! That being said the stories here were pretty standard for the time with a few highlights.

Cap gers his own mag. Many early adventures and seminal characters. Recommended.