We are about three months into FALCON AMERICA and I must say, so far… not liking it! It was huge news when following the Dimension Z story arc, Steve Rogers would lose his powers, get old and then Sam Wilson (The Falcon) would take his place. Since I’m a Falcon fan from the 1970’s I thought ‘Cool. Let’s give Sam a try wearing the red, white and blue and see where it takes us. After the first action packed issue it has taken me to dullsville…. Sleep City…. Not enjoying it at all, USA!
I think the biggest problem I have is that it isn’t Sam Wilson wielding the shield, it’s just Falcon with a shield. My hope was that series writer Rick Remender would have Sam just be Cap; struggling with the legacy, lofty expectations and maybe some racism. But now the character is just an amalgam of the two. It is sort of like as a kid and playing superheroes I wanted to be Flash AND Green Lantern so I just pretended that I was the Flash with a power ring. Sadly doing that meant someone was stuck playing Aquaman or the Atom.
With Sam Wilson stepping into some mighty big boots I was hoping to see his coping with becoming the greatest superhero of all time. During a fight someone is expecting him to think fast like Cap would or not being the natural leader and watching Wilson struggling to make the right decisions or hard choices with no grace or diplomacy. The only struggle we see is him have is in his ability to use the shield properly.
As a comic, the book has a solid story and some beautiful art by Stuart Immonen, but it just reads like a ‘Falcon’ story. Not bad because I love Falcon as a character (I remember when we wore green and didn’t have wings), but the title of the book is CAPTAIN AMERICA.