Sam Wilson, Captain America: Better Angels

by Evan Narcisse, Eder Messias (Illustrator)

Genres: Superheroes, Comics, Graphic Novels

120 pages, Paperback

Published September 2, 2025

Reviews

[Paul · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.2 stars

[Chris Lemmerman · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a Captain America book featuring Sam Wilson and the Red Hulk, so there's some synergy going on, but it's not a straight tie-in to Brave New World at all. Instead, we get a story about Sam getting roped into a mind control scheme by the most racist man on the planet, and the other Red Hulk, General Maverick, getting pulled in for the fun. Also featuring Josiah X, Eli Bradley, and a host of other fun characters, Better Angels is decent enough, but feels like it's missing something.

It never really gets overly preachy, but it does feel a little like it's bonking you on the head with a moral, which isn't something Greg Pak's other books that focus on non-white heroes ever felt like they were doing. The action's fun, I'm glad we're all still remembering Joaquin Torres is an actual falcon/man hybrid at the moment, and the ending's satisfying enough, but yeah, something didn't entirely hit for me.

The art's okay - Eder Messias handles four of the five issues, with some fill-in work from Chris Campanas (who's come a long way since I saw his work last on Red Goblin) and Valentine De Landro has a few flashback pages here and there. The Taurin Clarke covers are the real highlight on the art front.

Eh, I've read worse comics released around a movie. Bridges the gap between longer Cap runs, at least.

[Adam Fisher · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not sure how much of this is canon to the main storyline, but overall is a decent story. Sam gets involved with a new project started by a tech billionaire: Skydream, a series of floating platforms for humanity to live on when the surface world inevitably fails. Dennis Harmon, the rich man in charge of all this, has chosen to fill the platforms with poor and inner city African-Americans, so he can have power over them. Add on to that his Chief of Security is Red Hulk!
By the end, Skydream comes out of the sky, but some of the people do their best to try to make the better parts of the dream stay alive. Overall, an alright read, but some might get more out of it than I did.

[bryce · Rating 3 out of 5]

Great fan of Greg Pak and Sam Wilson so felt like this was the perfect combo for me. I felt the story was great but let down a tad by the art being muddied in places, too much was going on. It felt very late 2000's computer art comic design and not in a good way. The story was great and felt on topic - but very much almost felt at war with Brave New World.


Read as single issues.

[Atomread W. Megaforce · Rating 4 out of 5]

I just want to know where the flying sharks came from.