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Steve Rogers: Super-Soldier #1-4, Annual #1
Steve Rogers: Super-Soldier: The Complete Collection
Steve Rogers is back from the dead! But with Bucky Barnes wielding the shield, it's time for a new guise for the Living Legend! Long ago, the serum that transformed Steve Rogers into a Super-Soldier was lost, seemingly forever. But now, its creator's grandson has rediscovered the formula and plans to sell it to the highest bidder. Confronted with the nightmare scenario of an unstoppable army in the hands of any despot or dictator with enough cash, can the former Captain America prevent the serum from changing hands before it's too late? Then, when X-Men including Cyclops and Namor find themselves trapped in the Negative Zone, they could use a hand against Blastaar, the Living Bomb-Burst! Enter: Steve Rogers, Super-Soldier! COLLECTING: STEVE ROGERS: SUPER-SOLDIER 1-4, ANNUAL 1, UNCANNY X-MEN ANNUAL (2006) 3, NAMOR: THE FIRST MUTANT ANNUAL 1
216 pages, Paperback
First published July 12, 2017
3 people are currently reading
45 people want to read
About the author
Ed Brubaker
1,817 books3,060 followersEd Brubaker (born November 17, 1966) is an Eisner Award-winning American cartoonist and writer. He was born at the National Naval Medical Center, Bethesda, Maryland.
Brubaker is best known for his work as a comic book writer on such titles as Batman, Daredevil, Captain America, Iron Fist, Catwoman, Gotham Central and Uncanny X-Men. In more recent years, he has focused solely on creator-owned titles for Image Comics, such as Fatale, Criminal, Velvet and Kill or Be Killed.
In 2016, Brubaker ventured into television, joining the writing staff of the HBO series Westworld.
Brubaker is best known for his work as a comic book writer on such titles as Batman, Daredevil, Captain America, Iron Fist, Catwoman, Gotham Central and Uncanny X-Men. In more recent years, he has focused solely on creator-owned titles for Image Comics, such as Fatale, Criminal, Velvet and Kill or Be Killed.
In 2016, Brubaker ventured into television, joining the writing staff of the HBO series Westworld.
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Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews
September 19, 2020
Done reading STEVE ROGERS: SUPER-SOLDIER. This is the complete collection edition that consists of four stories.
Visual Content: 5 STARS. Yay: I admit I am not a graphic novel nerd but this one is amazing. Each page is filled with bright and high-quality pictures. Anyone can understand what is going on even without reading the speech balloons. Nay: It is difficult to find any flaw. If there is any, I wish it could be a thicker book.
Story: 5 STARS. Yay: It is attention-grabbing from the first page until the end. The first story opens with Steve Rogers investigating Professor Erskine's grandson and his evil transaction to destroy humanity. Who is Professor Erskine, you ask? If you saw the movie, he is the genius behind the Super-Soldier Formula who made Steve the living hero with a round shield. When this story ends, halfway through the book, it transitions to the new Uncanny X-Men. Cyclops leads the team. He is with Hope Summers, Madison Jeffries, Emma Frost, Dr. Nemesis and Namor. They are in deep trouble against Blastaar - the ruler of the negative zone. Luckily, here is Captain America to save the day.
Nay: None. Captain America alone is awesome but when he is with the X-Men, this feels like a gigantic tale of power and glory. FYI: Steve Rogers and Scott Summers are two of my most favorite characters in the Marvel Universe. I can strongly identify myself with their life stories.
Visual Content: 5 STARS. Yay: I admit I am not a graphic novel nerd but this one is amazing. Each page is filled with bright and high-quality pictures. Anyone can understand what is going on even without reading the speech balloons. Nay: It is difficult to find any flaw. If there is any, I wish it could be a thicker book.
Story: 5 STARS. Yay: It is attention-grabbing from the first page until the end. The first story opens with Steve Rogers investigating Professor Erskine's grandson and his evil transaction to destroy humanity. Who is Professor Erskine, you ask? If you saw the movie, he is the genius behind the Super-Soldier Formula who made Steve the living hero with a round shield. When this story ends, halfway through the book, it transitions to the new Uncanny X-Men. Cyclops leads the team. He is with Hope Summers, Madison Jeffries, Emma Frost, Dr. Nemesis and Namor. They are in deep trouble against Blastaar - the ruler of the negative zone. Luckily, here is Captain America to save the day.
Nay: None. Captain America alone is awesome but when he is with the X-Men, this feels like a gigantic tale of power and glory. FYI: Steve Rogers and Scott Summers are two of my most favorite characters in the Marvel Universe. I can strongly identify myself with their life stories.
January 26, 2022
I've been reading Captain America comics for several years now, and by now I've read a lot of the arcs that people consider classics. I hadn't heard much about this one, so I figured it couldn't be that great, but it was unexpectedly very enjoyable.
Steve Rogers: Super-Soldier is a 2010 miniseries by Brubaker and Eaglesham. Continuity-wise, this is near the beginning of the Heroic Age, so Steve is Commander Rogers rather than Captain America, a situation explored more fully in Brubaker's Secret Avengers run. Brubaker's conception of Steve is often a little too grim and gritty for my personal taste; the stories themselves are better than average, but Brubaker's Steve is a little too torture-happy for me most of the time (he orders it twice in twelve Secret Avengers issues) and I kind of prefer a Steve who has maybe smiled at some point ever in his entire life, which is not the sense I get from most of Brubaker's works. And, yes, the plot here is a little grim and Steve does a lot of punching in an effort to obtain information, but overall the whole thing is delightful enough to make me not care as much about that.
Basically everything you would want to happen in a Cap comic happens here. Action! Espionage! Madripoor! Steve hating his Commander job! People dying in Steve's arms who are not supposed to die, and its corollary, people who are supposed to be dead inexplicably not being dead! Steve exiting buildings through windows! Steve's extremely unexpected recurring desire to be physically intimate with robots. (I know, it's a thing.) Steve getting deserumed. Bondage! Imprisonment! It has it all!
I have read other deseruming plotlines in Cap, most notably Gruenwald's famous Streets of Poison arc, in which Steve decides that the serum is a thing he should Just Say No to and that he can get by without it. I much prefer the view taken here where Steve acknowledges that there are things he cannot do without his super-strength but that not having super-strength doesn't make his years of training worthless, and that feels fairer than his Hot Take on the morality of drugs in Streets of Poison. It was also nice of the story to connect Steve's deseruming with being bullied; it really did a good job conveying his feelings.
I also want to give a shoutout to Dale Eaglesham's art. Many Captain America artists seem unwilling to want to make Steve someone who might be pleasing to look at and just focus on the power fantasy of Big Muscles. It was really refreshing to read an entire miniseries drawn by someone who does in fact seem to want Captain America to be good-looking.
If you like this storyline, you will probably also want to read the arc "Powerless" slightly later in Brubaker's Cap run, which continues the depowering story.
Oh, yeah, wait, the actual plot of this was that the super-soldier serum was being sold on the black market. Whatever. That's fine. I don't read these things for the actual plot.
The Complete Collection version of the trade also features another storyline, which is Steve's appearance in three linked Escape From The Negative Zone annuals, in which he and several X-Men get trapped in 42, the prison Tony and Reed built in the Negative Zone during Civil War. The creative team is different, and the Steve in this series is, as my friends and I like to call him, "X-Men Steve," the Steve Rogers who is inexplicably an asshole to mutants for no reason. You can just skip this half of the book.
So minus one star for Escape From The Negative Zone but everything else here is great.
Steve Rogers: Super-Soldier is a 2010 miniseries by Brubaker and Eaglesham. Continuity-wise, this is near the beginning of the Heroic Age, so Steve is Commander Rogers rather than Captain America, a situation explored more fully in Brubaker's Secret Avengers run. Brubaker's conception of Steve is often a little too grim and gritty for my personal taste; the stories themselves are better than average, but Brubaker's Steve is a little too torture-happy for me most of the time (he orders it twice in twelve Secret Avengers issues) and I kind of prefer a Steve who has maybe smiled at some point ever in his entire life, which is not the sense I get from most of Brubaker's works. And, yes, the plot here is a little grim and Steve does a lot of punching in an effort to obtain information, but overall the whole thing is delightful enough to make me not care as much about that.
Basically everything you would want to happen in a Cap comic happens here. Action! Espionage! Madripoor! Steve hating his Commander job! People dying in Steve's arms who are not supposed to die, and its corollary, people who are supposed to be dead inexplicably not being dead! Steve exiting buildings through windows! Steve's extremely unexpected recurring desire to be physically intimate with robots. (I know, it's a thing.) Steve getting deserumed. Bondage! Imprisonment! It has it all!
I have read other deseruming plotlines in Cap, most notably Gruenwald's famous Streets of Poison arc, in which Steve decides that the serum is a thing he should Just Say No to and that he can get by without it. I much prefer the view taken here where Steve acknowledges that there are things he cannot do without his super-strength but that not having super-strength doesn't make his years of training worthless, and that feels fairer than his Hot Take on the morality of drugs in Streets of Poison. It was also nice of the story to connect Steve's deseruming with being bullied; it really did a good job conveying his feelings.
I also want to give a shoutout to Dale Eaglesham's art. Many Captain America artists seem unwilling to want to make Steve someone who might be pleasing to look at and just focus on the power fantasy of Big Muscles. It was really refreshing to read an entire miniseries drawn by someone who does in fact seem to want Captain America to be good-looking.
If you like this storyline, you will probably also want to read the arc "Powerless" slightly later in Brubaker's Cap run, which continues the depowering story.
Oh, yeah, wait, the actual plot of this was that the super-soldier serum was being sold on the black market. Whatever. That's fine. I don't read these things for the actual plot.
The Complete Collection version of the trade also features another storyline, which is Steve's appearance in three linked Escape From The Negative Zone annuals, in which he and several X-Men get trapped in 42, the prison Tony and Reed built in the Negative Zone during Civil War. The creative team is different, and the Steve in this series is, as my friends and I like to call him, "X-Men Steve," the Steve Rogers who is inexplicably an asshole to mutants for no reason. You can just skip this half of the book.
So minus one star for Escape From The Negative Zone but everything else here is great.
July 23, 2017
Brubaker is one of the best writers to have ever been behind the shield. The Cap 4 shot + the X-Men crossover tale were excellent!
August 5, 2019
An enjoyable collection of stories following Steve Rogers aka the original Captain America during one of the periods in which he puts down the shield.
This book is split into two distinct stories. First up we have the super solider storyline that follows Steve uncovering a plot to sell off the supposed formula for the super soldier serum to the highest bidder. This acts like a high action spy caper which was really enjoyable with a potential twist at the end which could prove interesting further down the line for Steve.
Part two of the book isn’t so much a Steve Rogers focused story but one which follows the Uncanny Xmen and Namor. This story also involves the negative zone and the prison that was created there during the first Civil War storyline. It was great to see Steve out of his element but also him interacting with the Xmen, something I’m not used to seeing, being more familiar with his Avengers storylines.
Overall a fun graphic novel, I would recommend it to those that are fans of Steve Rogers/Captain America but also Xmen fans. If you wanted to check out Captain America related stories however this probably isn’t the best place to start. For me not being overly familiar with the Xmen took away a little bit of my enjoyment from that part, but it has made me want to check out Xmen in graphic novel form.
On a final note, the artwork across the book was good but there is a mixture of styles with the artwork from the Xmen section being my favourite.
This book is split into two distinct stories. First up we have the super solider storyline that follows Steve uncovering a plot to sell off the supposed formula for the super soldier serum to the highest bidder. This acts like a high action spy caper which was really enjoyable with a potential twist at the end which could prove interesting further down the line for Steve.
Part two of the book isn’t so much a Steve Rogers focused story but one which follows the Uncanny Xmen and Namor. This story also involves the negative zone and the prison that was created there during the first Civil War storyline. It was great to see Steve out of his element but also him interacting with the Xmen, something I’m not used to seeing, being more familiar with his Avengers storylines.
Overall a fun graphic novel, I would recommend it to those that are fans of Steve Rogers/Captain America but also Xmen fans. If you wanted to check out Captain America related stories however this probably isn’t the best place to start. For me not being overly familiar with the Xmen took away a little bit of my enjoyment from that part, but it has made me want to check out Xmen in graphic novel form.
On a final note, the artwork across the book was good but there is a mixture of styles with the artwork from the Xmen section being my favourite.
March 19, 2026
A collection of two stories, 'Steve Rogers: Super Soldier' and 'Escape From The Negative Zone', from the period where Bucky Barnes was Captain America and Steve took on a new role as Commander of the United States' law enforcement.
In the first story Steve has to investigate the grandson of Professor Erskine, who is developing his own version of the super soldier serum.
The second story sees Steve mounting a solo rescue mission when Cyclops, Hope Summers, Namor and Dr. Nemesis become trapped in the Negative Zone.
The first story is pretty standard Ed Brubaker Cap/Steve fayre, bringing back faces from Steve's past to confront him in the present. I did like the way it explores the idea that it was never the serum which made Steve special but rather his refusal to give in to injustice (you could say that he could do this all day...).
'Escape from the Negative Zone', however, is just weird and messy.
The two things I disliked most here were the villain being Blastaar, who I've always thought was a crap antagonist, and the fact Cyclops is portrayed as a lovable goofball. This is supposed to be the same Scott Summers who will shortly go to war against the Avengers before going on to become terrorist revolutionary. It just really doesn't track. And, let's be honest, never in the entire time since he first appeared in the 60s has Cyclops been a goofball. Until now I guess.
Thanks, I hate it.
* More reviews here: https://fsfh-book-review2.webnode.page *
In the first story Steve has to investigate the grandson of Professor Erskine, who is developing his own version of the super soldier serum.
The second story sees Steve mounting a solo rescue mission when Cyclops, Hope Summers, Namor and Dr. Nemesis become trapped in the Negative Zone.
The first story is pretty standard Ed Brubaker Cap/Steve fayre, bringing back faces from Steve's past to confront him in the present. I did like the way it explores the idea that it was never the serum which made Steve special but rather his refusal to give in to injustice (you could say that he could do this all day...).
'Escape from the Negative Zone', however, is just weird and messy.
The two things I disliked most here were the villain being Blastaar, who I've always thought was a crap antagonist, and the fact Cyclops is portrayed as a lovable goofball. This is supposed to be the same Scott Summers who will shortly go to war against the Avengers before going on to become terrorist revolutionary. It just really doesn't track. And, let's be honest, never in the entire time since he first appeared in the 60s has Cyclops been a goofball. Until now I guess.
Thanks, I hate it.
* More reviews here: https://fsfh-book-review2.webnode.page *
March 3, 2021
3.5 stars -- After a very long detour from the Brubaker Captain America run, I was very much looking forward to getting back into them and this book did not disappoint! While Super-Soldier wasn't my favorite story from a plot/villain standpoint, it was still all-around very enjoyable and I love seeing Steve in all his ex-Captain America glory. Half of this book is collected Into the Negative Zone comics, which, even though usually the bonus comics are like the B-Movies in a double bill, they really stole the show here. I'm not a huge Uncanny X-Men fan but it was a cute tie-in to one of the aftermaths of Civil War and padded the Super-Soldier comic nicely. I also love it when each comic is illustrated by a different artist!
March 16, 2018
The Super Soldier arc was meh, but I loved the Escape From The Negative Zone Story. It had a lot of fun interactions and brought in characters I wasn’t expecting at the outset.
December 30, 2020
I liked the first storyline. However the mutant storyline that followed from around the middle of the novel felt off in this collection. Like ready two complete different things. Strange choice to put together.
May 16, 2021
The worst part of comics: magic ray gun takes away your specialness but actually you were special all along. also bang here's another magic ray gun to give them back.
ugh.
ugh.
August 30, 2021
More like Steve Rogers: Mediocre
September 17, 2022
The first half written by Ed Brubaker *****
Unfortunately the second half is an unrelated story with Captain America and the X-men which was drivel. 0*'s
Unfortunately the second half is an unrelated story with Captain America and the X-men which was drivel. 0*'s
July 10, 2025
Good collection of comics, great pacing. I will be looking for more Ed Brubaker comics in the future.
January 14, 2026
I could be describing this wrong but felt very noir mystery esque and I enjoyed it
January 26, 2026
The Great Marvel Readthrough, pt 403
March 12, 2026
I really enjoyed the first half of this, but the X-Men tie-in just fell short for me. Not a huge fan of the art style or the story.
Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews