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Captain America (2004) (Collected Editions) #5-8

Captain America: The Death of Captain America - The Complete Collection

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Steve Rogers is dead! Long live Captain America! He was a hero to millions, an inspiration to America’s armed services and the representative of his nation’s greatest ideals. He lived for his country — and now, he has given his last final measure for the nation he loved, shot down in cold blood. In the aftermath of his death, Cap’s longtime partner, the Falcon, makes revenge his first order of business. Sharon Carter finds herself spiraling out of control, a captive of the Red Skull’s minions. And Bucky Barnes, a.k.a. the Winter Soldier, must reconcile his own sordid past with the calling to become the new Captain America!

Collects Captain America (2005) #22-42 and Winter Soldier: Winter Kills.

559 pages, Kindle Edition

First published February 19, 2013

16 people are currently reading
97 people want to read

About the author

Ed Brubaker

1,794 books3,018 followers
Ed 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.

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5 stars
73 (52%)
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3 stars
12 (8%)
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Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews
Profile Image for Samuel.
398 reviews
March 12, 2025
4.5/5.

Thanks to my g for this one🙏🏻 was a banger i read through pretty quickly, despite its length. I feel like I might have benefited from reading Civil War before this, since the first quarter takes place between events in Civil War, but it didn’t make the read any less enjoyable.

Action’s great, story’s great, just a banger classic Captain America title. Plus all the stuff around Cap’s actual death had me whispering ‘Damn!’ a lot cause of all the twists and shi lol. I loved Bucky in this too, he’s one of my favourite marvel characters fs.
Profile Image for Kat (kvcatnip).
326 reviews35 followers
January 19, 2022
I doubt it needs to be said that this run of Captain America is iconic. I wanted to go back and read The Winter Solider timeline as I’m a big fan of his character in the MCU, and as always go to the source material for more. What I didn’t really know or expect was how hefty this comic was to read. It’s gritty and dark, with traumatic sub plots, making it not for the faint of heart. I’ve been slowly reading it for a few months because binge reading it would have been too much to process at one time.

It’s earned its reputation. It’s brilliantly done, which with Brubaker, I would have expected no less. It’s interesting to go back and read this now(over a decade past being written), because so many things in this run was game changing. Bringing back Bucky! Killing Steve Rogers! Making Bucky Cap! I truly feel like I’ve read a piece of Marvel History
Profile Image for flomer.
116 reviews
July 18, 2021
Actual rating: 4.5 stars
Mi primer comic de Captain America y no pensé que me iba a gustar tanto como lo esperaba.
solo voy a dejar una lista de los personajes que aparecieron en el comic: Steve Rogers (Captain America), Bucky Barnes (Winter Soldier), Natalia Romanova (Black Widow), San Wilson (Falcon), Sharon Carter (Agent 13), Red Skull, Dr. Zola, Tony Stark (Iron Man) Nick Fury, Maria Hill, Vision, Patriot, Kate Bishop, Charles Xavier (Professor X), entre otros más que no me acuerdo.
Literal, los comics de Marvel son el paraíso porque no sabes si te vas a encontrar con un personaje de xmen o de otro universo dentro de Marvel.
También, aparecen los puntos de vista de los personajes, principalmente el de Bucky y como ve lo que esta pasando en el comic.
La edición que me leí era la Complete Edition en donde empezaba con los eventos final de Civil War y me encanto ver eso.
y otra cosa, VEMOS A BLACK WIDOW Y WINTER SOLDIER JUNTOS!!!!

Profile Image for Reinhard.
115 reviews1 follower
March 25, 2024
Ed Brubaker's run on Captain America is one of the great examples of what superhero comics can achieve if they explore the tonality and narrative structures of other genres. As with Bendis's and Brubkaer's own run on Daredevil, these Captain America stories had a gritty feel to them, a tonality and atmosphere akin to a Dennis Lehane or John le Carré novel.

But that was up to issue 22.

The first two story arcs in Brubaker's run, Winter Soldier and Red Menace, felt like thrillers that could exist next to other works of WWII/Cold War espionage fiction. But with issue 22, Marvel's Civil War began. And yet even through that event, Brubaker managed to retain much of the tone and direction he'd set up until that point. For more than 10 issues, the book still feels like a natural continuation of what came before.

But by issue 34, where Bucky steps into the big boots, the book loses much of the tonality it had. And it's not saved by the political-and-economic-takeover-plot either. From there on, the story feels forced, as if it's ticking too many boxes in too short a pan. And I guess that's the biggest gripe I have with this culminating story arc, it's pacing.

The steady pacing that helped the reader become immersed in the grittier side of the American hero is missing from this arc. Even though it's a bulkier affair, running over more than half the issues of Red Menace, it still feels rushed.

I wonder what the culmination would have looked like if Brubaker had kept the crime thriller pacing and tonality of the first two arcs.

The death of Captain America is a magnificent feat of superhero storytelling, it just didn't meet the bar of what had come before ... a bar set superbly high.
Profile Image for Rocky Sunico.
2,277 reviews25 followers
June 1, 2021
I had always been a little hazy about the transition from Steve Rogers as Captain America to Bucky/Winter Soldier, and this comprehensive book addresses this point fully. And it starts, of course, with the capture of Captain America at the end of Civil War and the events that lead up to his death. And here we have so many layers of meaning and complexity both in terms of Bucky's internal struggle as he deals with Steve's death so soon after his "resurrection" if you will. And there are similar levels of intrigue and mystery for the Red Skull and his allies as it seems all the big players have their own plans that mostly align with each other's objectives but not 100% of the time.

I really enjoyed how Brubaker uses a lot of the narrative structure and tropes of espionage stories instead of a straight-up military approach to things, which is the low-hanging fruit for Captain America. On top of that, he doesn't forget that this is a comic, and people like the Red Skull, his daughter Sin, Dr. Faustus, and Armin Zola are ultimately comic book villains and are still prone to making crazy comic book villain decisions as part of their big plans.

These two big compilation of the Brubaker Captain America books that first introduce the Winter Soldier to the Marvel Universe then his eventual rise to become Captain America in this book really work for me on so many levels. I can finally say that I now better understand why his run on the comic was so celebrated and why so many people speak highly of it. and now I've joined those voices and will continue to celebrate this narrative arc.
Profile Image for Hilary "Fox".
2,154 reviews68 followers
November 15, 2021
Another classic Ed Brubaker run.

The Death of Captain America was a huge deal back when it first came out. I mean, it's Steve Rogers and he's dead. Who did it? Why? Beyond that problem - what do we do now? It's in the midst of Civil War and everyone is scrambling for something to hold onto. Steve Rogers, to a large degree, was the resistance. Now that the Winter Soldier is back, how is he going to handle it all? Who is he going to kill in revenge?

This run is riveting for a number of reasons. Now, as far removed from it as we all are, what do we think about it? How do we all think that Sharon Carter, badass that she is, was handled during it? I think we can all agree that minis like "Winter Kills" were phenomenal, but does Carter stand up all right? Faustus is a well-utilized villain, at the very least. And hey, seeing some early Kate Bishop is good.

It's still a solid run, though moreso for all the Bucky fans out there than much else. I still love how well what little Clint Barton there was in it was handled, and Falcon is still so strong in it. Brubaker remains a genius, even if some of the choices are a bit... harder to bear.
Profile Image for Daniel Sevitt.
1,434 reviews141 followers
January 26, 2025
Super chunky and all together excellent collection that barely features Steve Rogers, but gets right to the heart of what Captain America means to people who care about America. This is storytelling with second-tier characters at best thrust to the foreground - Sharon Carter, The Falcon, Bucky Barnes, Dr. Faustus, Arnim Zola, and only the Red Skull's disembodied consciousness repping anything close to the A-list. The art is doing a lot of heavy lifting in creating a sense of spies operating in the shadows here. A lighter brush would have exposed the flimsiness of brainwashed good guys and one of the key baddies just giving up and switching sides at the end. And yet somehow the silliness gets back-burnered and the idea of Cap as myth pushes through even before Chris Evans took on the role.

In contrast the updated version of women in refrigerators sees poor Sharon Carter, brainwashed into murdering her lover, discovering her pregnancy, losing the baby by being stabbed in the stomach, and then brainwashed again to forget she was ever pregnant. It's pretty grim.

A grand storyline with some questionable elements.
Profile Image for Bardo 彡.
157 reviews6 followers
October 7, 2020
Uff, no lo puedo creer. Es un arco largo, que puede llegar a ser cansado a veces, y complejo. Los villanos realmente dan muchos problemas y parece que nada acabaría bien. Me gustaría leer más pero creo que hasta aquí dejaré la serie por el momento, pero sin duda la retomaré cuando termine el semestre.
2,100 reviews43 followers
May 3, 2022
Set around the events that was the most important comic in my living memory (Death of Captain America)....I barely remember the Death of Superman and have never actually read it. Still, this focuses not on the Civil War story arch, but the background SHIELD and Nick Fury battle with Red Skull as the villains make their play. Still, fun to see Bucky gain the shield.
Profile Image for Linnea.
208 reviews21 followers
August 12, 2020
WOW. Seriously amazing. I had loved the previous books in this series but this HAS to be the best so far even though my favorite super hero is *sort-of-spoiler-alert-if-you-didn't-read-the-title* dead. I would have liked Steve to not have been, you know, dead, but the storyline his death gave us with Agent 13, BuckyNat, and Falcon was just... *chef's kiss*. And I love Bucky so it was great to see him take up the shield.

Imagine, we really could have had a Serpent Society movie but the Russo's played us and gave us Civil War instead. That hurt.
Profile Image for Gerrod Harris.
95 reviews
September 30, 2022
An absolute slam dunk of a conclusion that serves as both an epilogue to Civil War and a prolog to Bucky becoming Captain America. Once again, Brubaker delivers prophetic and relevant political tones to create an iconic and modern narrative.
Profile Image for Keegan Schueler.
659 reviews
March 31, 2025
Brubaker is so good at writing Capatain America and it truly shows. Great following the events of civil war which leads to the death of Steve and rise of Bucky. Great political thriller that has so many great moments.
Profile Image for Patrick Book.
1,197 reviews14 followers
November 20, 2021
Smaller and more focused than the sprawling “major” comic “events” seem to be, and all the better for it.
Profile Image for jay.
133 reviews1 follower
May 28, 2025
I call this one the Sharon Carter suffer-fest. Girl, get behind me.
Profile Image for Mikael Hasan.
202 reviews
January 13, 2023
One of the great comic writers on one of the best Marvel runs in modern history. The Death of Captain America is brutally effective and incredibly well written.
Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews

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