Review by C.J. Bunce
The latest Marvel Comics tie-in anthology has arrived. Captain America: The Shield of Sam Wilson, available now here at Amazon, is a deep dive into Captain America Sam Wilson. Eleven writers pull from decades of Marvel Comics and put the Gene Colan and Stan Lee creation into new situations, providing modern readers with a complete picture of the man, who he was before becoming the Falcon, what it means to him to be Captain America, and years later, how he deals with the pressures and reactions by the good and the bad elements of America. Written entirely by Black American writers, the book is like reading a text-only edition of twelve months of a Captain America comic book series.
Readers will find Sam Wilson is not just a caricature, and he’s not just another Black superhero. In many interactions with several other Marvel characters, Sam Wilson seems unusually tolerant of those who are intolerant, especially compared to the likes of Luke Cage or Misty Knight. You can read the book as merely a group of short stories or tear right through the book and view it as one seamless story. I think interactions with Cage and Knight–Sam’s girlfriend on a date at an unusual music concert–are the most fun.
Sam also appears alongside the original Cap, Steve Rogers, in a few stories. Here Rogers isn’t the old retired man of the movies, but an active hero and advisor to Sam. After the Marvel Cinematic Universe it will be difficult for anyone who didn’t read the original comics in the 1960s and 1970s not to see Anthony Mackie as Cap in every scene.
Two stories include Sam and U.S Agent and former Captain America John Walker. A scene finds the two reminiscing over how they got where they are today, then partnering on a mission. Some of the stories are personal, introducing characters from Sam’s private life readers will not have met before, including an old friend from Harlem Sam tracks down. Other stories find Sam partnering with Nick Fury and Maria Hill, and another with Contessa Valentina de Fontaine–where Sam faces the prospect of using a super soldier serum like Steve Rogers and Luke Cage. There’s a prison break involving HYDRA, and one of the better stories finds Steve Rogers sending Sam back in time to the 1940s where he witnesses World War II firsthand inside a Black infantry unit.
Villains Sam and sidekick Redwing encounter include Wilson Fisk aka Kingpin, Taskmaster, Sabretooth, Helmut Zemo, Mission Critical, and Lady Mastermind.
The anthology is edited by Jesse J. Holland, with contributions by Maurice Broaddus, Gloria Brown-Marshall, Gar Haywood, Holland, Danian Jerry, Nicole Kurtz, Kyoko M., Glenn Parris, Gary Phillips, Alex Simmons, and Sheree Thomas.
If you only know Sam Wilson from the movies, Captain America: The Shield of Sam Wilson, provides more than a superficial look at this 1960s comics creation. His work and focus parallels Spider-Man and Daredevil as another superhero of the neighborhood. Captain America: The Shield of Sam Wilson is available in hardcover for the first time this month here at Amazon. It’s the next anthology in the Marvel tie-in anthologies following Doctor Strange: Dimension War, reviewed here at borg.
