[We don't normally say it, but since this is a big event: Beware. Spoilers are ahead.]

Okay. There’s this series, right. It’s intricately plotted, tightly dialogued and it isn’t afraid of playing the long game when it comes to handling its myriad secrets and mysteries, leaving its fans hanging for months, even years before revealing the whole picture. It’s truly unique in its field, with a multi-faceted cast and a brilliantly consistent level of quality. Just when you get a handle on where it’s going, it yanks the rug from under you. Somehow, against the odds, it’s managed to stretch beyond the genre-ghetto that spawned it and truly enter the public consciousness without ever compromising the singular vision of its creators. And we all know what that series is.

Yes, I like Lost as much as the next person. And the next person is apparently Ed Brubaker, because for reasons I can’t begin to comprehend, he’s managed to replicate one of Lost’s most memorable plot points wholesale. And we’re not just talking homage, here, we’re talking “oh, that’s a good idea, I can use it.” And we know this because the issue delights in using the same wording – that’s THE SAME, not SIMILAR – that Lost itself uses to distill its often complicated concepts into simple, comprehensible slices of dialogue. “Steve Rogers has come unstuck in time,” says Armin Zola. “[They] kept referring to me as The Constant,” says Sharon Carter. “We have to move the island,” says The Falcon. Well, maybe not that last one, things are already starting to blur a little.

Now, let’s be fair – Lost didn’t invent the “unstuck in time” concept. Slaughterhouse Five did it way earlier, for one. But it didn’t have a “Constant” like Lost did and Cap does, nor was Slaughterhouse Five the basis of a massively prominent TV series watched by millions over the last 5 years. Let me be clear: I am in no way questioning Brubaker’s credibility as a writer – everyone gets their ideas from somewhere, after all. I am, however, questioning his timing and judgement. Was now the right time to do an  “unstuck in time” plot? And was there really no better way to refer to these concepts than the same way Lost does? The story itself isn’t bad, but it undoubtedly suffers when considered against the wider cultural context of its release.

And what of the story? Well, it’s… okay. Hitch’s pencils are as good as ever, though the scenes of WW2-era Cap make Reborn look far too similar to the Millar/Hitch Ultimates for comfort. In a book where the originality of the writing already feels compromised, it doesn’t help to have large swathes of the artwork looking like re-purposed Ultimates offcuts. The prominent use of both Mighty and Dark Avengers cast members takes the book outside Captain America’s usual insular world, justifying the story’s spinning-out into a miniseries, but the additional grounding in the Marvel Universe means that it lacks the timeless quality of Brubaker’s run to date. It’s all a bit, well, underwhelming.

One thing you can’t fault it for, however, is delivering what it was supposed to. If you want to know what happened to Steve Rogers, well good news: there’s no dodging it here. And the question of how they’ll get him from where he is to where he should be does sound like a story I want to read. The only thing that remains to be seen is whether the rest of the series can give me something to worry about that takes precedence over how similar its plot points are to Lost. It’s not impossible, but really, that shouldn’t have been this big of a distraction in the first place.

It’s hard to know what to make of Captain America at the moment. Ed Brubaker’s long term planning for the book has been exemplary, with the audacious move of restoring Bucky to life being followed with an even more attention-grabbing move. The playoff for killing Steve Rogers was enormous, both in media profile for the title and the storytelling momentum that swung to book through two years’ worth of stories without the need to pause for breath.

And then the pace began to slacken. Bucky Barnes’ adventures seemed to be stuck in a holding pattern, endlessly dwelling on his past. Almost as if the book was waiting for a certain issue number.

It’s impossible to write about ‘Captain America #599′ without considering the wider implications for the character of various hints from Marvel as to the content of next month’s spectacular. It may sound rather shallow to hold Brubaker’s run in less esteem if he has indeed always intended to raise Rogers from the dead, but the writer’s work will be viewed differently if his radicalism does prove to be a front.

The appeal of Brubaker’s run, and the reason why the writer has had so much success in drawing in readers with no particular attachment to Cap, was that he treated the property as a living, breathing entity. Of all Marvel’s properties, Rogers most resembled the Fantastic Four, who for decades have held little appeal for readers due to their static status quo. Over time, this has become a self-perpetuating view, with any actual change to their set-up being dismissed by readers as a temporary gimmick, and abandoned by the publisher when it fails to fuel sales.

This issue itself gives grounds for optimism, with last month’s return of energy to the writing maintained, as Barnes considers over half a century of birthdays. Given the tendency to melancholy the book has shown in recent months, it’s refreshing to see Cap’s musings being interspersed with comparatively light-hearted action, as he fights off an assassination attempt in modern-day New York. Another novel development is the inclusion of the Avengers in the book. While Brubaker has obviously enjoyed his work’s isolation from the Marvel Universe, a story about how his character has grow into his place in the world wouldn’t be complete without an appearance by his team, and the writer sensibly breaks his unwritten rule. At the risk of sounding rude, this issue is a very well crafted brick. It just remains to see what the finished house looks like…

Daredevil’s current arc – Return of the King – sees Brubaker really hitting his stride on Daredevil, though it’s interesting how this happens just as he loses steam on Captain America, and now that his departure from Daredevil is confirmed.

It’s something of a concern to me that all any writer seems to be able to do with Daredevil is shuffle around the same combination of characters – it always comes back to Bullseye, Elektra and The Kingpin – but to Brubaker’s credit, he’s approaching things with a slightly new angle – a genuinely repentant Kingpin enlisting Daredevil’s help to enact his final revenge on the criminal underworld that betrayed him.

It makes for some great material for the character, and over the last two issues, the comic could more accurately be called “The Kingpin” rather than “Daredevil” – but that suits me just fine. Arcs from the Brubaker run’s latter-day stories weave in and out of this title, from Lady Bullseye, to Milla, to Dakota North, and it really rewards readers who stuck with the book during Brubaker’s initial warming-up period. From the Kingpin to Master Izo to Milla’s parents, not a single character in the book is treated badly, and the supporting cast of the series is as strong as it’s been in years.

As ever, lark’s artwork is fantastic, and he does particularly well with some snow-storm fights, which give the arc a unique feel, distinguishing it from the usual grey, rainy scenes we’ve become used to reading in Daredevil. On every level, the series is at its best since Bendis’ heyday, and that promises to leave incoming writer Andy Diggle with some positively huge shoes to fill. Following not one, but two critically lauded long-term runs on the series? The anticipation of that alone is enough to keep me on-board. For now, though, it’s time to simply enjoy Brubaker’s run all beginning to culminate masterfully, before he moves on.

This week, we serve up more capsule reviews for Captain America #48, Dark Reign: Elektra #1, Thunderbolts #130 and X-Men: Sword of the Braddocks #1.

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Sometimes a comic just exudes an air of class in your hands, before you’ve even opened to the first page. Despite the fact that the pairing of Brubaker and Phillips didn’t immediately excite me as much as some – I’ve read neither Criminal nor Sleeper, while the writer’s work-for-hire hasn’t tended to overlap with my own reading habits – the combination of almost universal exhortation to buy it from creators on Twitter (yeah, I’m cool, I Twit with the comicscenti), and a high-concept hook to die for (the story of what happens to a former supervillain on witness protection when he suddenly gets his powers back), this screamed “must-read” as soon I heard about it. And feeling that this was a book to pay attention to was only helped by picking up a decent-sized package ($3.50 isn’t cheap, but that’s for twenty-three pages of story plus some nice backup material – and, this being Icon, no house ads) with a lovely, classy cover.

And thankfully, Incognito does come pretty close to living up to those lofty expectations. It’s confidently constructed, with a gradual peeling away of its premise that leaves the reader eager to learn more (aside from a first major plot beat, there’s not a huge amount of story that unfolds here, mind – it’s more about establishing mood and setting), and natural if unshowy dialogue with a strong sense of narrator’s voice. If there’s one thing that it wants for, though, it’s an array of characters with whom to identify. There’s no supporting cast to speak of – only Zack’s former and incumbent “handlers” stand out, and then by virtue of being the stereotypical “grizzled nice guy” and “young asshole” types respectively – and Zack himself, while clearly intended to engage our sympathies at some point, struggles to do in this first issue by virtue of being a former super-villain and… well, a bit of a jerk himself (not to mention one who, while you could call it a grey area if you were feeling charitable, essentially rapes a woman in the opening pages).

That’s not to say his story isn’t intriguing, merely that he’s far from the “hero” – and since there’s nobody else in the book to act as our way in, the reader is far more a detached observer than an engaged participant. That doesn’t make it a difficult read, though, and key to that is an absolutely superb turn on art from Sean Phillips. I should probably know his stuff a bit better than I do – the odd issue of Hellblazer is about all I really recall – but this is terrific, highly atmospheric stuff, helped by some great colouring from Val Staples. I’m not sure it really captures the “pulp” feel that Brubaker explains initially inspired the book – save for when Zack puts on his mask – but it’s a moody noirish look, all thick black inks, that suits it well anyway.

While lacking the “instant classic” feel of other contemporary hits like Casanova or Phonogram, there’s a definite sense that Brubaker and Phillips are on to something here – and as the opening issue of a series that looks set to put a grown-up sort of twist on superhero storytelling tropes, it feels a bit like being in on the ground floor on something like Powers or Ex Machina

. It’ll have to work hard to steer clear of too much cliché (the “mysterious” Doctor Lester already has a rather heavy whiff of Gargunza about him), but on this evidence, Incognito is one of the first essential comics of 2009.

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Another batch of capsule reviews from the Comics Daily team, including Blue Beetle #33, Captain America #44, Secret Invasion: Inhumans #4, Ultimate X-Men #98 and X-Force #9. Continue reading »