Comic Review: Generations

Generations: Sam Wilson Captain America & Steve Rogers Captain America (2017) #1 (Generations by Nick Spencer

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


I pretty much skipped Marvel's Generations issues, but it was a light week so I thought I would pick this up.

I have really enjoyed Spencer's work for Image titles like The Fix and Bedlam, and he became a favorite for many with Superior Foes of Spiderman and Antman. Then, he wrote THAT issue of Captain America.

Friends of mine who hadn't bought a comic book in 20 years (and would dare never miss a Marvel movie premiere) took to social media to say they would never buy a comic with Spencer's name on it. Spencer's story has been publicized- death threats and the like. I have read plenty of comments about him from the Right, but the Left seems to hate him just as much.

In any case, I picked up some of the Sam Wilson comics but my comic store seemed to have them inconsistently or maybe they were selling out before I could pick them up. In any case, I generally liked his Sam Wilson books, although from what I gather, Spencer didn't really break too much new ground on it.

Generations serves as a swan song for Wilson's run as Cap, and from everything I have read, people hate it. They hate it for a variety of different reasons, as varied as content and personal perspective, but everyone seems to agree the art is terrible.

I actually enjoyed the issue. However, I will say it felt very much like an Astro City comic. In fact, i could not shake that as it serves as a life retrospective on Sam and Steve.

I was fine with that and it was a nice story. There is a reason Busiek writes that way of course, he is introducing characters, locations and stories in each new issue, so he usually has to build a universe and generally has only an issue or two to do it in (This book is roughly that length).

Since these are introductions to characters, we don't know the back story and we are just learning and initially investing in the characters. They exist for a moment and then we rarely if ever hear from then again.

That would not be the case for Steve Rogers and Sam Wilson who readers will likely have many established opinions on. Comic fans tend to get beholden to canon as well.

So that's likely where a lot of the grumbling comes from; also the political aspect of the character as well certainly colors everything.

For me, this is the type of story that at this point Busiek has been writing for 20-plus years. I liked Spencer's story, but at the end of the day, I could not shake the comparison. As far as the art everyone hated. I actually liked Paul Renaud's work. That said, his art was very much in line with what one expects to see in Astro City as opposed to a traditional Marvel comic.

Bottom line for me, I enjoyed this comic. As a one shot, it was probably largely unnecessary, but it was a good story, and I don't get stuck in the details that might cause others not to like it.



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