If you don't know already, I'm a huge Captain America fan and a huge Winter Soldier fan. The Ed Brubaker Winter Soldier arc was one of the first stories I ever read. Winter Soldier as Captain America was so good and really drew me into comics. Despite all that, I knew that Winter Soldier: The Bitter March #1 was going to be a lot different. The story is set in 1966 during the middle of the Cold War and Bucky Barnes aka The Winter Soldier is a Russian assassin and fighting for the wrong side. Not knowing much else about the comic in advance I wanted to give this book a chance.
I really enjoyed this book. I was afraid I would be a little turned off because it's set in the past and with that comes limitations (mostly continuity issues) but it turned out to be very entertaining. I have noticed that I really enjoy spy books a lot, which isn't a big surprise seeing how much I've always loved the James Bond and James Bond type movies. Being a spy book set in the 1960's, it's no surprise you get to see some S.H.I.E.L.D involved and see a young Nick Fury in action. Rick Remender takes a risk following Ran Shen in the book rather than Nick Fury (or even Winter Soldier for that matter) and it pays off. Ran Shen is a new character to the Marvel line up and this is the first book I've read that he is in. I doubt the book will follow him in every issue but I have bought into the character and curious about him moving forward. That being said, I hope we get to see more Winter Soldier than we did in this issue moving forward.
We also get a look a HYDRA during the 60's. They are basically the same as you would expect, always wanting to take over the world. Not sure if we get to see a lot more of HYDRA in the coming issues but you know they are always there. Looking at the cast of characters you wouldn't think we would see much superpowers in this series but the HYDRA portion of the book we see there will be parts with superpowers; how much remains to be seen.
One of my favorite parts in the book was the dialog between Nick Fury and Ran Shen. The competitive camaraderie between the two is very entertaining. With that added to the interesting espionage parts, I'm ready to see what's in store.
Roland Boschi's art in this issue works quite well. The coloring, done by Chris Chuckry, is nice and together it has a pleasant 1960's feel. It's clean at times and gritty in places when it need to be. Sometimes these spy books get a little too gritty and dirty with the art and hard to tell what is actually going on but here it is a good balance. Also, the paneling is creative at times but I think they can play with that even more.
I see lots of potential for this series. I bought this book wanting to see more Winter Soldier but he's not the reason I enjoyed this so much. That I can take as a positive sign. It's a fun book and different from the other books I read. If you like spy books and superheros this may be a book to check out.
