Rating: *** 1/2*

Another very good issue from the team of Ed Brubaker and Bryan Hitch.  Captain America: Reborn picks up right where issue one left off.  Steve Rogers is not dead and his friends in the Marvel Universe are trying to rescue him.  Steve is stuck in time as his consciousness is living inside his body in the past.  He keeps jumping from one moment in his life to the next.  In the last issue, we saw Steve as he stormed the beaches on D-Day and in this issue we see moments such as a battle between him and Master Man and Steve visiting President Roosevelt.  He also goes back to the moment where he took the Super-Soldier Serum - more on that later.

Back in the present, the current Captain America, Bucky Barnes, and the Black Widow are battling the Dark Avengers and Norman Osborn’s HAMMER.  They are looking for the device that the Red Skull and Arnim Zola used that resulted in Steve Rogers getting stuck in time after his assassination.  Unfortunately, the Dark Avengers are able to defeat and capture them.  They are interrogated by Norman Osborn.

Under the influence of the Red Skull, Sharon Carter shot Steve Rogers.  However, there was another assassin who took part in the crime: Crossbones.  To the general public, he is the lone gunman and has been incarcerated for the crime alongside his girlfriend, the Red Skull’s daughter, Sin.  Norman Osborn has a discussion with them and a deal is struck.  Which brings us back to Bucky and the Black Widow.  Osborn is interrogating them and reveals that he has released the information to the public that Sharon Carter was in on the assassination and that she is now wanted by the law.  Bucky and Widow are angry of course, but they’re powerless as Osborn tells Black Widow that he is going to release her, but she must bring Sharon Carter back with her or he will kill Bucky.  Why is Norman doing this?  Power.  The deal he made with Crossbones and Sin is to help bring about the return of Steve Rogers as Captain America and I think he needs Sharon to help bring this about.

A Captain America leading his Dark Avengers, under his control?  How deliciously evil!  Go, Norman!  Norman Osborn has really become the number one bad guy in the Marvel Universe over the past year.  Kudos to Marvel for really using the character in this manner after years of simply just being another resurrected Spider-Man villain.  Norman has become Marvel’s answer to Lex Luthor.

Back in the past, Steve jumps to the moment when he is with Doctor Erskine and he is about to become Captain America.  As I said, Steve’s consciousness is inside his body in the past and realizes that he is not helpless and that he can control his body and the events that happen.  Since he’s in the past, he asks the doctor about time travel and tries to get some information that may be of some use to him in order to get back to his own time.  But what if he can change things for the better in this past?  Steve, of course, wonders if he can travel back to kill Hitler before the war starts, but Dr. Erskine tells him that by changing the past, he could drastically change the future where he or his loved ones would no longer exist.

The experiment is a success and Steve Rogers relives his rebirth from sickly 120 lb weakling to the Super Soldier: Captain America.  He also relives the death of Dr. Erskine as a Nazi spy was in the ranks during the experiment and kills Erskine.  Steve is too late to change the past, but he wonders why he is here?

This story is really good so far and I’m enjoying it thoroughly.  Ed Brubaker is a master and Bryan Hitch’s work is top-notch.  Three more issues to go until the return.  I can’t wait and I also can’t wait to see how this all plays out.  A good twist would be to have Norman Osborn be successful in bringing Steve back and brainwashing him into being the leader of the Dark Avengers.  Then we can have a big epic Steve vs Bucky; Cap vs Cap!  Way cool!  Anyway, pick this one up, comic fans!  You won’t be disappointed.