Agreed on pretty much all points there Otomofan!
Yeah it's funny you mentioning the violence of those John Walker issues. One of the reason that remains embedded in my mind to this day was because I was also collecting the original Wolverine ongoing series at that time and people were writing in to the Wolverine letters page saying "Why is Logan running around as Patch and hardly ever using his claws while the current issues of Captain America are total bloodbaths?? Shouldn't it be the other way around???"
I don't agree on Ron Lim though. I thought his art was quite subpar compared to what came before though he could definitely draw the ladies (the Black Queen on the cover of #369, damn...) but otherwise his art was the main factor leading to me stopping my monthly subscription. He's gotten a lot better though and I almost picked up this month's "United States of Captain America" issue solely *because* he was drawing it. But then I flipped to the page where the current ***** going by the name of Falcon said "I love you tons Cap but for all we know you were descended from slave owners." First of all
"I love you tons?" FFS. Second of all um no--Cap's parents were poor Irish immigrants who lived in a ****ing New York ghetto and the 1960's through 1990's Falcon would have KNOWN that.
But like I've repeated, everything from Brubaker on is a brand new rebooted continuity.
Also getting back to Brubaker he claimed that he knew that the tragedy of Bucky's death was a major aspect of Cap's character which supposedly caused him to state that he knew that if he brought Bucky back to life then he'd have to replace his "death" with something equally tragic (yeah right) like him being a brainwashed assassin. Except that he didn't *stay* a brainwashed assassin (duh, who'd a thought) and now Cap, Falcon and Bucky are all palling around the country together "loving each other tons." Way to keep that tragedy intact. Such a freaking joke.
I agree that Waid and Garney's run is pretty overrated, which I think only occurred due to the uptick in quality it showcased after the tail end of Gruenwald's run. Solid art, solid writing, but with no truly memorable time-tested story arcs produced as a result. They are definitely fun reads and thankfully occurred before Waid went insane but yeah I would have been annoyed to have Cap's run end with Sharon after all he went through with Diamondback. That's why for me Robert Kirkman's Cap Disassembled arc is the true capstone (no pun intended) of Gruenwald's run since it brought things back full circle with the Serpent Society and Rachel for a satisfying close.
I love that after trying to prove herself to Cap (often unsuccessfully) from the Bloodstone Hunt on that finally she (or at least a version of her) had her moment to pound the living **** out of a powered up Red Skull right in front of Cap. And yes I know it wasn't "her" per se but it was still her brainwaves and love for Steve doing the fighting in a jacked up LMD so it still counts as far as I'm concerned, lol.
