Avengers & Rogues...spoilers contained within...

So I was going to write this blog last week (Wednesday) until someone told me they were curious to read my review/thoughts on "The Avengers" after I went to the Midnight show Thursday.  Gave me an excuse to put it off and also helped me realize that after my insane trip into Morrison-BatWorld for the better part of three months I think I'm better off doing this bi-weekly rather than every single week.  That's not to say there won't be months when I do it on back-to-back weeks if time/mood/inspiration strikes me but I'm planning on every other week.

Man the fake posters I found when I just Google searched "Avengers movie poster" are hilarious....

POSSIBLE SPOILERS!!!!

Anyway, so my quick thoughts on the movie. I found it to be the most fun, exciting, and comic booky of ANY of the major comic book films that have been released since "Iron Man" really kicked off this phase.  I saw MAJOR because I still feel like "Scott Pilgrim" was the most comic booky of any comic book film ever...seriously, people turned into video game coins in that one....

As for "Avengers", I felt it totally embraced the insanity of the great comic book events without losing the character of the...characters...involved in the action.  Really that's a balance that most event comics can't find (I'm looking at you "Flashpoint", "Secret Invasion", "Siege", hell pretty much everything Marvel event save "Civil War").  The prerequisite hero vs. hero sequence, the utter destruction of New York City, death, banter, teasers, character growth, somehow Joss Whedon & Zak Penn managed to cram it all into the script for this one and not feel like any department was lacking. 

Everyone from Captain America to Black Widow to random SHIELD operatives got a moment of some kind. I was a big fan of how Agent Coulson reacted to Cap because it is a reaction you see from soldiers in the Marvel U from time to time. I loved the disparate opinions from NY's populous pertaining to The Avengers, I loved Hulk but more importantly I dug Mark Ruffalo as Bruce Banner, Tom Hiddleston was even more awesome here than in Thor, Jeremy Renner & Scarlett Johansson were great as Hawkeye & Black Widow fighting as "average" humans in the midst of truly god-like powers. 

A friend asked me why I didn't think of Tony Stark as a normal human when I said that and I guess it is, in part, because of the power of the Iron Man armor and in part to due to his truly superhuman intellect.  Widow &  Hawkeye are soldiers whereas the rest of the crew are technological/scientific/mythological gods....made me want to see Fury get down & dirty with the rest of the team too.

Banner felt like a barely restrained monster, Cap felt like a man not quite in sync with the times but also like the man who would never quit fighting that we know in the comics, Tony Stark was still the Tony Stark we have come to know in the Iron Man movies but yet we saw growth in his character through this movie as well.  We got more depth from Widow & Hawkeye than we had seen in their previous appearances, and Thor...well I think we saw a whole other side to Thor's character in his interactions with Loki. I could feel his desire for Loki to just be...better...

Never did I feel the movie dragged nor did I ever feel it was overstuffed with action or dialogue at any point.  It's pacing was great, it's storytelling was great, and the ultimate fight was amazing in that it wasn't JUST a fight, it also brought us character moments in the chaos.  That takes BOTH writing & acting skill....yeah, I typed "skrull" not "skill" there at first....

And the bonus scene...the first one I mean...that shit rocked my mind!!! I was jumping up and down inside to see Thanos on-screen!  I know it's a tease that probably means nothing to your average fan, but being I was at a midnight show along with a sold-out theater of diehards, the place went nuts! If it was a wrestling show a "holy shit" chant would have probably broken out....and the bonus bonus, well the fanboy in me popped for that too as it was a total Whedon or Bendisesque scene straight from the comics.  All praise to this movie and I can't wait until I see it again...hopefully not in the 3rd row from the screen this time though...

Now onto the other half of this blog, the original plan, a look at the very first exposure I ever had to Geoff Johns' run on The Flash ,"Rogue War"!!! 

Prior to being recommended this trade (thanks @KLaing509) my only exposure to Wally West was in Grant Morrison's (shocking I know) JLA where I found him very interesting, but not so much that I decided to pick up his book.  That was actually the case with pretty much every character (save Batman) that Grant had on the team; I dug them in JLA but didn't read their individual books.  So when I was basically told that I could get the book with a "satisfaction guarantee" I had no problem giving it a shot.  Suffice to say that I was not disappointed!

See what I didn't know upon starting this read is that "Rogue War" was the culmination of Geoff Johns' long-term story arc.  That has the potential to be a very detrimental thing for a reader but to my shock and to my happiness, this was a story that was extremely accessible from the get-go and in large part it was due to this:

Two pages of bios on the major characters involved in this story, heroes & villains alike, followed by a page of "What Has Gone Before" to bring people like me up to speed (no pun intended) with the events that set all this up.  But that's not all, the first couple chapters of the story introduced me to the back story on Mirror Master, on Heatwave, and briefly on the new Trickster. It gave two out of the three a history that rounded them out for someone as ignorant as myself to the Flash mythos.

I learned about how Mirror Master wasn't the stereotypical character that became a villain.  He didn't come from a terrible family, and even though he was an orphan, his home wasn't a terrible place. Aside from one other boy who is alluded to sexually abusing other children, it seems the orphanage was an overall good place.  It is when Evan (MM) is put into the position of being assaulted that we see what is inside the boy, as he kills the abusive kid before he can do to the future-MM what he did to others.  There's more to MM's back story than that, the story of what led him to become a Rogue, but that's just taste of the life Johns pulls you into in just a few pages.

Heatwave gets the same treatment, except we see him as a trouble kid from the get-go, one who  burns down his own home with his family in it, killed another kid who locked him in a freezer, but kept trying to right his life before giving into his pyromaniacal tendencies and becoming a Rogue. A natural rivalry with a Rogue known as Captain Cold, amongst other things, led to him going straight and it was that, combined with a stint in jail, that led to Heatwave joining the FBI alongside other reformed Rogues. 

And the story is set...two sets of Rogues, the criminal & the reformed, and my immediate assumption, with minimal clue as to what came before, is that that is the foundation of the "Rogue War". 

The mysteries are thrown at you right from the beginning as the reader joins, in mid-conversation, a talk between Captain Cold & and the new Captain Boomerang (thank you character bios!) about the identity of Boomerang's mother in relation to his super-speed powers. We also get introduced to another central conflict via a note from The Top to Cold...

Now before this turns into a lengthy page-by-page review of "Rogue War" let me just hit on some of what drew me into this book, what caused me to track down all the previous Johns' Flash trades, and why it makes me sad that Wally West is MIA in the New 52.

In one 8 issue collection, Johns sucked me into the life of Wally West and a large part of the reason why is due to how...wholly...he fleshes out the life of the character.  From his relationship with wife Linda Park to his bond with the Golden Age Flash, Jay Garrick, to the larger role of the extended Flash family, the world of Wally West just feels full and wholly realized...like the life of an actual person.  Despite not being familiar with the whys, I can feel Linda's pain in the moment that she sees Zoom, I can sense Wally's disappointment in Piper, and his terror when the Zoom's take him back to the worst day of his life.

On the flip side, it's intriguing to see the twisted family dynamic that exists within The Rogues, how they take care of one another, how they operate within a certain standard of behavior and have self-imposed rules on the crimes they will commit.  It's fun...in a weird sort of way...to see another generation of Rogues and how the originals think they are ruining the name. 

Essentially, when it boils down to it,"Rogue War" is all about family and legacy.  Be it the Flash lineage, the Rogue Family Robinson, the Zoom's of present & future, or the little family of Wally & Linda West, this is a tale all about the ties that bind which makes the closing moments so much sweeter. 

Honestly, despite this being a story that's creeping on a decade-old, it's those reasons why I'm not really playing spoiler here for those who have never read it.  This is a truly emotional story and I'm afraid that knowing what happens would take away some of that impact.  If you've never read this, if you've never really experienced the Wally West Flash, please pick it up and see for yourself why it's such a sad thing that a character with so much depth has been left out of the New 52 picture. 

Wally West was the Flash that most fans my age grew up with, and as much as I've grown to like Barry Allen over the last 8 months (the pre-New 52 one bored me somewhat), for most of our lives he was just an inspirational figure, not a real character, unlike Hal Jordan who, even after his evil turn & death/Spectre resurrection was ALWAYS around, thus Kyle Rayner was never quite THE Green Lantern. But I digress....

Luckily Geoff Johns "Flash" has been/is being collected in Omnibus form by DC Comics so I strongly recommend you go check them out in my Amazon Store over there in the links.  You will thank me for it.  While you're at it, you should totally pick up Johns' "Teen Titans" run too and see why the New 52 Starfire has pissed off so many people...

Wally West: 1960 - 2011??

(I hope not)

A Super-Hero Summer

So I realized as I was trying to collect my thoughts about this next blog that I never addressed any of the major super-hero movies that permeated this summer's cinema viewing.  I expressed some thoughts about them in advance with an earlier blog (How Much Is Too Much?) but never actually wrote about them after my viewings  Bad fanboy, bad!  So, now that all four of the major comic book properties of the year have come and gone from theatres, let me take a look back at them in the order in which they were released.  First up...THOR!

I'll be honest, Thor was the movie that I didn't care one way or the other if I actually saw in the theatre.  Well maybe "didn't care" is a little strong, but it was certainly the flick I was the least interested in.  I don't read any Thor books now, nor have I ever, so perhaps that makes me an ideal audience for the movie version of the character.  In many ways, it seems that the less invested a movie-goer is in the comic book version, the more likely they are to be fair-and-balanced in their cinematic critique.  Too frequently I find that the comic book audience expects the movie versions of their favorites to adhere to a strict continuity that is, more often than not, an impossibility for films.  At least impossible if the film wants to be received by so-called mainstream audiences. 

Quick aside: is there anything NOT mainstream in today's society?  If you can find EVERYTHING on something as readily available as the Internet, doesn't that basically make it all mainstream? Go read "Crooked Little Vein" by Warren Ellis (Amazon Store)...

Back to the movie I had no connection to, the only one of the four I didn't bother going to see at a midnight show, Thor.  My expectations from the trailer were not high, I'm not saying I was expecting the Batman movie that shall not be named, but I just said to myself "that looks alright". 

Well when I finally got around to seeing the movie, suffice it to say that I was pleasantly surprised.  Chris Hemsworth looked the part, maybe not to a "T" as I envision Thor to be a much thicker man, but he was every bit the Nordic God one would expect.  Arrogant, brash, and most importantly blond, Hemsworth filled the Thunder God's boots quite admirably.  Natalie Portman did a fine job as Jane Foster I suppose...she was brainy and cute, casting the appropriate glances at shirtless Thor, and serving quite well as the inevitable love interest for him.  Was there really any reason for the two characters to end up together? 

Nah, not in my look back on the film, they didn't exactly have moments that brought them together, or shared interests in which to establish their relationship.  Certainly nothing happened that justifies the whole close of the film & the endless love that apparently exists between Thor and Jane Foster.  Falling in love during times of extreme duress I suppose?  Or maybe it's just that Foster has additional scientific curiosity that requires her to see more of shirtless Thor.

Sarcasm aside, I did like the film but I felt it was the weakest of this years film offerings.  The Warriors Four were an interesting part of the cast, even though the movie itself did little to really establish why they were so fiercely loyal to Thor.  It's not as if Thor was a guy anyone would want to hang out with; he'd be a great guy to have fight at your side and party with after, but why the hell would anyone want to be friend's with this jackass?  Then again, who wouldn't want to be friend's with the boss' son?

Now there was great addition to this film: Anthony Hopkins as Odin.  He may not have had the most screen time considering he was forced into the Odinsleep for a good portion, but his take on "angry dad" was top-shelf. 

But it was Tom Hiddleston who stole the show as Loki, even Ted Allpress was pretty cool as Young Loki.  His machinations that set-up the  film were the cog of the whole thing, and it looks like that will be the case with The Avengers movie as well.  He was just so detestable...a natural villain if there ever was one...I'd say someone from the Bond franchise should cast this guy in the future.

Also the movie had a tendency towards boring with a very long gap between action sequences (where there really only 3?), and tendencies towards humorous dialogue during the Earth scenes that seemed very...typical...of any movie made in the last several years (and Brian Michael Bendis comics).  Not every person speaks in quips and snarky soundbites.  This movie felt more like a set-up for The Avengers than anything else with not much else going on.  Loki's involvement in that movie has pretty much been a given as long as The Avengers has been on the table so his fate in Thor is rather unimportant, just leaves the question of how he'll get back, same as Thor, and I found myself just waiting to see Nick Fury and Agent Coulson make their required appearances.  Cool to see Hawkeye, but you'd never know it was him if you didn't already know going in. 

So would I recommend it? Yeah, Thor isn't bad by any mean...there just nothing about it that made me say to myself "I need to see this again", and my eventual Blu-Ray purchase of this movie will have more to do with my fanboy buying tendencies then my strong desire to see it again.  The movie will be available right on my birthday, September 13th.

Next in line, we had "X-Men: First Class", and I will admit right off the bat that this was the movie I was most terrified to actually see when I first watched the trailer.  After the abysmal movie that was "X-Men Origins: Wolverine", I basically expected a crap fest out of 1st Class too.  The previews leaned towards that given their total disregard for what really happened in comic book world, but I also try not to go into any comic book movie with that in my head.  Based on what went down in the three previous X-Men films I knew it was an impossibility for Matthew Vaughn, Ashley Miller, Zack Stentz, and the other screenwriters to use the original five as their leads.  So off they went with Havok, Mystique, Beast, Darwin, Banshee, and the female Angel as the originals with Erik Lehnsherr & Charles Xavier leading the pack, and the events set in the 1960s. 

Immediately I knew it wasn't a possibility for this movie to have any connection to the Bryan Singer/Brett Ratner flicks given not only the time frame but also the characters used.  For some reason, this actually gave me more hope for a quality movie, as did the additional trailers that were released. Then, as it turned out, none of my fears had any merit because this movie stands as my favorite of the four!

It suffers from the same problem as the other three comic movies of the summer in that the extended cast is quite interchangable and really have no depth, but the relationship between Xavier & Magneto, the work put into the parts by James McAvoy & Michael Fassbender, the interweaving of reality into fantasy, it all comes together to make the flaws rather...miniscule.  The action was exciting, the powers displayed by the various characters were quite a sight to behold, and even the cameo appearance of Wolverine felt like it fit (even if it may not necessarily work in the X-Canon established by Origins).  Watching the evolution of Xavier from a rather playboy-esque character into a leader was something to behold, as was the transformation of Erik Lehnsherr into Magneto.  Or perhaps it wasn't a transformation, and more likely a snake shedding its skin. Perhaps Magneto is who Erik always was underneath, it just took time for that skin to emerge.

Again, there are issues.  Most of the assorted X-Men don't have much in the way of personality and that hurts certain moments of the film, specifically when Darwin dies.   Only Beast & Mystique have much in the way of character development outside of Mags & Xavier, but unlike Thor, the strength of the two main characters & the larger story is more than enough to carry the film. 

"X-Men First Class " was without a doubt in my mind the best of the Super Hero movies of 2011, and the one I am most looking forward to purchasing on Blu-Ray when it comes out on September 9th.  It is the best X-Men since "X2", and maybe the best Marvel comics movie since the first Iron Man. Buy this: X-Men: 1st Class at Amazon.

Well I'm tired so I will have to continue this later in the week with my thoughts on "Green Lantern" and "Captain America: First Avenger".  Thanks for reading!

Captain America: Winter Soldier (SPOILERS AHOY)

I was never a Captain America fan growing up. I'm not sure why exactly, no specific reason I suppose, he just wasn't a mutant, not an X-Men, so I didn't particularly care.  Probably the same reasons I never got into Daredevil, The Avengers, Hulk, or any of the numerous X-Gene devoid characters permeating the Marvel Universe.  I did have one random issue of Cap though, something my Grandmother picked up at a garage sale probably.  If I like one comic I must like them all being the mentality I suppose...

At least it had a mutant connection of some sorts with Magneto's involvement, too bad it turned out to be a robot (hope I didn't spoil that for anyone 20 years post) but at least it had some Ron Lim art (big fan of that when I was younger). 

So suffice it to say when I wandered into my usual comic shop (Bagged & Boarded RIP) in late 2006/early 2007 the last thing I expected to buy was a Captain American trade.  But on recommendation from a guy whose opinion I had come to trust despite him being born yesterday (thanks Kevin, you haven't steered me wrong yet), I picked up the first volume of Ed Brubaker's "Winter Soldier" arc.

Now between Brubaker's writing, and the pencils of Steve Epting, I figured I was in for at least a decent read with some great art.  I knew Brubaker from "Batman" & "Gotham Central" with DC as well as "Uncanny X-Men" & "X-Men: Deadly Genesis" from Marvel, and had always liked his writing.  As for Epting, well he had long been one of my favorite artists from his work on "X-Factor" and "The Avengers"...

So I entered into these uncharted waters with two trusted guides, and suffice it to say that I was blown away with in a matter of just a few pages.  There's no build-up or origin gaga to tread thru to get to the meat of this story, oh no, Brubaker throws you into deep waters from page one with a Red Guardian eating a bullet in the first two pages, establishing The Red Skull & General Lukin as your central antagonists immediately, and giving the big mystery of "what's in the jar" within the first 5 as well.  Brubaker does not mess around with this one!

And Epting's Red Skull...

...wow is the word that best sums it up.

 As I've said, haven't read a lot of Cap comics, but I have seen many depictions over my years of reading comics, and more often than not, to me, The Red Skull looks like a mask rather than a face.  There is not mistaking with Epting's art that The Red Skull is a skull.  One panel of Skull drinking wine and it just pouring all over his lip less face is just...perfect.

The story jumps from the Skull plotting his destruction of NYC in order to fuel a Cosmic Cube over to Steve Rogers (Cap's civilian guise for those who don't know) working out with Sharon Carter (aka Agent 13) looking on.  As a newbie to the Cap-Verse, I had no idea about the history between these two characters but it didn't matter.  The most vital facts of their history ooze off the page with the dialogue Brubaker writes and the body language Epting draws.  The sole action sequence of the first issue does an equally amazing job of conveying Cap's current state of mind via the art and with maybe 30 words of dialogue tops.  He's becoming reckless, a bit self-destructive, and all due to the Red Skull being free.  The allusion Steve makes to his dreams, the statement "I still dream about Bucky. Him and all the others I couldn't save." tells the reader a great deal about what to expect in the next few months, without the reader even knowing it in the moment...that's the beauty of reading things collected instead of month-to-month I suppose.  But just as you think you know what's what....

Like I said, no messing around with this era of Captain America...Brubaker & Epting are going hardcore.  So the 2nd part of the story drops you into another of Steve's dreams about Bucky, followed up by the revelation (or reminder depending on your knowledge of Cap history) that Red Skull's body was a clone of Steve Rogers.  Now as someone with no awareness of this factoid, I was quite blown away, especially by Steve's very...stoic...reaction when Sharon admits she forgot, "Yeah...I hadn't."

Nick Fury makes his presence known, we get a flashback to the first time Rogers found out about the Skull, and a bit of a revelation as well that Cap feels he was essentially created because of the Skull.  Now for anyone who doesn't know Fury, or his penchant for revealing the barest of minimum details about anything, Brubaker does a great job via the dialogue between Cap & Sharon to make the reader aware of his super-spy ways.  Oh yeah, we also get to meet Crossbones for the first time in this new volume & find out that Skull had a Cosmic Cube in his possession.

Real quick-like for those who don't know... (from Marvel.com)

"Few items in the universe could ever compare to the sheer power of a Cosmic Cube. The power within the Cube allows whoever wields it to literally reshape reality around him. Virtually anything is possible, from the raising of mountains and commanding the power of the elements to opening dimensional portals and transforming your enemies."

Ish 3 begins to see these "memories" really have an effect on Steve as he doesn't seem to be with-it so to speak.  A cameo from the British equivalent of Captain America, Union Jack, is a nice nod to the worldwide effect the symbol of Cap has had, and the action scenes depicted in ish 3 are another gorgeous one from Epting.  But what is really touching, and really shows the strength of Brubaker as a writer is the quiet moment between Steve & Sharon in Paris.

Brubaker takes a simple flashback scene to the first memory Rogers has of being in France and turns it into a deep look into the type of man Steve Rogers is & really demonstrates why he was the perfect choice to be Cap.  Steve's compassion for his fellow man, his humbleness at his accomplishments, his recognition that he isn't alone in seeing death, that Sharon too has experienced the horrors of war...it all adds up to a unique man, uniquely suited for this task.  But the moment can't last as we get another meeting with another part of Cap's supporting cast, the former Bucky & Nomad Jack Munroe.  Long story short, he was a Bucky once, then he was Nomad, then he was Scourge, and then someone put a bullet in him as he drowned his sorrows in a bar in PA.  Just like Sharon said in Paris, "It's just the beginning isn't it?"

Part 4 and General Lukin reenters the picture on the cusp of taking over energy conglomerate Roxxon.  Cap gets a phone call from Fury sending him one way while Sharon gets pulled another way, intentionally keeping them apart.  Sharon gets informed that the gun that killed Red Skull has been conveniently found with Jack Munroe's fingerprints all over it.  In the meantime, Cap is in Arlington Cemetery to find that the graves of two former Captain America surrogates have been desecrated.  Both men served as Cap during Steve Roger's "death" and this is most definitely a personal shot at Rogers.  A series of memory assaults leave Cap victim for a beat down from Crossbones while Sharon Carter ends up on the receiving end of her own beating from a metal fist that has made a cameo in every issue thus far.

Ish 5 sees the puzzle pieces begin to fall into place for Rogers, and the reader, as we discover just how General Lukin is tied into Cap's history.  A town decimated by the Red Skull in 1942 turned out to be the home of Lukin and, as its apparent sole survivor, Lukin was taken under the wing of a Russian General by the name of Vassily Karpov.  Karpov & Rogers worked together...more or less...on the mission that resulted in the destruction of Lukin's home.  See it all makes sense doesn't it?  But that's not the only thing from Cap's past that's coming back to haunt him.  Nick Fury has a secret file with the label "Classified: Winter Soldier" emblazoned on the cover and closes out the issue by telling his assistant that he didn't show Steve the file because... "I want to be one hundred percent sure about this before I destroy his (Steve's) world...", damn that Fury and his cryptic nature!

Ish 6 brings the first chapter of this saga to a head as Sharon is kidnapped and an oblivious Cap travels to the site of his & Bucky's death, suffers another attack from the Cube when he battles Nazi soldiers & Baron Zemo that aren't really there, and we get Cap almost reconciling different takes on his origins by wondering if anything he remembers is wholly accurate, or if he's just filling in the blanks based on the various reports.  It's an interesting way to make sense of any differences that may exist in Cap & Bucky's origin stories over the years.  As a newbie to Cap, I don't know what varying origins there may be, I just know the bare bones "a rocket blew up killing Bucky & knocking Cap into frozen waters" story. 

Anyway, Cap departs the island only to be hit with another blast from the Cube as he's taunted with a vision of Sharon held hostage.  Cap arrives on scene, and we finally get our first look at the man with the metal hand... 

One thing that picture is missing from the upper right corner though, is Sharon's statement..."I think, I think it's Bucky!"

The next panel is a look at a shocked Cap as seen thru the scope on Winter Soldier's gun, an awesome shot if you ask me...which you did since you're reading this.  Solider blows up a part of Philly, killing one of Sharon's ex-boyfriend's in the process, and as the story closes we get to see that General Lukin has the Cosmic Cube in his possession. 

That bring the first phase of "Winter Soldier" to its close but one issue remains in this trade, and in that 7th issue we finally get to see just what brought Jack Munroe to the bar where his life ended.  It's a sad tale of a hero breaking down mentally & physically, and in a sad, twisted way it is almost a mercy killing when Munroe is murdered.  His mind is gone, his body is failing him, he is assaulting innocent people, and has no intention of seeking help...or rather he has absolutely no idea he is in need of help. It's a tragic ending to a character that, while I'm not particularly familiar with him, is very well defined in a short time by Brubaker.

So with "Captain America: Winter Soldier" Vol. 1 coming to a close we have Winter Soldier in place, the question of his identity on the table, Lukin in control of a Cosmic Cube, and Steve Rogers perhaps on the verge of a breakdown of his own.  Red Skull is dead, Jack Munroe is dead, Philly has been blown up, and Nick Fury knows a lot more than he is letting on (typical ground for Fury).

Where do we go in Vol. 2? Well that's to explore in my next blog where I will look at the remainder of the Winter Soldier arc and how it set the stage for everything that has come since, including the groundwork for Marvel's current mega-arc "Fear Itself".

Or if you're impatient, you can go out and buy these trades.  Hell I'd go buy them no matter what!

Oh yeah, and you can hit up my eBay auctions! They aren't up yet, no camera on hand to take the picture, but I will be putting up the issues of Ed Brubaker's run from #25-619 (the numbers reverted at #600) as well as the mini's of "Captain America: Rebirth" & "Fallen Son".  I only have the trades myself for ishs #1-24 so they will not be included in the auction. That auction is NOW available here: Captain America Auction