Overall, Captain America #14 is a must-read for fans of the characters. Straczynski's writing is sharp and engaging, and Medina's art is a visual feast. The story is well-paced and the characters are well-developed, making this a standout issue in the series. Read Full Review

While my excitement for this arc is definitely the highest it's been in this run so far, it's still full of weirdness. The way Straczynski writes cap, especially speaking here is so absent of any tack. I get making cap more vulnerable and relatable, that he has some issues on his own, especially some of those in some ways were fundamental to the character(not all). But the way they are expressed is such a detriment here, it makes an otherwise very well balanced comics feel heavy and unnatural in its structure. Steve is word-vomiting his problems and where they stem from and he goes deep, without being asked,to a person who probably do not even care that much. it feels like he is overly anxious but the moment is not presented as this, there are no indications that he needs to talk to somebody so much to forget he talks to a real person and so vent machine. The comics treats it like it's totally normal conversation when it's completely one-sided. There were moments like this in Stracynski's ASM, but the difference is that they were letting Peter be anxious and the story was letting it's self admitting it, so they came off as comedic. But it's not just that, it's the way cap talks most of the time here. I know some people love how Cap is characterized here, but it's not my thing, even simply because Cap in my opinion would never let himself take more space than the other person, how he overly justifies every thought of his and every move, making it really more about himself. Still, I am open to my understanding of character being updated, if is done in a good manner.

But if we remove those moments from the equation: This focus on the superhero team-up is nice on what it really means to superheroes, how they come to team up is fun, albeit not really insightful or meaningful and comes of more like interesting facts than actually something that affects their relationship much. I can see every one of the characters here benefiting from this situation, sure some of the stuff (with Cap) may not have been established in the best way, but i see the potential here. The issue is really just that a prelude to the coming adventure, it's not a lot of moving done here but it's alright, but it's alright. Thor and Spidey were also pretty good and written way more subdly, both kinda recall the tones and the way they were presented during the time JMS was writing them and it's well mixed. more